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OpenWrt: A Linux OS targeting embedded devices

(openwrt.org)
271 points pykello | 1 comments | 08 Sep 25 16:13 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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mifydev ◴[08 Sep 25 18:04 UTC] No.45171662[source]▶
OpenWRT is such a good os for a router - simple but configurable UI, works reliably, I wish router companies would just ship it by default
replies(2): >>45171681 #>>45190471 #
mifydev ◴[08 Sep 25 18:05 UTC] No.45171681[source]▶
But then you get annoying firmware providers like Broadcom who refuse to write OSS drivers for linux and a lot of work is being spent on the reverse engineering
replies(5): >>45171723 #>>45172019 #>>45172203 #>>45172879 #>>45175435 #
1. haukem ◴[08 Sep 25 23:24 UTC] No.45175435[source]▶
MediaTek chips are well supported by OpenWrt. Broadcom is not good supported. Mainline Linux kernel supports recent MediaTek Wifi chips quite well [1]. MediaTek is also working on these upstream Linux drivers, but they still have a proprietary Linux driver in addition.

Also the rest of the recent MediaTek SoC is supported quite well by upstream Linux and OpenWrt.

You can run OpenWrt on recent MediaTek SoCs with all code running on the main CPU being open source, no closed source code needed inside the Linux kernel address space or in user space. The chips need firmware running directly on the IP cores. It needs a firmware running on the wifi core itself, there are probably one or more CPUs inside the wifi cores doing real time stuff. The Ethernet PHYs also need a firmware which is running on the PHY.

[1]: https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.17-rc5/source/drivers/ne...