The tables of hardware on the wiki are not completely updated. I am tempted to contribute some effort into cleaning up a bit.

I would like to…

Eliminate duplicates between supported/wip/possible and move routers that are in the wrong list. For example, this morning I moved ASUS RT-N56U, from WIP to supported, since it seems to be well supported in 14.07 and it is a decent router still available on the market.

Clean up and update the status column (I find it confusing/misleading when it says trunk or RXXXXX for something that has been supported since before 14.07).

This means I will edit information about routers I dont own and cant test myself, but I think I can improve the table of hardware nevertheless, for the benefit of everyone.

My idea is to leave comments in this forum topic about what I do, and ask questions that may arise. So you can help me to improve the quality of what I do, if you want to.

I have more thoughts about possible ways to improve the table of hardware, but I can start with the simple things mentioned above. It may happen that everyone does not agree on what the table(s) of hardware should be like, but perhaps we can have a good discussion about it.

Is this a bad idea?
Is this the wrong forum for discussing this?
Anything in particular that I should think about?

I think many of the wiki entries need this type of treatment.   It would be great if you could do something like that.  OpenWrt is extremely difficult for newcomers to get started with for exactly this reason.

There are lot of errors/incomplete/obsolete info at the wiki. Probably everyone agree if you improve the wiki. Tags also need to be fixed.

I generated a list of probable duplicates.
I will start investigating and deleting duplicates sometime. But it would be MUCH better if someone who actually knows anything about the device in question makes a qualified decision. Some of them are very easy. If you, based on this list, updates/deletes duplicates, please drop a comment to avoid double effort.

=== Actiontec ===
GT704WG (1A) (supported)          --KEPT (reportedly working ok with AA)
GT704WG (?) (wip)                   --DELETED

=== BT ===
HOME HUB (1.0 and 1.5) (wip)
HOME HUB (3.0 Type B) (wip)
Home Hub 2 (Type A) (supported)
Home Hub 2 (Type B) (supported)
Home Hub 3 (Type A) (supported)

=== D-Link ===
DIR-600 (C1, C2) (possible)       --DELETED
DIR-600 (C1, C2) (unsupported)    --KEPT
DIR-632 (A1) (possible)           --DELETED
DIR-632 (A1) (wip)                --KEPT
DIR-835 (A1) (supported)          --KEPT
DIR-835 (A1) (supported)          --DELETED (just a duplicate line)
DIR-855 () (possible)             --INCONSISTENT
DIR-855 (A1?, A2) (unsupported)   --INCONSISTENT
DVA-G3810BN/TL (A1) (supported)   --INCONSISTENT (installs, but what else?)
DVA-G3810BN/TL (A1) (wip)         --INCONSISTENT

=== EnGenius ===
ESR1750 (v1.1.0) (supported)      --KEPT
ESR1750 (v1.1.0) (wip)            --DELETED
ESR900 (v1.00) (supported)        --KEPT
ESR900 (v1.00) (wip)              --DELETED

=== Hi-Link ===
HLK-RM04 (v1) (supported)         --KEPT
hlk-rm04 (-) (wip)                --DELETED

=== Kingston ===
MLWG2 (-) (supported)             --KEPT
MLWG2 (?) (possible)              --DELETED

=== Linksys ===
E1000 (1.0) (wip)                     --KEPT
E1000 (2.0) (possible)                --MOVED TO WIP (same image exists for both)
E2000 (1.0) (supported)               --KEPT
E2000 (1.0) (wip)                     --DELETED
E3000 (1.0) (supported)               --KEPT
E3000 (1.0) (wip)                     --DELETED
WRT610N (v1) (wip)                    --DELETED
WRT610N (v2) (wip)                    --DELETED
WRT610N v1 (1.0) (supported)          --KEPT
WRT610N v2 (2.0) (supported)          --KEPT

=== Mercury ===
MW4530R (v1) (supported)        --KEPT
MW4530R (v1) (wip)              --DELETED

=== Sitecom ===
WLR-8100 (v1 001) (possible)    --MOVED TO WIP (with WLR-7100)
WLR-8100 (v1 001) (supported)   --DELETED

