[ay]

And that is why the very first thing every new WiFi router in my household gets is a fresh installation of OpenWRT in place of whatever vendor software it has.

And I look at compatibility matrix before buying it.

This strategy has worked very well. I upgrade on my terms.

[zbrozek]

Ditto; I only buy wireless hardware that can run openwrt on the day that I buy it. I may not flash it on that day, but I like to know that I can. My router is an x86 machine running opnsense.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> I may not flash it on that day, but I like to know that I can.

I agree in the abstract, but I've seen enough devices ship OTA updates that make switching harder that I prefer to just cut over ASAP these days. (This is a general approach, not just for network gear; same as how I unlock my phone bootloaders right out of the box so I don't have to deal with data wiping)

[qq4]

What machine do you recommend? I've thought about having a custom router but I have wondered both if it is worth it and what machine I should use.

[toast0]

If you've ever built a computer, just put together something lowend. MicroATX is usually least cost and easy to work with.

Something like https://pcpartpicker.com/list/3MpGmk

Some people don't care for Realtek nics, you can spend more to get Intel if you want. You could put more ram, or storage, or whatever if you're going to do more than routing. Ryzen might be nicer, but they don't have a cheap CPU with integrated graphics right now, and it's not worth paying $100 more to get one for a router, IMHO. If you can find a motherboard with IPMI for cheap, that'd be nice, but I can't, so I just use a spare monitor and keyboard when I need to.

There's small x86 router boards around, and they're cool, but if anything goes wrong, your options are limited. If anything in this fails, you can get the part replaced at your local computer store, even if that's BestBuy.

[zbrozek]

I typically use whatever I have laying around. Right now I've gone atypical since I currently have a 10 gbps symmetric connection and my leftover hardware isn't quite fast enough to route it.

[bubblethink]

Get a mini x86 device as a wired router on which you can run any number of OSes (openwrt, debian, *sense etc.) and a separate AP (ruckus unleashed devices work well).

[evenhovercraft]

This guy doesn’t play by the rules!