I feel like OpenWrt is one of the most important things I sort of take for granted. On supported hardware, it Just Works™ and almost always better than stock firmware. It has allowed me to upgrade my networking hardware less frequently, often using cheaper refurbished options. If you don’t already do this, I encourage you to: find hardware on the supported devices list that meets your needs, buy it used/refurbished, and be amazed at how much OpenWrt can do. Then take some of the money you saved and donate it to the project. Or buy the new OpenWrt One. Projects like OpenWrt (and postmarketOS) are vital to a more sustainable future with less e-waste.
If you need a jumping off point for hardware suggestions, my main home router is a WRT1900ACS v2 and I’m very happy with it.
EDIT: To speak to the topic at hand, I’ve been running the 24.10 release since rc4 and it’s been great. Uneventful in the best way.
I had used OpenWrt on some old APs and it had so much better WiFi coverage. I bought a new WiFi 6 capable AP and was planning on use OpenWrt, but held off to see. I was pretty happy with it until I started getting drops when streaming music to my wireless speaker. I switched to OpenWrt and all the problems went away.
It’s been a long time since I used OpenWrt directly, but yeah, can confirm. It’s amazing how bad the default firmware for consumer-level routers/AP is. It’s like they don’t even test it. You’d think router manufacturers would just take OpenWrt and build on top of that but there don’t seem to be many (if any) that do.
I’ve come across a couple of factory firmware that were (and admitted to being) re-skinned OpenWrt. They’re not going to advertise it, but I suspect it’s very common.
I feel like OpenWrt is one of the most important things I sort of take for granted. On supported hardware, it Just Works™ and almost always better than stock firmware. It has allowed me to upgrade my networking hardware less frequently, often using cheaper refurbished options. If you don’t already do this, I encourage you to: find hardware on the supported devices list that meets your needs, buy it used/refurbished, and be amazed at how much OpenWrt can do. Then take some of the money you saved and donate it to the project. Or buy the new OpenWrt One. Projects like OpenWrt (and postmarketOS) are vital to a more sustainable future with less e-waste.
If you need a jumping off point for hardware suggestions, my main home router is a WRT1900ACS v2 and I’m very happy with it.
EDIT: To speak to the topic at hand, I’ve been running the 24.10 release since rc4 and it’s been great. Uneventful in the best way.
So does openwrt now support docker containers on routers? Previously(2 releases ago?) the default kernel was way too cut down for this
I had used OpenWrt on some old APs and it had so much better WiFi coverage. I bought a new WiFi 6 capable AP and was planning on use OpenWrt, but held off to see. I was pretty happy with it until I started getting drops when streaming music to my wireless speaker. I switched to OpenWrt and all the problems went away.
It’s great software
It’s been a long time since I used OpenWrt directly, but yeah, can confirm. It’s amazing how bad the default firmware for consumer-level routers/AP is. It’s like they don’t even test it. You’d think router manufacturers would just take OpenWrt and build on top of that but there don’t seem to be many (if any) that do.
GLINet does this and it’s great
Interesting, thanks for sharing. I will have to keep that brand in mind. I might be buying another AP+router soon.
I’ve come across a couple of factory firmware that were (and admitted to being) re-skinned OpenWrt. They’re not going to advertise it, but I suspect it’s very common.