[ajot]

That's before installing OpenWRT!

This kind of shenanigans make (once again) the case for 3rd party post market FLOSS firmware to be installed on every device I own. Sure, I spend some extra time researching which router/AP/phone/ereader/smart appliance will be compatible with OpenWRT/LineageOS/KOReader/Tasmota/ESPHome/etc., but I feel more confortable this way. I have more trust in a bunch of people doing this for owning their devices than some corporation whose goals clearly don't align with mine.

[alufers]

Newer TP-Links use broadcom chips which have no drivers on Linux, so it makes using openwrt basically impossible.

[m-p-3]

The only reasonable choice here is to vote with our wallet and go with another company.

[vdfs]

openwrt is not possible to use on a lot of new hardware, it's also not possible to use new versions on older hardware, they started to require more minimum RAM/FLASH. DSL or GPON is of the table

[wtallis]

> it's also not possible to use new versions on older hardware, they started to require more minimum RAM/FLASH.

You shouldn't imply that OpenWRT is in any way bloated.

The kind of hardware that doesn't have enough RAM or storage for OpenWRT is truly pathetic. Those devices don't have enough CPU power to route traffic at reasonable speeds, their WiFi radios are so outdated that operating them in a crowded 2.4GHz band is an obscene waste of airtime, and even with the manufacturer's firmware those devices usually can't support features like IPv6. A router that old is usually only worth using as a managed Ethernet switch, if it even supports gigE.

[speed_spread]

Is that the same Broadcom that makes the closed GPU on RaspberryPi? Why, oh why, can't they just play nice and document their hardware. Maybe they want to get bought by NVidia!

[mise_en_place]

You could also buy an SBC with a few network ports and use that as your router.

[mananaysiempre]

IME small ARM SBCs generally have a miserably slow bus arrangement for this sort of thing (and no hardware switch chip, of course). People have had some success with routers built on x86 mini-PCs[1], but these lean towards the “flexible and performant” side, not the cheap side.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/04/the-ars-guide-to-bui...

[zrail]

I just built a relatively decked out router from eBay and Amazon parts for less than $300.

- used HP Elitedesk 800 G3 SFF (4 core i5-6500, 8GB ram, 240gb SSD, 4x PCIe slots) $170 shipped

- 2x new dual 2.5Gbe PCIe cards $40 each

- 1x used quad port Internet gigabit $30 shipped

So for $280 I have a machine that will route at 2.5Gbe for a few machines and gigabit for the rest of my network while using about 25 watts. If you don't need that many ports you can cut the cost down considerably with a smaller machine like a Prodesk 400 or 600.

I'm using VyOS but OpenWRT, Untangle, OPNsense or Sophos Home would also be perfectly fine choices.

[blibble]

I am very much interested in building my own router in a similar way, but 25W is still about 5x as much power as something like a mikrotik

[adrian_b]

I am using an older Intel NUC with a Coffee Lake U CPU, together with 4 USB Ethernet adapters, to increase the number of Ethernet ports to 5.

The measured average power over 24 hours is around 12 to 13 W. The idle power is under 10 W and the maximum power consumption can be up to 60 W, but even a large number of active network services, e.g. firewall, e-mail server, Web server and Web proxy, DNS server and DNS proxy, NTP server and so on, require just a power consumption not much above the idle level.

I assume that a NUC-like computer with a Jasper Lake CPU should have an average power consumption under 10 W. At least with Intel or AMD CPUs and associated peripherals you do not have to worry about software compatibility.

[zrail]

Sure. There are plenty of platforms you can start with that use less power. For the record I haven't actually measured it, that's just a guess. I'll throw it on a power monitor sometime and check.

[leguminous]

A Raspberry Pi 4 can route at gigabit speeds, even with a USB3 nic.[1]

There is also a router board for a CM4 module that adds a second nic through PCIe.[2] The nics still aren't super nice but they are more than good enough for a home router.

The problem is that you can't actually buy a Raspberry Pi right now due to supply chain issues, and that may not change for a while.

[1] https://forum.openwrt.org/t/rpi4-routing-performance-numbers...

[2] https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2242.html

[leptons]

I just installed the x86 version on a used (ebay) Dell Optiplex 790 with a quad 1gbe ethernet card, total was about $80. It's far faster than any off-the-shelf wifi router, and will let me easily upgrade to 10gbit when Frontier FIOS rolls that out (it's in their roadmap). I still use my same wifi routers but now only for wifi. Also, total power consumption is about 18 watts at idle, so it's not going to cost me much more on my electric bill.

[simcop2387]

I repurposed an old hp thin client for this. It's basically an x86 laptop thrown in a case with a single x8 pcie slot that I threw a dual 10gbe network card in (entirely because it was basically the same price used as a multiport 1gbe card and I already had a spare 10g port on my switch). It still cost more overall with adding an external AP to it but it's been roxk solid when I'm not trying to abuse it's emmc storage.

[nerdponx]

I was just wondering about this the other day. Are there still no options other than to buy/build a grossly overpowered x86 machine?

[hestefisk]

I use a Qotom. They are cheap and low powered. Runs opnSense.

[nerdponx]

Thanks, I saw them mentioned elsewhere here as well. How was the setup experience? Is it something I can set up if I'm not a BSD or networking expert? Do you use a wireless AP with it?

[hestefisk]

It’s quite easy to set up if you use opnSense. I do not use it as a wireless AP; I have a separate Nest mesh for home wifi behind the Qotom.