Sticking with the Linksys WRT1900AC

[IAAI]

All i need from this router is a secure vpn feature and i will switch from ac68

 

[htismaqe]

Hi,
I speak for myself, I don't agree. I'd say it is reasonable and desired.
Look at how many after market stuffs are around for our cars. I assume
you never fiddle with your car either? That is part of fun playing with our
toys. What the life will be without toy factor? On the wrong side of age
70, I still enjoy playing with toys, LOL! I learn some thing new every day
by playing. Open source community won't exist if there is no demand for it.

It's reasonable and desired to have the open source community augment and compliment OEM firmware. RMerlin is a great example of this.

It is not reasonable to expect the open source community to develop the only working firmware for a device because the manufacturer can't, or won't, develop one themselves.

In your analogy, this is EXACTLY the case with cars. You expect Edelbrock to provide you with after-market headers that improve on the stock performance of your car and provide you enjoyment.

You don't expect that the minute you drive a new car off the lot, you have to go to Autozone and buy new Edelbrock headers because the stock cylinders suck and your engine is missing.

Myself, I don't like fiddling with cars. I want them to get me from point A to point B without having to mess with them. For me, requiring me to install new headers on a new car just to get it to work correctly would be a HUGE inconvenience. A car is not a toy, nor a source of enjoyment. It's simply a tool to accomplish a task.

The same is true, for me, of wireless gear. I don't like fiddling with them. I work on networking gear every day in my job. I want my home equipment to work without any need of me to mess with them. Just like with the car, it is not a toy, it is a tool, and requiring me to install 3rd party firmware just to get basic stability and functionality is simply out of the question.

 

[Mordred]

It's reasonable and desired to have the open source community augment and compliment OEM firmware. RMerlin is a great example of this.

It is not reasonable to expect the open source community to develop the only working firmware for a device because the manufacturer can't, or won't, develop one themselves.

In your analogy, this is EXACTLY the case with cars. You expect Edelbrock to provide you with after-market headers that improve on the stock performance of your car and provide you enjoyment.

You don't expect that the minute you drive a new car off the lot, you have to go to Autozone and buy new Edelbrock headers because the stock cylinders suck and your engine is missing.

Myself, I don't like fiddling with cars. I want them to get me from point A to point B without having to mess with them. For me, requiring me to install new headers on a new car just to get it to work correctly would be a HUGE inconvenience. A car is not a toy, nor a source of enjoyment. It's simply a tool to accomplish a task.

The same is true, for me, of wireless gear. I don't like fiddling with them. I work on networking gear every day in my job. I want my home equipment to work without any need of me to mess with them. Just like with the car, it is not a toy, it is a tool, and requiring me to install 3rd party firmware just to get basic stability and functionality is simply out of the question.

Your comparison is bad though. If you sell cars which are broken from the start you won't be in business for more then 4 weeks. If you look at the firmware quality of those home routers than you know, that your comparison is BS. The WRT 1900AC is a good example of bad quality it came out with pathetic bugs like router reboots, with a few standard clicks in the webif it just rebooted.

Would you ever buy a car, that stops in the middle of the road if you press a few buttons on the radio?

Besides that if you compared stock and 3rd party, then you can literally say, that stock just provides you with the chassis and wheels, things like multimedia, comfort systems etc. are delivered in 3rd party firmwares.

Also, to have a working car you usually don't have to drive to a garage every 4 weeks to fix loose wheels/brakes in order to be safe. Besides that oem firmwares often don't provide firmware updates after some time and you are left with insecure routers.

Now if you look at the base components of a router firmware, linux, busybox, this is all opensource software. Thus without 3rd party as you call it there would be no oem firmward and fixes that are done in 3rd party, will likely be added to oem fw.

And one of the biggest advantages of 3rd party firmwares is, that you will get much better support in order to fix bugs/things that matter to you at least, that is my experience.

