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Re: [OCLUG-Tech] next meeting? and free wireless routers

On Wed, 31 Dec 2014, Kevin Everets wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 10:21:21AM -0500, Aidan Van Dyk wrote:
> > Good news!   I've been looking to replace my setup of hacked up aging
> > WRT54GS/GL routers (ya, it's over 10 years old, high time to upgrade)...
> >
> > I'll have to pick up one and try.  Apparently new openwrt is a lot nicer
> > than my ancient version too!
> >
> > Am I good to assume any of the Archer C7 I'ld find now is likely a v2
> > model?
>
> I get annoyed by chipset changes between various numbered versions of
> a router.  For my next router, I was thinking of getting one that is
> endorsed by the FSF as "Respects Your Freedom" (RYF Certified).  The
> only one that currently has that certification seems to be:
>
> https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/free-software-wireless-n-broadband-router-gnu-linux-tpe-nwifirouter2
>
> It might be worth supporting a company that explicitly wants to
> respect your freedom, instead of one that happens to for the moment
> depending on what chipset they could get inexpensively.

  a nice idea, in principle ... totally unworkable in reality.
manufacturers will change their chipsets to suit their business model,
so the best you can do is pick a manufacturer that seems to support
open source and go with them.

  qualcomm seems to be good at this with their atheros chips, so i
just look for atheros-based routers that are listed as having full
openwrt support:

  http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start

and most openwrt experts seem to think highly of tp-link routers.
here's the openwrt page for the archer c7 v2:

  http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wdr7500

rday

-- 

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Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
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