GL.iNET GL-MT300N-V2 firmware source

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

I'm new to OpenWRT, I'm looking for a cheap/small router that is either full open source or hardware is from a large manufacture(ie, can be somewhat trusted). Tried looking for something like a RasPi with Multiple eth net ports as that would be ideal, (would prefer something completely open source). Closest i've found is GL.iNET GL-MT300N-V2. When looking at the reviews, some one mentions that it is a "MediaTek MT7628AN v1 which doesn't seem to have mainline OpenWRT support". I don't understand that part about 'no mainline support. I looked at the "Ideal Hardware 16/128" and see the Supported Release is " OpenWrt 19.07.2". Where/how can I identify what hardware has mainline support? / All source is available?

Also, to summarize what I'm aiming for if suggestions come to mind:

  • Full open source / or at least hardware from large trust worthy mfg.(minimal chance of backdoors)
  • Wired: 1 WAN and 1 LAN minimum. Can have WIFI, but not needed
  • Smaller and Cheaper the better
  • 1Gig bandwidth would be nice, 100Mb is fine

If I can't achieve the above, it looks like a Archer C7 would be a good choice, correct(primarily because of used prices)?

3

This chip was in the past not very well supported. There has been a lot of work on the drivers for this chip over the last year. Presently it works quite well.

I have this router with the firmware provided by the manufacturer, and it seems to work well. I have not tried flashing the most recent release from the openwrt.org web site, but I suspect it would work fine.

4

I just checked an GL.iNET is using OpenWrt 18.06.1 for their standard firmware. But there is 19.07.3 for this router.

5

Successfully flashed 19.07.3 from here using instructions from here

First tried via standard webgui but failed and had to resort to Uboot mode. Wifi was turned off by default so had to configure via ethernet.

Now to try and configure the various useful features available in the GL.iNet firmware such as USB tethering, VPN etc..

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