=== TP-Link ===
Archer C8 () (unknown)                  --DELETED
Archer C8 (1.0) (possible)              --KEPT
TL-WR710N (1 (China)) (unsupported)     --OK
TL-WR710N (1 (Poland/EU)) (supported)   --OK
TL-WR710N(US) (1.0) (supported)         --OK
TL-WR841N (8.x) (supported)             --KEPT
TL-WR841ND (8.x) (wip)                  --DELETED

=== Trendnet ===
TEW-691GR () (supported)      --KEPT (bricks with BB)
TEW-691GR (1.0R) (wip)        --DELETED
TEW-691GR (?) (possible)      --DELETED
TEW-692GR () (supported)      --KEPT
TEW-692GR (1.0R) (wip)        --DELETED

=== ZyXEL ===
NBG-460N / NBG-550N / NBG-550NH (1) (supported)   --DELETED
NBG-460N / NBG-550N / NBG-550NH (1) (wip)       --KEPT

=== Raspberry Pi Foundation ===
Model A () (wip)                     --DELETED
Model B () (wip)                     --DELETED
Model B () (wip)                     --DELETED
Raspberry Pi (A) (supported)         --KEPT
Raspberry Pi (B) (supported)         --KEPT
Raspberry Pi (B+) (supported)        --KEPT
Raspberry Pi 2 (B) (supported)       --KEPT

=== Banana Pi ===
BananaPi () (supported)              --KEPT
BananaPi R1 () (supported)           --KEPT
BananaPi (?) (wip)                   --DELETED

=== Cubietech ===
Cubieboard () (supported)           --KEPT
Cubieboard2 () (supported)          --KEPT
Cubietruck () (supported)           --KEPT
Cubieboard (?) (wip)                --DELETED
Cubieboard2 (?) (wip)               --DELETED
Cubietruck (?) (wip)                --DELETED

=== Netgear ===
WNDR4000 () (supported)                           --KEPT
WNDR4000 (?) (possible)                           --DELETED
WNR3500 (1) (wip)                                 --DELETED
WNR3500, WNR3500L, WNR3500U (v1, v2) (possible)   --SPLIT INTO 4
WNR854T (1) (wip)                                 --DELETED
WNR854T (?) (supported)                           --KEPT

(Last edited by zo0ok on 1 Apr 2015, 22:38)

Afaik the TL-WR841ND is just the version with detachable antennae compared to the TL-WR841N. I have only set up TL-WR841N versions so I can't say for sure, but that is apparently the naming logic with TP-Link. The ar71xx downloads do list N and ND versions separately though, so...

Borromini... so the TL-WR841ND should be "supported" not "wip" then, right?
If we can't make sense of it here those who need the information won't get it right either.

great idea!

One thing to consider with supported vs unsupported - there are quite a few routers (ahem broadcom) that have some support, but not fully functional wireless (for example). These are sort of a WIP, but the chances of getting full support (including 802.11n/ac speeds) any time soon is kind of low. Listing them as WIP gives too much hope IMO. Maybe there needs to be another category for supported but without wireless? Or a column just for wireless functionality?

The structure of each individual router page needs to be updated as well as many have a lot of junk in them. There should be a simple page listing the hardware, support status, and how to flash from factory firmware. Everything else is more advanced and should be relegated to a separate page IMO.

Let me know how I can help. Maybe some sort of divide and conquer strategy?

(Last edited by drawz on 29 Mar 2015, 21:03)

Also worth noting, Luci in Barrier Breaker doesn't have appropriate settings or info for 802.11ac modes. This is only in trunk. Hopefully Chaos Calmer goes stable soon so that this is addressed in a release version.

drawz... good thinking! When I have started to think about this i realise that there are routers with "partial" support since 10.03, and routers with good support in trunk only. So the status concept is quite complex.

I have written a few simple scripts that download the five current lists (supported, unsupported, wip, unknown and possible), and merge the information. So far it does not work on all columns, but I intend to have some validations and/or sanity checks when I add more columns. And I can probably make this all-in-one-list available quite soon in a useful form.