Some users might not need it, because they are fine if they reboot the router twice a day or if a transfer takes two minutes instead of one. But if there are only 2% users out there, with higher demands, then we are talking about millions of users which need 3rd party.

 

[htismaqe]

Your comparison is bad though. If you sell cars which are broken from the start you won't be in business for more then 4 weeks. If you look at the firmware quality of those home routers than you know, that your comparison is BS. The WRT 1900AC is a good example of bad quality it came out with pathetic bugs like router reboots, with a few standard clicks in the webif it just rebooted.

The AC1900 routers from Netgear and Asus also had issues with reboots, disconnects, poor performance, and random flaws. That is indictment of the entire industry and therefore the automobile analogy is no longer valid. Obviously, all of these router companies are still in business and in fact, they're doing quite well and releasing more "beta" product.

Would you ever buy a car, that stops in the middle of the road if you press a few buttons on the radio?

You're using the analogy in a way it wasn't intended. We're not talking about the efficacy of cars vs. home wireless gear. We're talking about the difference between essential, basic functionality and enthusiast tinkering.

Besides that if you compared stock and 3rd party, then you can literally say, that stock just provides you with the chassis and wheels, things like multimedia, comfort systems etc. are delivered in 3rd party firmwares.

Multimedia and comfort systems aren't required to get from point A to point B, the basic and essential function of an automobile.

Also, to have a working car you usually don't have to drive to a garage every 4 weeks to fix loose wheels/brakes in order to be safe. Besides that oem firmwares often don't provide firmware updates after some time and you are left with insecure routers.

Absolutely true but again, we're not talking about the efficacy of cars vs. home wireless gear. We're talking about the difference between essential, basic functionality and enthusiast tinkering.

Now if you look at the base components of a router firmware, linux, busybox, this is all opensource software. Thus without 3rd party as you call it there would be no oem firmward and fixes that are done in 3rd party, will likely be added to oem fw.

There's absolutely no evidence to suggest that without 3rd parties there would be no OEM firmware. There are thousands upon thousands of consumer electronics devices that run closed-source firmware without any input from 3rd parties or the open source communities. The fact that many OEMs have adopted the current model is a question of financial and technical best practices. It's cheaper and more efficient for them to adopt a common platform and borrow from other parties. If the open source community disappeared tomorrow, they wouldn't stop building devices or creating firmware. They'd go back to the proprietary and closed systems they used before.

And one of the biggest advantages of 3rd party firmwares is, that you will get much better support in order to fix bugs/things that matter to you at least, that is my experience.

Totally agree but that wasn't the original contention. This isn't a question of whether OEM or 3rd party firmware is BETTER, it's a question of whether or not 3rd party firmware should be the only viable option. Fortunately for the WRT1900AC, we don't need 3rd party software. It's unfortunate that we can't have it if we want it though. That's a far cry better than many Netgear users - most of them NEED 3rd party software because the stock firmware simply doesn't work.

Some users might not need it, because they are fine if they reboot the router twice a day or if a transfer takes two minutes instead of one. But if there are only 2% users out there, with higher demands, then we are talking about millions of users which need 3rd party.

I don't use 3rd party firmware and my router hasn't rebooted in just over 61 days.

 

[htismaqe]

I should add that I'm not against 3rd party firmware. Quite the contrary, I'm all for it. 3rd party firmware just shouldn't be a NECESSARY component, it should be optional.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of manufacturer's look at 3rd party developers, and their user community in general, as an out. They just do the bare bones and if it doesn't quite fit the bill, oh well. Just load DD-WRT or Tomato and that will fix all the problems. In many ways, the presence of such a strong open source community allows OEMs to release crappy software.

Maybe there will come a day when Netgear, Linksys, and their peers just release hardware with no firmware at all, with the idea that users would load a 3rd party image of their choice? Some have tried it but for whatever reason, it hasn't caught on. 't doesn't offer them much opportunity to differentiate themselves but it also saves them a bundle of R&D and support.

