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Comment by SirMaster | Hacker News Reader

I don't recommend buying a "router".

I recommend buying a miniPC that has at least 2 network ports and install OpenWRT on there. You can do it on ARM-based PCs or even x86_64 based PCs.

Then connect this miniPC to a cheap 8-port switch, and get some WiFi APs and connect those also to the switch.

This way you will get a much more powerful and reliable "router" that can't ever "brick". Better WiFi quality with good Prosumer / small business APs, and the ability to upgrade your WiFi independently of your router as needed.

Something like this for example:

https://liliputing.com/linkstar-h68k-is-a-pocket-sized-route...

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I want to recommend this route so much.

Alas good wifi cards are extremely hard to procure and to fit to boxes. You can maybe get someone to sell you a $200+ AP-class wifi6 board.

Then you need some way to actually put it in a computer. Many are oversized mPCIe. We are starting to see some m.2 but it's rare & again they're likely to be oversized. Some have crazy power requirements, like having teo lugs to provide 5V on.

This is by far the worst served aspect of personal computing & it's such a shame. I with the adding card market existed. And many how great it would be if USB chipsets could be reliable AP. Maybe they have gotten better, but after years of religiously buying everything Alfa made & trying to see how good an AP it'd be before falling over, it feels like a relatively simple ask that would make the world of difference (lots of modest sized APs everywhere) is so unlikely to happen. For no good reason that I can tell.

actually procuring cards not hard. i bought a bunch of times in the past compex cards with atheros chipsets from https://www.shop.compex.com.sg/products and it's alter ego https://www.524wifi.com/ . But I eventually gave up on going this route due to reasons that you described. Also it was turned out to be much more expensive to DIY compared to buying wifi ap and flashing it with openwrt.

So now I run as router/everything x86 with a bunch of 10g/sfp ports and a couple of r7800 flashed with openwrt as purely AP

Compex's march upwards in price has been absurd. The 3x3 wifi-5 cards were like $75 originally. I don't know how much Qualcomm is to blame here but all one can get a 4x4 cards now and they're almost all well over $200. With absurd constraints that make them hard to use in a normal system (weird shape, weird power needs).

It's also just so so striking to me that it's been most of a decade with Compex as the only company making add-on cards. There are some clones (Wallystech), but there's just like no market here. Qualcomm clearly Does Not Give A Fuck about selling chips to anyone else. No one else cares about add-on cards. The whole access-point market perpetuates on the vastest wave of apathy & disregard.

Don't forget that they don't really make those cards for "us". Their target market iirc is industrial systems/whatever. Probably if you buy a lot of 1000 cards price point is different than in online shop.

> With absurd constraints that make them hard to use in a normal system (weird shape, weird power needs).

hahaha. i had one AP built with pcie > minipcie attached to custom bracket to hold extra large card. and 5v stolen from sata port.

when it came time to rebuild it, i just gave up and went the route i described above.

Well to add wireless to a miniPC router, I was meaning to buy APs like these:

https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-wireless

You just put them in a good location and run a wire to your switch.

Or you can get APs that support a mesh configuration and set them up wherever with 1 connected to your switch.

For WiFi you'd buy an off-the-shelf AP, trying to use a desktop computer as an access point is usually a bad idea

Spoken with great confidence & no evidence.

Let's at least probe a little bit here. Is this a "fact" because of good inherent reasons? Or is this a "fact" because of circumstance?

In general, show your thinking. Why do you feel this way? Let's have something to discuss, to see where we might meet or where we can reasonably disagree.

That would fly against the assumption of most people that the router also is the 'modem' for one, and that the necessary 'modem' for whichever access-technology is often mandated by the ISP, for another.

Which you rarely can escape outside of business-contracts, regardless of concepts like 'router-freedom'.

In very rare circumstances you'll get to know the exact specifics of the low-level technicals before that shit is installed, and can plug in you own stuff without excess gear.

> Something like this for example:

https://liliputing.com/linkstar-h68k-is-a-pocket-sized-route...

> At the heart of the little computer is Rockchip’s quad-core ARM Cortex-A55 processor with ARM Mali-G52 2EE graphics

How is the linux support for this ?

How does this work with routing? Does each AP get its own IP address, or is there some special protocol for running the APs "transparently" as though the router had its own built-in wireless antennae?

Yes, APs will each get an IP.

But it's typically really simple to set up. You just plug 1 or more APs into your switch and setup their WiFi info like name/password and signal formats and off you go.

Like these: https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-wireless

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