On 27/01/2019 12:57, Patrick Wigmore wrote:
On Mon, 14 Jan 2019 17:59:30 +0000, Tim wrote:
If anybody has any stories regarding OpenWRT I would interested to
hear them
On Sat, 26 Jan 2019 13:13:02 +0000, Ralph Corderoy wrote:
Every time I'm in the market for a new broadband modem, like now,
I consider buying one supported by OpenWRT, but never manage it.
The last I checked, the only available ADSL or VDSL modem that OpenWRT
appeared to actually have a driver for was the one inside the BT Home
Hub 5 type A (a.k.a. Plusnet Hub One or BT Business Hub 5). It is not
a badly specified device given how cheaply available they are.
802.11ac, 128MB RAM, 128MB flash, 500MHz CPU. I bought one and put
OpenWRT on it. The main downsides I see are: * Though it has gigabit
network interfaces, it is not capable of actually routing traffic at
gigabit speeds. (I don't care about that: it's fast enough for me.) *
It is too easy to press the prominently-located restart button while
handling the device, causing an unwanted reboot. Presumably the stock
firmware requires regular rebooting so they decided to make a feature
out of it. * It makes a quiet ticking noise like a laptop hard drive
when it is transceiving WiFi traffic. (This seems to be the power
supply circuitry responding to the varying load, because connecting a
USB- powered device that uses PWM to fade some LEDs up and down causes
the Home Hub to provide an audible rendition of the PWM signal,
providing many minutes of entertainment.) * Unlike the radio in my
previous, lower-spec Buffalo device (also running OpenWRT), the WiFi
radios don't seem to support operating simultaneously as both a client
and an access point. Though, since it's dual band and has two radios,
the unit as a whole can do this, provided you don't mind dedicating a
whole frequency band (2.4GHz or 5GHz) to each of these functions. * It
doesn't have many indicator LEDs (but all three are RGB, so you can
squeeze quite a bit of information out through them). * No option for
external WiFi antennae (it works well without them, but some people
might have a specific reason why they need or want them). Its been
very stable for me. The only unplanned downtime has been due to power
failures. I've only tried the xDSL modem itself for an hour or two, to
test it. Therefore, I can't vouch for the xDSL modem's long-term
stability, but I was satisfied that it would probably do the job if I
wanted it to. The modem took a loooooong time to make a connection on
the first attempt: about half an hour. I put that down to the DSLAM on
the other end of the line being surprised to see a different modem,
but not before I went on a wild goose chase tweaking the configuration
to see if anything would make it work. After the initial connection,
it appeared capable of reconnecting much more quickly. On Sat, 26 Jan
2019 13:13:02 +0000, Ralph Corderoy wrote:
I realise their specialised devices, but I'm surprised that projects
like OpenWRT don't settle on a collection of chips that they
support very well, e.g. good quality Linux kernel drivers, and then
see if they can crowdfund a device built around them.
If you are acquiring new hardware, it seems to me that the only
product category where there really seems to be a lack of OpenWRT
compatibility is modems. If you just want a router or a WiFi access
point, there are plenty of options. I speculate that it would be
difficult to compete with the existing choice in those categories, but
the xDSL modem-router category would be more fertile ground for a
crowd-funded product.
Patrick Wigmore
It is a strange position that had I spent more time researching the
router I purchased (Linksys WRT1900ACS) I may never have purchased it.
To start with I can not block ports and this afternoon I found that snmp
is not available and I can find no where to enable snmp within its
current config (it does not reply to snmpwalk command). Googling seem to
return plenty of replies regarding requests for new features (like
SNMP). I guess this is the downside that a router is now seen as a
consumer product and the average bod on the street is just interested in
plug and play and not worried about blocking ports or checking your
bandwidth usage. Had the funds been available I would have gone for a
Draytec (I have used them at work in the past and quite happy with them)
but I thought I was doing alright buying a Linksys, I had used Linksys
routers many years ago just after getting cable Internet. I thought they
were still owned by Cisco but found out after the purchase that they
were sold on and bought by Belkin who's network products I have used in
the past and found them to be rubbish.
I blame nobody else but myself, I should of done my homework before the
purchase. I will have to start planning the firmware upgrade to OpenWRT
and pray that it gives me what I want as the alternative is asking the
wife for an increase in the IT budget (for a new router) will not go
down very well.
Tim H
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