 

[fistv]

I should add that I'm not against 3rd party firmware. Quite the contrary, I'm all for it. 3rd party firmware just shouldn't be a NECESSARY component, it should be optional.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of manufacturer's look at 3rd party developers, and their user community in general, as an out. They just do the bare bones and if it doesn't quite fit the bill, oh well. Just load DD-WRT or Tomato and that will fix all the problems. In many ways, the presence of such a strong open source community allows OEMs to release crappy software.

Maybe there will come a day when Netgear, Linksys, and their peers just release hardware with no firmware at all, with the idea that users would load a 3rd party image of their choice? Some have tried it but for whatever reason, it hasn't caught on. 't doesn't offer them much opportunity to differentiate themselves but it also saves them a bundle of R&D and support.

That would be interesting, install the router with some basic firmware that will provide basic functionality and be useable then it goes out on startup and shows you your options, pick one and download it and it installs. Router comes with a usb stick with a boot os.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
As long as I can Putty or ssh I am happy with any router. Attaching serial console is
some times pain in the neck. I must know what I want to know, I must try what
I want to try, I must do what I want to do, LOL! . My life style in general.

 

[htismaqe]

Hi,
As long as I can Putty or ssh I am happy with any router. Attaching serial console is
some times pain in the neck. I must know what I want to know, I must try what
I want to try, I must do what I want to do, LOL! . My life style in general.

And that's totally fine. Nobody begrudges you that. You should always have the option.

20 years ago, I was actually like that.

Now that I'm older and much, much busier in general with other things, I don't want to experiment with stuff like this anymore. I want it to work and move on to other things.

 

[Mordred]

Totally agree but that wasn't the original contention. This isn't a question of whether OEM or 3rd party firmware is BETTER, it's a question of whether or not 3rd party firmware should be the only viable option. Fortunately for the WRT1900AC, we don't need 3rd party software. It's unfortunate that we can't have it if we want it though. That's a far cry better than many Netgear users - most of them NEED 3rd party software because the stock firmware simply doesn't work.

That's complete BS. Just because it works for you in your environment, with your devices it doesn't mean it works for the majority. If you look at reports here and in linksys forum you will see, that this firmware has lots of issues confirmed by multiple people.

Thus the need for an alternative firmware, that works for a certain config or environment, is there.
It doesn't mean, that 3rd party is flawless, but it gives you another choice.

And if you look around on 3rd party sites you will find a lot of people that had/have stability problems with oem firmware and have better success with 3rd party. If 3rd party firmware was so bad asus/buffalo .. wouldn't officially support them. Also if there is no need as you say, why did Linksys bother to market this router as OpenSource compatible?

Basically the two big players in the router market Asus and Netgear both know how important 3rd party is. It is probably the reason why Asus is so successful now, asuswrt is based on tomato, just look at the code.

 

[TonyH]

That would be interesting, install the router with some basic firmware that will provide basic functionality and be useable then it goes out on startup and shows you your options, pick one and download it and it installs. Router comes with a usb stick with a boot os.

Hi,
As long as those additional options are free...

 

[htismaqe]

That's complete BS. Just because it works for you in your environment, with your devices it doesn't mean it works for the majority. If you look at reports here and in linksys forum you will see, that this firmware has lots of issues confirmed by multiple people.

Thus the need for an alternative firmware, that works for a certain config or environment, is there.
It doesn't mean, that 3rd party is flawless, but it gives you another choice.

And if you look around on 3rd party sites you will find a lot of people that had/have stability problems with oem firmware and have better success with 3rd party. If 3rd party firmware was so bad asus/buffalo .. wouldn't officially support them. Also if there is no need as you say, why did Linksys bother to market this router as OpenSource compatible?

Basically the two big players in the router market Asus and Netgear both know how important 3rd party is. It is probably the reason why Asus is so successful now, asuswrt is based on tomato, just look at the code.

You've again completely mischaracterized the argument.

In no way have I ever said that 3rd party firmware is "bad" or anything even remotely similar.