4 ms·

Need a quick primer on the differences between various current flavors of open router firmware.

by prvc 7y ago

mangix 7y ago
Tomato - Broadcom only - 2.6.22/.38 kernel (with multiple patches on top). DD-WRT - Most compatible - various kernels - some drivers are closed source OpenWrt - Fully open (except for firmware) - Latest LTS kernels. 19.07 will use 4.14 for almost every target.
- mdaniel 7y ago
  And a shout-out to Asuswrt-Merlin for ASUS models (https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/ https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/ and https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin and https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin.ng https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin.ng), which I have on my ASUS RT-N66U and have been very pleased with. I am actually running a self-compiled image just to ensure it's possible, and I found that process relatively painless
neilv 7y ago
If you want a popular open source router firmware that works on affordable commodity plastic soho routers, OpenWrt. There are other firmwares for plastic, and it used to be that some of them (like DD-WRT and Tomato) would just work better than OpenWrt on a small number of devices. Today, I suspect some of them still have merits that arguably make it worth not just doing OpenWrt, but I'll defer to someone more familiar with them to discuss those merits. If you want to be better respected on /r/homelab, or not use a SoC, then get PC hardware (or a turnkey appliance) and pfSense or OPNsense. You might end up getting separate plastic WiFi APs (perhaps running OpenWrt), and doing only Ethernet on the router box itself (pfSense suggests this). You can also make your own router/firewall/appliance, by just configuring a PC GNU/Linux distro manually. Extra gigabit NICs come on PCIe cards.
bmurphy1976 7y ago
DD-Wrt and Tomato are more specialized and both follow a strange and obtuse development process (hope you like reading neverending and always out of date forum threads). OpenWRT uses a more typical open source process with heavy utilization of GitHub. It's much easier to follow and participate. As far as I am concerned, the OpenWRT community is the only one that has it's shit together.

Need a quick primer on the differences between various current flavors of open router firmware.

by prvc 7y ago

Need a quick primer on the differences between various current flavors of open router firmware.

Tomato - Broadcom only - 2.6.22/.38 kernel (with multiple patches on top). DD-WRT - Most compatible - various kernels - some drivers are closed source OpenWrt - Fully open (except for firmware) - Latest LTS kernels. 19.07 will use 4.14 for almost every target.

mdaniel 7y ago
And a shout-out to Asuswrt-Merlin for ASUS models (https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/ https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/ and https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin and https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin.ng https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin.ng), which I have on my ASUS RT-N66U and have been very pleased with. I am actually running a self-compiled image just to ensure it's possible, and I found that process relatively painless

neilv 7y ago

If you want a popular open source router firmware that works on affordable commodity plastic soho routers, OpenWrt. There are other firmwares for plastic, and it used to be that some of them (like DD-WRT and Tomato) would just work better than OpenWrt on a small number of devices. Today, I suspect some of them still have merits that arguably make it worth not just doing OpenWrt, but I'll defer to someone more familiar with them to discuss those merits. If you want to be better respected on /r/homelab, or not use a SoC, then get PC hardware (or a turnkey appliance) and pfSense or OPNsense. You might end up getting separate plastic WiFi APs (perhaps running OpenWrt), and doing only Ethernet on the router box itself (pfSense suggests this). You can also make your own router/firewall/appliance, by just configuring a PC GNU/Linux distro manually. Extra gigabit NICs come on PCIe cards.

bmurphy1976 7y ago

DD-Wrt and Tomato are more specialized and both follow a strange and obtuse development process (hope you like reading neverending and always out of date forum threads). OpenWRT uses a more typical open source process with heavy utilization of GitHub. It's much easier to follow and participate. As far as I am concerned, the OpenWRT community is the only one that has it's shit together.