
Greetings I stock a second router so that if any garbage happens that I can switch in a second machine. Started this because I managed to get a second (identical router) to what I was using. Things have moved on and the ASUS RT-N16 is no longer that available (and one item died after 4 years of use) and is now somewhat to the back of the pack for performance. I am running DD-WRT and finding that I can, so far at least, get done what I need to do. Am looking for recommendations for routers available today that are what this RT-N16 was 4 years ago without breaking the bank. Looking for wireless for a small business/home (area 75 m by 100 m - multiple buildings) and a 4 port hard wire connection system. I'm not sure really even what to look for. Was suggested to me to stay away from Broadcom products as they aren't very open source friendly but am looking for suggestions from whomever for a good quality long term usable wireless router. TIA Dee

I currently use Asus RT-N66U which is still the best in wireless-N range. I should have bought this, first. But, I bought the second best TP-LINK TL-WDR4300 which became flaky after few years. I don't know about AC band. I'd suspect Asus and TP-LINK is first/second place here also. -- William On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 02:59:33PM -0500, o1bigtenor via talk wrote:
Greetings
I stock a second router so that if any garbage happens that I can switch in a second machine.
Started this because I managed to get a second (identical router) to what I was using. Things have moved on and the ASUS RT-N16 is no longer that available (and one item died after 4 years of use) and is now somewhat to the back of the pack for performance. I am running DD-WRT and finding that I can, so far at least, get done what I need to do. Am looking for recommendations for routers available today that are what this RT-N16 was 4 years ago without breaking the bank. Looking for wireless for a small business/home (area 75 m by 100 m - multiple buildings) and a 4 port hard wire connection system. I'm not sure really even what to look for. Was suggested to me to stay away from Broadcom products as they aren't very open source friendly but am looking for suggestions from whomever for a good quality long term usable wireless router.
TIA
Dee --- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 06:43:01PM -0400, William Park via talk wrote:
I currently use Asus RT-N66U which is still the best in wireless-N range. I should have bought this, first. But, I bought the second best TP-LINK TL-WDR4300 which became flaky after few years.
I don't know about AC band. I'd suspect Asus and TP-LINK is first/second place here also.
I picked up a WRT1900ACv2 on sale from NCIX recently. Looks promising although I am not done setting it up. I figure I should put openwrt on it before putting it in use. Marvel Armada 385 dual 1.6GHz Cortex A9 512MB ram 128MB flash 4 antenna, 3 streams MIMO, dual band. USB 3 port USB 2/eSataP port 4 gigabit ethernet ports No fan (unlike the v1). Also known as the WRT1900ACS since apparently they realized after the fact that making a v2 with different specs annoyed people. -- Len Sorensen

On 20 June 2016 at 15:59, o1bigtenor via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Greetings
I stock a second router so that if any garbage happens that I can switch in a second machine.
Started this because I managed to get a second (identical router) to what I was using. Things have moved on and the ASUS RT-N16 is no longer that available (and one item died after 4 years of use) and is now somewhat to the back of the pack for performance. I am running DD-WRT and finding that I can, so far at least, get done what I need to do. Am looking for recommendations for routers available today that are what this RT-N16 was 4 years ago without breaking the bank. Looking for wireless for a small business/home (area 75 m by 100 m - multiple buildings) and a 4 port hard wire connection system. I'm not sure really even what to look for. Was suggested to me to stay away from Broadcom products as they aren't very open source friendly but am looking for suggestions from whomever for a good quality long term usable wireless router.
TIA
You mentioned DD-WRT. I'm a fan of OpenWRT, and would recommend their buying guide: https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buyerguide . Although to be entirely honest it's not that great, but it may help. I choose my routers after finding out what Canada Computers has available, then looking at OpenWRT's table of supported hardware and ensuring it isn't one of the routers that requires you to crack it open to get at the JTAG headers or anything like that - ie. the OpenWRT install is easy. So look for the equivalent documentation for DD-WRT, do a lot of reading, and be particularly aware that if you get a router branded for the American market (always a possibility in Canada) that it may have the firmware locked - although OpenWRT has apparently already found a way around that for most routers. Do your reading! -- Giles http://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com

On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 08:58:23AM -0400, Giles Orr via talk wrote:
You mentioned DD-WRT. I'm a fan of OpenWRT, and would recommend their buying guide: https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buyerguide . Although to be entirely honest it's not that great, but it may help. I choose my routers after finding out what Canada Computers has available, then looking at OpenWRT's table of supported hardware and ensuring it isn't one of the routers that requires you to crack it open to get at the JTAG headers or anything like that - ie. the OpenWRT install is easy. So look for the equivalent documentation for DD-WRT, do a lot of reading, and be particularly aware that if you get a router branded for the American market (always a possibility in Canada) that it may have the firmware locked - although OpenWRT has apparently already found a way around that for most routers. Do your reading!
I think they all need to be opened to get jtag. Now if you only need that in case you really screw up, then I think that is fine. -- Len Sorensen

