The list of supported/compatible devices https://openwrt.org/toh/start
is pretty large, hard to make a choice.
I don't know much about routers or networking in general, all i know is i'd like to buy a decent router that will run perfectly with open source software on it.
I've tried flashing freshtomato on an asus router, the firmware update failed and i sent it back. Might have been my fault, on the other hand maybe asus should be avoided?
Anyways i'd like to give openWRT a shot since i didn't get freshtomato working and their list of compatible devices is much shorter compared to openWRT.
Please recommend me a decent router to use with openWRT that isn't unnecessarely overpriced, the one i bought from asus costs 100 euro.
PS, i won't need more than four ethernet ports.
Takes about 10 minutes and never have to think about it again. Or you could pay 2x as much and get the Flint 2 with a USB port and a couple of 2.5G ports but it sounds like it might be out of OP's price range
If you ask me, sort the ToH list and remove everything less than gigabit router, than you are at least somewhat future proof.
Because then you are pretty much guaranteed to have enough ram and flash memory to ignore a big bunch of the forum treads here trying to squeeze to much firmware in to some old little flash and ram.
Sadly not really, as there are quite a few older devices with 1000BASE-T ports, but otherwise unsatisfactory -or outright insufficient- system specs (just to name one popular example, tl-wr1043nd v1, 1000BASE-T ports, 8/32 and unstable draft-n wireless).
Sure, devices with 100BASE-T ports aren't even worth looking at in the first place, but 1000BASE-T itself is not a sufficient qualification of a decent device.
Well that is a sad truth, the marketing department have a tendency to make a single gigabit class connector to become fantastic “operational gigabit router”.
Well I put it this way, remove everything less than 4cores at 1GHz, less than 256MB flash and less than 1GB ram.
But usually this process is actually somewhat easier to do if you first look at what is actually available at the store and find your little nice looking bunch of favorites and then search them in the ToH.
Thank you all for the recommendations! Looking at your routers now.
Maybe i should have mentioned, the contract with my ISP is based on 100mb/s upload and 10mb/s download speed.
The previous router i bought was the ASUS RT-AC1900U
cpu type ARM
MHz 1000
CPUs 2
LAN 1000
USB2 1
USB3 1
WIFI AC1900
FLASH 128MB
NVRAM 64KB
RAM 256MB
BuildSDK K26ARM (SDK6.37)
PS, my budget could be a little over 100 euro but if i can get a good device for that amount of money i see no point in paying more.
Reading your comments my previous router might not have been the best choice as it has only 2 cores instead of recommended 4, it also had only 128 flash instead of 256mb and only 256mb ram instead of a recommended 1gb.
Is it really that crucial?
If it matters, the router is ofc connected to the modem from my isp which is set to bridge mode, however the specs of my isp's modem are surely not the best so does buying a router with more capabilites than the bridged modem make sense or would there be a bottleneck from the modem?
Edit:
Just realized not a single one of the routers listed on freshtomato has more than 512mb ram.
So there's not one with 1gb. https://wiki.freshtomato.org/doku.php/hardware_compatibility
Edit2:
I saw one of the recommended routers is xiaomi. From my knownledge xiaomi is a chinese brand, i would like to avoid chinese products because of both quality and backdoor concerns, and yes i'm aware nearly all tech out there has atleast some chinese parts in it...
Also this question isn't really related to the OG topic but, are there any important major differences or features between freshtomato and openwrt firmware i should be aware of?
And i have one more question that really has nothing to do with the OG topic but it really bugs my mind, i have an intel CPU manufactured after 2008 meaning it runs the intel management engine...
As many of you surely know intel ME is a whole separate OS with ring zero access, meaning it has access to everything on the user operatingsystem (windows or linux for example).
With a router that's running FLOSS, would i be able to detect traffic that comes from intelME and block it? After all from my knownledge intelME / minix uses ethernet to phone home.
Anyone to explain the price gap between Netgear Nighthawk AX2400 RAX30 and Netgear Nighthawk AX1800 RAX10
The first one i found for 150 euro and the second one for 110.
I don't see much difference in the specs, the first one has 3 cores @1.5GHz and the second one has 4 cores @1.5GHz, shouldn't it be more expensive then?
Unless ofc there's some other specs that explain the price gab, but i don't see.
The first has a wifi chip that transmit 2400Mbps and the second has a wifi chip that transmit 1800Mbps.
At least on a nice looking paper. But you get what you pay for.
No one really cares about ethernet technology, there is no patents included there. Every patent goes in to wifi nowadays, that is why OpenWrt doesn’t get the real and working drivers for many 5GHz chip.
Thanks for the info, i lack knownledge to decide if there's a noticable difference between 2400 and 1800 mb/s wifi transmition. Does it matter? Barely using my phone to be honest and if so within a range of 10m.
I care about ethernet because i'm a desktop user. Wired is always preffered over wireless because of delay and control, atleast in my opinion..