I think it is good to start identifying/naming routers properly and cleaning up things that are clearly inconsistent.

I can imagine, in the future, a single list with all routers (all supported states), for search/lookup.
And then, a much shorter list of routers that actually work well with current OpenWRT release (dropping those without WiFi, and also those with less than 32MB RAM... my suggestion). Let's see.

(Last edited by zo0ok on 29 Mar 2015, 21:45)

About supported/unsupported, in my opinion it should be more simple, there are parts that never will get full support (i.e ADSL), and this shouldn't mean the devices are not supported by Openwrt.

For me an Openwrt supported device, is a device that has an official available firmware ready to download, flash, boot, and run with enough stability. And at least essential parts working (wifi or adsl aren't essential).

For the non working parts we could put a red marker, like I did for the Huawei devices in the ADSL column.
http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start#huawei

danitool, I would be ok marking non-working wireless devices as (11b/g/n) in the supported table.

Is there a general overview page btw of conventions to be used? Like when to use 'unsupported' (someone wanting a fully functional wireless router would consider his device unsupported if OpenWrt ran on it but didn't support the wireless, e.g.). I have people seen list devices as 'trunk' under 'OpenWrt version' just because the board booted on OpenWrt and basic images were available, but no wireless. That is pretty confusing.

We probably need a bit more granularity there. "Supported" or something like that should denote routers where OpenWRT supports all the functionality of the device, whereas "Partial" should denote that something is missing, be it WiFi, ADSL or something like that. The information whether it is supported in release or trunk should then follow on the wiki page in detail.

Also it may be necessary to distinguish between something not working on a specific router and not working with OpenWRT in general. I don't know how to best communicate this.

Regarding devices that may be supported in the future it's a tough call as zo0ok pointed out. Maybe someone can come up with a good distinction between "support likely" (WIP) and "support unlikely" (which may mean it is possible in theory but there is a major roadblock).

I'd vote for a unified structure. I agree on hardware information (including revisions), support status (including details and caveats in case of partial support) and how to flash from factory. There should also be an explanation how to flash back to factory (as is the case on many models). Also I'd rather disagree to remove the more advanced stuff to separate pages. Advanced recovery (TFTP, JTAG, etc.) should be covered where applicable. Also advanced background information such as VLAN configs and flash layouts should IMHO be kept. Hardware mods are a tough one, but if the pages have a uniform structure with the most advanced content coming last I don't see an issue. Splitting it up makes maintenance harder IMHO.

With regard to LuCI that's true, but that is noted at multiple points in the wiki (like the pages of ac routers themselves) and you can still config it via the commandline.

Regarding truncating older routers with low amounts of RAM:
I'd keep them in a Legacy category. I often saw people do amazing things to devices like the venerable WRT54GL and it would be a shame for this information to be lost.

In my opinion every router should have only one single page. The advanced stuff should be located at the en of the page. Basic information for newbies (like easy flashing) should be located at the beginning of the page. If for some reason whe need to mix advanced info with basic info we could use some code to hide/expand the info

Example of expandable text made with javascript code

<HTML>
<script language="javascript">
  var ie4 = false; if(document.all) { ie4 = true; }
  function getObject(id) { if (ie4) { return document.all[id]; } else { return document.getElementById(id); } }
  function toggle(link, divId) { var lText = link.innerHTML; var d = getObject(divId);
   if (lText == '+') { link.innerHTML = '−'; d.style.display = 'block'; }
   else { link.innerHTML = '+'; d.style.display = 'none'; } }
</script>

<div style="margin-right:auto;border: 0px solid grey; padding-left: 4px; background: cian; ">
  [<a title="show/hide" id="exp1329261219_link" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="toggle(this, 'exp1329261219');" style="text-decoration: none; color:blue;font-weight: bold ">−</a>]
<b>  here the expandable text title </b>

  <div id="exp1329261219" style="padding: 20px;font:10px/14px;">
    <code>

HERE SOME ADVANCED INFO


    </code>
  </div>
</div><script language="javascript">toggle(getObject('exp1329261219_link'), 'exp1329261219');</script>
</HTML>

Currently there are lot of routers without a defined structure, just dumps from the command line, this is a bit annoying, but shouldn't be deleted unless we are totally sure they contain only useless info.

