802.11ax Routers

I have a Linksys E7350 here. Need to figure out how to flash it...

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This is actually a good router for the money. It has the BCM6755 Broadcom quad core CPU, runs a Netgear variant of OpenWRT and has a lot of flash (256mb) and RAM (512mb). Netgear also put a very large heatsink on it and did not have to use massive thermal pads, so it cools pretty good. What's not to like about it?

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WI1 chip1: Broadcom BCM6755
WI1 802dot11 protocols: bgn+ax
WI1 MIMO config: 2x2:2
WI1 antenna connector: none
WI2 chip1: Broadcom BCM6755
WI2 802dot11 protocols: an+ac+ax
WI2 MIMO config: 2x2:2
WI2 antenna connector: none

Broadcom wireless.

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I agree 100% about the closed source Broadcom drivers. A real negative for Broadcom. Having said that, the BCM6755 has a lot of horsepower and the router runs for months on the stock OpenWRT based firmware. For the WAX204 variant of the AX1800 from Netgear, it has been on sale for $79.99 on the Netgear site and with coupon I paid $58 for one. I don't know if OpenWRT will ever support it due to the Broadcom chipset, but maybe as it already has a variant of OpenWRT on it.

I see people constantly mixing the stock SDK-based software that is loosely based on OpenWrt and proper OpenWrt.
They are not the same and not even similar, they are just using some old OpenWrt version to package the firmware as that is easier for them, kernel, all of the drivers, and other stuff is all based on some old vendor kernel.

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Photo of my 3 Belkin RT3200 routers using as mesh.

Thanks to @daniel for supporting the Belkin RT3200 router (aka "Linksys E8450") and making them the best all-in-one OpenWrt routers.

It's just a meme, don't be mad.

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Lolllllllllllll!!!

Important to note that my contribution there has merely been the installer and providing some support for users.
The real work was done by @blogic (MediaTek MT7622 SoC support), @nbd (mt76 wifi driver) and many other active OpenWrt geniuses -- I just got offended by the shitty bootloader and waste of storage and lifetime, so I had to fix that...

I'm on vacation (well, not really, actually volunteering on a SAR vessel so I got only email to reply because my workstation with credentials for work-stuff stayed at home.
And guess what: even here OpenWrt is doing the main firewall, mwan3 doing load-balancing and fail-over for 4 wireguard-tunneled uplinks (2x VSAT, 1x 3G/4G/5G, 1x directional wifi client to nearby apartment while we are in the shipyard), ...

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How many colors...

Can you explain the config of mesh please :sweat_smile::muscle:

I was gifted a Netgear RAXE500 and got a tracking number through my email. I've already started the return process but it being a family member who will see that I returned it I am wanting to make sure that it will never make it to openwrt.

Wait two more weeks until the short-term confidentiality is over and we should be able to look at the internal FCC photos and tell exactly what components it has and what the chances are for it to ever support OpenWrt or not...

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I wonder which of the routers Xiaomi AX6000 or Xiaomi AX9000 has more chances to get OpenWrt support / official firmware? Thanks for your opinion!

AX9000 as its IPQ8072A based while AX6000 is IPQ5018 based.
BTW, there is already work on it, QCN9024 PCIe card being the biggest issue currently.

Yes, I know. However, unless I missed anything the RAXE500 is not (yet) listed anywhere.

Review:

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And you run OpenWrt on all of those?

Pretty sure it's the samba4 + all dependencies that's filling up the flash, not the luci app :slight_smile:

Depends on the AC device you're comparing it with, doesn't it?

A somewhat off-topic question: Is there any 11ax / WiFi 6 Wave 2 devices out there currently?

Cheers.

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Someone mentioned the WAX214 & WAX218 (IPQ6018, don't know the wifi). Well, netgear has something on their download site for them. It's openwrt based, there's no sources, and it appears to run Linux 4.4 and use gcc 5.2, holy shit this is a prehistoric thunder-turd. From WAX218_V2.0.1.0_source.tar.gz, we get files like: build_dir/target-arm-openwrt-linux-muslgnueabi_gcc-5.2.0/root-ipq/lib/modules/4.4.60/

Same general story with WAX610, WAX620, WAX630. This time the source download is actually sources at least, but again almost everything in this archive is >5 years old too.

I was rather hoping. I almost went out & bought a WAX214, given that they're cheap & 802.11ax, and qualcomm, but wow, not gonna hold my breath any longer having seen that.

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