What's your favorite enthusiast LEDE/OpenWrt device?

The Netgear Nighthawk r8000 is Broadcom based, but its fullmac Broadcom BCM43602 wlan cards are supported by the mainline brcmfmac driver, which is fully supported by OpenWrt. Most other Broadcom based routers are using softmac based Broadcom wlan cards instead, for which the driver support state would be between poor and non-existent.

While the device is fully supported by OpenWrt and relatively powerful, it's still a rather rare device within the OpenWrt ecosystem, meaning that while it is supposed to work long term, it doesn't have as much of a community around it (who tests it, reports bugs, maybe provides patches where necessary) as the more common devices using different SOCs/ wlan cards. You also need to keep in mind that while it indeed has three radios, the two 5 GHz wlan cards are tuned to different sub-sections of the 5 GHz band (the lower channels, as in roughly 36-64 and the upper channels from roughly 100-165) and don't work (well enough) outside of their intended frequencies.

IMHO its RAM size doesn't really qualify for an enthusiast level device anymore, but if you're fine with the radio limitations (frequency bands) and can find it rather cheap, it might be a pretty good option (the SOC is rather performant and has pretty good mainline support), but you need to be aware that you might have to invest a little more effort in case of problems than for other devices (which are more commonly used for OpenWrt).

1 Like

Interesting. Good to know.

You also need to keep in mind that while it indeed has three radios, the two 5 GHz wlan cards are tuned to different sub-sections of the 5 GHz band (the lower channels, as in roughly 36-64 and the upper channels from roughly 100-165) and don't work (well enough) outside of their intended frequencies.

As long as one follows the recommendations given on OpenWrt's Netgear R8000 page for how to get proper performance out of the radios, they have always seemed to work quite well.

Being relatively expensive (~US$260-$300, although you can find them on sale for ~US$180 around the holidays), that is why I stuck a recommendation in the "enthusiast device" thread, as opposed to the "cheap device" thread. You would have to be pretty enthusiastic to be willing to shell out that kind of money for a router! Maybe that's just my interpretation of the word "enthusiast"....

1 Like

j1900 x86-64 kvm

wrt1900acs v2
Kernel version 4.14.93
WiFi driver 10.3.8.0-20181210

https://superwrt.download/f/
speedtest IPV4
wrt1900acs%20v2
speedtest ipv6
wrt1900acs%20v2%20ipv6

Huawei Mate 10 Pro
5ghz channel 36
2.4 ghz channel 9
wrt1900acs%20v2%205Ghz wrt1900acs%20v2

2 Likes

Or Asus RT-AC68U
https://openwrt.org/toh/asus/rt-ac68u

A router with two BCM4360 radios, which are effectively unsupported (54 MBit/s at most), can't be considered a good option for running OpenWrt.

3 Likes

It's great as a wired router, and can be purchased at discounted prices as TM-1900 in the US for around ~$40.

1 Like

I have been using the Linksys WRT1900AC for a few years now without WiFi problems. But then again, I have another router on my network acting as an access point reducing traffic from the primary one which is the Linksys. However, this is my first run at the OpenWRT firmware (coming from DD-WRT) and I must say that it is working wonderfully on both WiFi and Wired. Also, moving the / and /overlay to a USB drive has sped up the software downloads. Speedtests are also showing a pretty solid 47 - 48 Mbps download on a bonded 40Mbps (20Mbps x2) DSL connection. The reboot time is impressive too at around ~10 seconds if I need.

Nice performance on your WRT1900ACS V2. I get similar on my WRT32X (same internal hardware as WRT3200ACM). Also show a dslreports speedtest for A rated bufferbloat if you can.

1 Like

WRT1900ACS V2 Kernel Version 4.14.98 + Adblock
WiFi driver 10.3.8.0-20181210


1 Like

Excellent results. My WRT32X tests similarly except I "only" have 400Mbit Internet :slight_smile: Bufferbloat rating of A or A+ is a must. This is a strong case for the mvebu target as a whole. Especially considering we get such fast USB 3.0 speeds too I run a 4TB USB 3.0 hard drive that runs as fast as most NAS setups (80-100MB/s) right off the router.

1 Like

I've working in supporting a new device, being totally new to OpenWrt itself. Of course, I'm an experienced developer (almost 8 years of self taught experience, that's the 36% of my life!), a hardware modder (is that the word?) and an Electronics Engineering student.

This experience was very grateful. So my now loved device for modding is the device that I worked out myself: the Linksys EA6350v3. I don't have a board band connection (barely 8.0 Mbps), but it works awesome for the purpose I brought it and developed on it: a relatively cheap and fast NAS for Time Machine.

A 2TB Time Capsule (2.00 TB) is around US$299. I brought both the router and a 5.00 TB external disk for around US$220. Considering that I worked on this project for myself and for free, it's a big saving plus a great experience.

This is my favorite enthusiast LEDE/OpenWrt device!


The device has a stunning performance under OpenWrt, so good that I laugh myself at the OEM firmware. Even the wireless performance is comparable to stock, after working on getting that work for almost 6 weeks!

2 Likes

May be, with some reason the APU2 is more expensive.
As a Swiss watch is more expensive compared to other brands.

1 Like

Anyone here uses mikrotik HW with OpenWRT? How stable it is? Mikrotik OS is is rock solid, functionality is appropriate for most of the usecases, but the documentation is terrible and it is less userfriendly than OpenWRT, so I’m considering to give a try my new Mikrotik router with OpenWRT

Thanks

Laszlo

I use a rb493g with openwrt and it is rock solid. Yes it is old but it works great. There is a thread that is trying to get a rb3011uias running openwrt. I have been eyeing the rb4011 but that doesn't support openwrt at all and no one is working on it currently. The initial flash from Mikrotik os to openwrt is a bit rough, you need a tftp server and can only use the wan port for the initial flash so having it on a desk next to you makes it easier. Once you have openwrt installed you can use the usual upgrade procedure.

1 Like

Mine is
https://mikrotik.com/product/hap_ac2

with

IPQ-4018

and as I can see, it is not in the list of supported HW, so I suppose I have to wait a bit. This model is quite cheap and probably can support 1G net, however mine from the provider only tops at 500-600 Mbps.

L

If it's not supported it can't possibly fit under this topic... yet...

3 Likes

Easy to work with:
TP-Link TL-WDR4300
TP-Link TL-WDR3600

128MB RAM
8MB Flash

Easy to change u-boot (pepe2k), easy to connect UART, easy to flash OpenWRT.
Rock-solid WiFi 2.4GHz and 5GHz
No ac, but it's a minor issue for me.

EDIT: I ordered a MIUI 3G Router, since the TP-Link models have indeed a hardware stability issue (easy to work around, but I suspect the NAND flash is coming to the end of its service life).

2 Likes

Non-starter, obsolete from the day you buy it

(Not to mention that neither of those outdated boards are even considered good options for current purchase even at the bottom of the scale.)

3 Likes