(Last edited by danitool on 30 Mar 2015, 11:51)

The WiFi of WNR854T works in client mode only, does not do AP. But...
The card inside is in a mini-PCI slot, exchangeable for an AP supported one. But...
There is no orion folder in current trunk. I couldn't verify when was dropped. Edit: Found from r44968 there is no support anymore.
Finally, my WNR854T dies of a congenic disease, every WNR854T around the world already died of the same disease.

(Last edited by Nilfred on 30 Mar 2015, 17:56)

Nilfred, excellent I deleted the link from WIP, and updated the article itself with a little notice that this router is candidate for status "legacy" or "notfullyworking" (not that there are any such statuses). And a link to your informative post.

Support topic for orion used to be: https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=12358

These...

There is an image in BB:
14.07/ar71xx/generic/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-nbg460n_550n_550nh-u-boot.bin

But the article states:
WARNING: Currently there is no working image, so don't flash any. It will brick your router!
http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/zyxel/nbg460n

And the article is not updated since 2012.
Any suggestions?

This probably existed before, but I just discovered it and it would help the wiki so I'll point it out. It's possible to point to the latest stable release of OpenWrt using the following base URL:

https://downloads.openwrt.org/latest/

That way, when Chaos Calmer goes final, all of the wiki links do not need to manually be updated. And the same goes for whatever comes next and so on. One of the biggest challenges in the wiki is keeping it up to date, as noted here, and this would certainly help.

Just throwing in a bit about how I've used the wiki in the past.  As already mentioned above, some users don't care about wireless support, myself included, I run a separate wireless access point after my OpenWRT device.  So knowing that something runs OpenWRT but the wireless is broke would be a valuable bit of info.

But for me, and probably others, probably the best improvement to the wiki (and probably time consuming to update) would be a list of shipping hardware that runs OpenWRT, so that someone could find something on the list, then go to Amazon, WalMart, or wherever, and pick up a device.  With all the version changes breaking support, I know this would be hard to maintain, but it would certainly be nice to see.

That's a good idea but I'd like to highlight one caveat. It may be problematic with routers with low amounts of RAM/flash (weak and older models). But these probably need to be updated separately anyway with a new release where such problems can arise.

E.g. the brcm47xx has a legacy subtarget for that.

Well, I think the duplicates are gone now... with the possible exception of BT where danitool seems to have been editing lately so I will not touch it now. Now the real work can begin

I have extracted data from the table of hardware pages, and put it in a single table where columns can be hidden and filters can be applied:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/906 … index.html (new)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/906 … index.html) (old)
This is very much a 0.0.1 version...

I believe this can be useful:
1) for actually browsing/searching/finding in the table(s) of hardware
2) for getting an idea about the data quality issues in the different columns

Cleaning up column by column would improve the situation much. Perhaps first the target column.
As the actual wiki changes/improves, it is very little work for me to update the page above.

Elegant web design is clearly not my highest priority here

Thoughts or suggestions about this?

(Last edited by zo0ok on 11 Apr 2015, 16:07)

Very good idea!

So good that I'm thinking: What's hindering in implementing this in the regular wiki?

Thoughts: The index.html you linked is only intended as a tool to cleanup the toh in the wiki, right?
The neccessary changes are done to the toh in the wiki and will be reflected in your index.html with some time-offset, right?

I'd be happy to help in some toh cleaning and polishing!

Suggestion: Maybe it would help to setup some rules for the columns, e.g.
- "CPU MHZ -> only 0-9, no text, especially no MHz, since this is already given in the column heading; unknown = ?; no empty fields, i.e. at least ?"
- "Target -> all lowercase; no uppercase; unknown = ?; no empty fields, i.e. at least ?"

(Last edited by tmo26 on 9 Apr 2015, 00:33)