OpenWrt 21.02.0 Released
Ultimately, I&#x27;d way rather run a regular PC with good wifi hardware and Debian. But our wifi options are extremely extremely extremely slim. I tried to purchase some 802.11ax m.2 cards from a variety of alibaba et cetra sites &amp; I got the run around &amp; offered 4 year old shitty alternative products again and again and again.<p>So OpenWRT is pretty amazing. Incredibly hard work, incredibly good system, targeting so many different devices. The &quot;uci&quot; configuration system and &quot;ubus&quot; rpc layer are nearly unparalleled in software, have brought so many different systems under a consistent yoke &amp; collar. OpenWRT is incredible.<p>But again it comes back to hardware. And wow what a tragedy we have been undergoing. It&#x27;s a barren bereft world. There&#x27;s really only one router, with a pretty mediocre MediaTek cpu&#x2F;wireless chipset, that has 802.11ax support at all. Hopefully things swing around some &amp; we figure out how to get operating systems installing atop more contemporary routers, but there have been so so so few advances, hardware has gotten so much more inaccessible. It makes me all the sadder that decent wifi addon cards are blanketly unavailable. Read it and weep, the forum thread on 802.11ax routers: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forum.openwrt.org&#x2F;t&#x2F;802-11ax-routers&#x2F;10484&#x2F;354" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forum.openwrt.org&#x2F;t&#x2F;802-11ax-routers&#x2F;10484&#x2F;354</a><p>I got a second openwrt router recently. It&#x27;s been very interesting &amp; surprising seeing how little cross-access point and cross-band steering clients do. I&#x27;m literally compiling openwrt fresh today, as I work on this problem, with some fresh new software systems that have only just cropped up in OpenWRT land. For a while OpenWRT had nothing, but we&#x27;re finally developing some acumen for using multiple access points and that&#x27;s so necessary &amp; so great. I&#x27;ve grown more respect for the mesh based products that have taken over: not only do the routers have to mesh (and route across the mesh), but it&#x27;s really up to them to steer clients (&quot;stations&quot;) to the best access point: the problem is bedevilling crazy hard.