Now I'm completely new to this but I like a challenge.
Got a DIR-615 that I like to replace.
OpenWRT is the optional choice of an upgrade but what about the hardware?
It should funcion as an ordinary gome router so doesn't have many requirements.

Is there anything obvious that can be recommended for a newcomer who's up for a challenge?

Linksys is known to be one of the most widely supported open wrt routers. I have had good luck with my Linksys WRT1900ACS. You can pick one of these up for a little over $100 refurbished.

And for $79 the Linksys WRT AC1200 almost can't be beat and is designed for OpenWRT/DD-WRT due to it's dual partition feature which flashes openwrt into a separate partition, enabling you to go back to the original Linksys firmware if something goes wrong.

Can't post links, so just search Amazon for the Linksys WRT 1200AC.

(Last edited by aweir14150 on 23 Apr 2017, 01:23)

You can also look through the table of hardware
Standard view https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start
Other Views https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/views/start

Well thanks for this advice.
I've been through the table and I guess a good compromise between cost and functionality might be the DIR-860L. It seems to support 5Ghz wifi as well.
Will see how this all works out.

In that price range (only slightly above), IPQ40xx might be another contender (but that requires fresh LEDE snapshots for the time being) with more reliable wlan.

Cheap if you're stateside.

Just to round up this topic: Thanks for all suggestions!

I browsed the device pages and table of hardware (very helpful!) and eventually decided for a Netgear R6250.
It seems to be a good compromise between cost and OpenWRT compatibility and available capabilities with OpenWRT.

Now looking forward to installing the system

Stephan