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Open source router firmware project OpenWrt ships its own entirely repairable hardware (www.theregister.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 14 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Mmh only two Ethernet ports? I guess it’s for people who use mostly wifi only?

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  • [–] 60 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It's just the router, I guess. Provide your own switch for more ports.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Exactly this. With VLAN tagging you can plug that single 2.5Gb connection into a 48-port managed switch and effectively have up to 47 different NICs if that's what floats your boat. They'd all share the 2.5Gb but that's still more than a lot of small networks need.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    In a shared 2.5Gb scenario as you describe, would fully pegged upload/download be 1.25Gb each? Could it do 2.5Gb in both directions simultaneously? Assuming no compute bottlenecks.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    It's full duplex so it's 2.5Gb each way simultaneosly. Most NICs support half-duplex but I don't know of any good reason to use that. I used to have a BananaPi based router that could comfortably saturate it's gigiabit interface. I assume there's some kind of offloading going on.

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  • [+] 34 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

    Well the router I use today has 4 ports (and a built in modem for that matter, but I don’t use that).
    I understand I can use a switch, but that means I’ll have to buy a switch in addition to this to replace my router.

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  • [–] 43 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Which is not a bad thing, it’s more unix if you will. Router is a router, switch is a switch.

    You provide your own switch and you choose the features: port count, port speed, vlan, etc — or get a 10€ switch if you don’t care. When a port breaks you replace the switch alone.

    Multifunction tools are generally a tradeoff where you buy immediate convenience and pay with more ewaste and more money in the long run.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Good point.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    I also wanted to chime in with the perennial point that while this device is a pure expression of the OpenWrt project, they also support hundreds of other devices including, amazingly, a number of large switches, so if you wanted to ditch the separate route appliance altogether you could get all the features with only switch hardware.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The audience of this router most likely already has a standalone switch within their network.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    I have 3 but they’re not close to the router. (What I’m saying is: I’m likely target audience, but I don’t have an additional switch nearby, since so far any router I had also had a built in switch.)

    But yeah, I get it. Modularity makes sense for repairability.

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