3 ms·

While it's not OpenWRT, but I'm running this on my RT-AC86U: https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/ https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/

zokier 6y ago
I wonder what it would take to get plain Debian to run on the device. OpenWRT made lot more sense when routers had like 8/16M of flash and not lot more RAM, but these big modern routers are far more powerful so bigger OS shouldn't be as much of a issue
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  IIRC, that specific line doesn't have OpenWRT for the same reason that proper Debian support is unlikely: important parts of the networking hardware are only supported by closed blobs, and I vaguely recall there even being redistribution limitations on those blobs, which is why merlin builds exist but not openwrt.
- rektide 6y ago
  I'd like an in the know response, but Broadcom-based systems (yes the Raspberry Pi cpu folk) have been utterly unusable by OpenWRT & other Linux users for almost half a decade. The original WRT54G, for which OpenWRT is named, shipped with a Broadcom brcm47xx chip[1]. But something changed in the last decade, and Broadcom has been unsupportable, unusable, & there is no community, no folks putting their own Linux onto Broadcom based systems for a long time now. I would love to know the specific details, to know what happened. But the status quo is that Broadcom is the worst villian, is unsupportable, that nothing they do is generally usable by hackers & Linux users, and that any router with a Broadcom cpu in it is utterly unusable. It's worth mentioning that the Broadcom wifi drivers on Linux have been a constant tussle & difficult. For the longest time the MacBook's worst area of support when running Linux was the wifi drivers, owing to Broadcom's dis-support. I hope some day Broadcom stops being such a dark side impossible company. But there've been no points of hope that I've seen in the last decade. It's just gotten worse. Maybe it's us, maybe we haven't tried hard enough to see what access we might be able to get, maybe Qualcomm has become the main OpenWRT, Debian, &c running chip because it's what folks knew worked, because the long history of Atheros (who Qualcomm bought) being moral & good folks, who understood the relevance & importance of support, and we just haven't tried hard enough to force access to Broadcom, and that's on us. But right now, the status quo is, Broadcom chips are all useless to the world, aside from whatever software comes on them, and whatever software & support you get out of the box. A lot of people are very sad about this, and I recommend also being sad about this. https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt54g https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt54g
  - zokier 6y ago
    I think broadcom has always been pita, not just the past half a decade. Back in the day ath9k was great, before that prism54s were I guess the most popular choice?

zokier 6y ago

I wonder what it would take to get plain Debian to run on the device. OpenWRT made lot more sense when routers had like 8/16M of flash and not lot more RAM, but these big modern routers are far more powerful so bigger OS shouldn't be as much of a issue

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
IIRC, that specific line doesn't have OpenWRT for the same reason that proper Debian support is unlikely: important parts of the networking hardware are only supported by closed blobs, and I vaguely recall there even being redistribution limitations on those blobs, which is why merlin builds exist but not openwrt.
rektide 6y ago
I'd like an in the know response, but Broadcom-based systems (yes the Raspberry Pi cpu folk) have been utterly unusable by OpenWRT & other Linux users for almost half a decade. The original WRT54G, for which OpenWRT is named, shipped with a Broadcom brcm47xx chip[1]. But something changed in the last decade, and Broadcom has been unsupportable, unusable, & there is no community, no folks putting their own Linux onto Broadcom based systems for a long time now. I would love to know the specific details, to know what happened. But the status quo is that Broadcom is the worst villian, is unsupportable, that nothing they do is generally usable by hackers & Linux users, and that any router with a Broadcom cpu in it is utterly unusable. It's worth mentioning that the Broadcom wifi drivers on Linux have been a constant tussle & difficult. For the longest time the MacBook's worst area of support when running Linux was the wifi drivers, owing to Broadcom's dis-support. I hope some day Broadcom stops being such a dark side impossible company. But there've been no points of hope that I've seen in the last decade. It's just gotten worse. Maybe it's us, maybe we haven't tried hard enough to see what access we might be able to get, maybe Qualcomm has become the main OpenWRT, Debian, &c running chip because it's what folks knew worked, because the long history of Atheros (who Qualcomm bought) being moral & good folks, who understood the relevance & importance of support, and we just haven't tried hard enough to force access to Broadcom, and that's on us. But right now, the status quo is, Broadcom chips are all useless to the world, aside from whatever software comes on them, and whatever software & support you get out of the box. A lot of people are very sad about this, and I recommend also being sad about this. https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt54g https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt54g
- zokier 6y ago
  I think broadcom has always been pita, not just the past half a decade. Back in the day ath9k was great, before that prism54s were I guess the most popular choice?