| From: Lennart Sorensen via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 08:58:23AM -0400, Giles Orr via talk wrote: | > You mentioned DD-WRT. I'm a fan of OpenWRT, and would recommend their | > buying guide: https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buyerguide . Although to | > be entirely honest it's not that great, but it may help. OpenWRT info in general is often way behind the times. As you say, useful but incomplete. | > I choose my | > routers after finding out what Canada Computers has available, then | > looking at OpenWRT's table of supported hardware and ensuring it isn't | > one of the routers that requires you to crack it open to get at the | > JTAG headers or anything like that - ie. the OpenWRT install is easy. | I think they all need to be opened to get jtag. Now if you only need | that in case you really screw up, then I think that is fine. I'm sure that Giles means: pick a router that doesn't require JTAG access to load OpenWRT. He expands on this saying, in effect, JTAG access is a pain (requires opening the case, possibly soldering on headers, acquiring JTAG tools, ...). | > So look for the equivalent documentation for DD-WRT, do a lot of | > reading, and be particularly aware that if you get a router branded | > for the American market (always a possibility in Canada) that it may | > have the firmware locked - although OpenWRT has apparently already | > found a way around that for most routers. Do your reading! DD-WRT seems like a more viable project in some ways. But: - Brainslayer is a jealous god. The governance model is just not what one would want for an open source project. - the source isn't exactly open, AFAIK - Brainslayer can support Broadcom (better than any other chipset) because he has signed NDAs and (I think) he uses their drivers. OpenWRT is the one that seems better for non-technical reasons. Historically, OpenWRT supported Atheros and not really Broadcom since someone reverse-engineered Atheros pretty well. I don't know the state of AC drivers (they were non-existent last time I looked). Atheros was bought by Qualcomm in 2011 and that may have changed the culture by now. OpenWRT has recently been forked. We don't know how that is going to turn out. <http://hackerboards.com/lede-openwrt-fork-promises-greater-openness/> Broadcom seems to be ahead of other vendor, at least in adoption for high-end home wireless routers. The WRT1900ACS that Lennart purchased is interesting: - I think that Linsys promised an OpenWRT port, with drivers upstreamed. At least they promised that for the WRT1900AC v1. But for that, they didn't seem to do it in a timely fashion. - Like many recent high-end routers, the processor is ARM-based. Almost all home routers used to be MIPS-based. - for years and years, wireless routers would have about 8G of RAM and 8G of NOR flash. It has been creeping up. But the ARM-based routers have A LOT more of each. Except the flash is NAND, which causes some architecture changes (less like RAM and more like disk). OpenWRT support for NAND wasn't there a year ago; maybe it is OK now. - a good price for this would be $250, more than I have paid for some computers.

On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 12:49:53PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
I'm sure that Giles means: pick a router that doesn't require JTAG access to load OpenWRT. He expands on this saying, in effect, JTAG access is a pain (requires opening the case, possibly soldering on headers, acquiring JTAG tools, ...).
Well I certainly know the one I bought can have openwrt installed very easily. From what I read, it appears even reflashing can be done with tftp without jtag fairly easily too, although I have not tried that yet. Normally you shouldn't need even that of course.
| > So look for the equivalent documentation for DD-WRT, do a lot of | > reading, and be particularly aware that if you get a router branded | > for the American market (always a possibility in Canada) that it may | > have the firmware locked - although OpenWRT has apparently already | > found a way around that for most routers. Do your reading!
I bought a -CA model, not a -US model. Also it is a model that specificly has the radio management isolated so that even in the US linksys has no intention of locking down the firmware.
DD-WRT seems like a more viable project in some ways. But:
- Brainslayer is a jealous god. The governance model is just not what one would want for an open source project.
- the source isn't exactly open, AFAIK
- Brainslayer can support Broadcom (better than any other chipset) because he has signed NDAs and (I think) he uses their drivers.
Well I bought something with a marvell chipset and open source drivers. :)
OpenWRT is the one that seems better for non-technical reasons.
Historically, OpenWRT supported Atheros and not really Broadcom since someone reverse-engineered Atheros pretty well. I don't know the state of AC drivers (they were non-existent last time I looked).
Well marvell provided AC drivers.
Atheros was bought by Qualcomm in 2011 and that may have changed the culture by now.
I think both atheros and qualcomm have improved in the last few years.
OpenWRT has recently been forked. We don't know how that is going to turn out. <http://hackerboards.com/lede-openwrt-fork-promises-greater-openness/>
Broadcom seems to be ahead of other vendor, at least in adoption for high-end home wireless routers.
Well even broadcom seems to have gotten nicer lately, with some open source drivers for wifi contributed to the linux kernel. Not sure how open their AP drivers are, but they are at least starting to get it. Once their competitors start to be more open too, they might all eventually have to get on board.
The WRT1900ACS that Lennart purchased is interesting:
- I think that Linsys promised an OpenWRT port, with drivers upstreamed. At least they promised that for the WRT1900AC v1. But for that, they didn't seem to do it in a timely fashion.
It did eventually happen after some nagging of Marvell.
- Like many recent high-end routers, the processor is ARM-based. Almost all home routers used to be MIPS-based.
ARM is taking over everything. :)
- for years and years, wireless routers would have about 8G of RAM and 8G of NOR flash. It has been creeping up. But the ARM-based routers have A LOT more of each. Except the flash is NAND, which causes some architecture changes (less like RAM and more like disk). OpenWRT support for NAND wasn't there a year ago; maybe it is OK now.
Seems to be there.
- a good price for this would be $250, more than I have paid for some computers.
Well I bought mine on sale for $199, which to me seemed like a good price. The stock did not last long at that price. -- Len Sorensen
participants (5)
-
D. Hugh Redelmeier
-
Giles Orr
-
Lennart Sorensen
-
o1bigtenor
-
William Park