I definitely agree we should suggest and support equipment with the highest throughput. However, in the intention of bringing this technology to low income areas, I have serious doubts that some these families will want, or be able to afford, a new router. I don't think we can repurpose every router, but making it as easy as possible for a large portion of people to do it is feasible. If we're really thinking about efficiency, then we should ditch 2.4 ghz because of the interference with microwaves and other devices. Also, the frensel zone is important for the height of our antennas. And I think madwifi supports broadcom, but not all chips support mesh. The traditional saying is buy a ten dollar radio and a hundred dollar antenna. But we haven't really focused on that philosophy because low cost has been a priority. On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 9:41 PM, Jeremy Entwistle < jeremy.w.entwistle(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: We have to choose which routers to officially recommend/sell and provide support information for. We won't prevent anyone from trying to use whatever they have lying around. Modern OpenWRT needs 32 mb of ram to run well, so that's where that requirement comes from. The requirement for flash size will likely be 8 mb, just because it's a pain to deal with 4 mb and because updates are quicker and easier with the jffs2 filesystem (which doesn't compress as well as squashfs). We could decide to support 4 mb flash later on if it seems worth the effort. The requirement of having an Atheros chipset is based on the fact that Linux has pretty good drivers for those chipsets. That may be true for other chipsets, but I haven't investigated this in detail. As I get deeper into mesh technology, I'm becoming less and less interested in supporting many devices and repurposing old hardware. I feel like mesh technology is still at a really early stage, and that much better technology is needed before we get closer to reliable, easy to deploy and maintain, high speed mesh networks. This is one of the reasons I'm working on an SDR-based mesh. As it stands, the single-wifi-radio devices we have available are not great at mesh. Trying to support older, slower and crappier devices does not seem worth our time given the relatively low cost of higher quality hardware.

Hi! New routers are $20. And if this is too high, we can try to fundraise for equipment and then donate equipment. No, madwifi does not support broadcom. madwifi is old anyway. WRT54GL uses binary blobs and support only 2.4 kernel (no Batman, no IPv4), only G protocol. Open source b43 driver to my knowledge is very unstable. Mitar > The traditional saying is buy a ten dollar radio and a hundred dollar > antenna. But we haven't really focused on that philosophy because low cost > has been a priority. > On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 9:41 PM, Jeremy Entwistle < > jeremy.w.entwistle(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: > >> Maybe somebody can clear this up, but what does supported hardware mean? I >> was expanding our walkthrough this weekend by trying to build my own >> openWRT image with Buildroot. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought >> we mainly needed openWRT with the appropriate drivers in the image. If not, >> then what else? (IPsec for tunneldigger, etc.) >> > > We have to choose which routers to officially recommend/sell and provide > support information for. We won't prevent anyone from trying to use > whatever they have lying around. > > Modern OpenWRT needs 32 mb of ram to run well, so that's where that > requirement comes from. The requirement for flash size will likely be 8 mb, > just because it's a pain to deal with 4 mb and because updates are quicker > and easier with the jffs2 filesystem (which doesn't compress as well as > squashfs). We could decide to support 4 mb flash later on if it seems worth > the effort. The requirement of having an Atheros chipset is based on the > fact that Linux has pretty good drivers for those chipsets. That may be > true for other chipsets, but I haven't investigated this in detail. > > As I get deeper into mesh technology, I'm becoming less and less interested > in supporting many devices and repurposing old hardware. I feel like mesh > technology is still at a really early stage, and that much better > technology is needed before we get closer to reliable, easy to deploy and > maintain, high speed mesh networks. This is one of the reasons I'm working > on an SDR-based mesh. As it stands, the single-wifi-radio devices we have > available are not great at mesh. Trying to support older, slower and > crappier devices does not seem worth our time given the relatively low cost > of higher quality hardware. > > >> Pete brought a router that wasn't on the supported hardware list because >> it had been a revised router. It was a D-Link 601 B1 and he had a custom >> built openWRT image he found on the internet. A lot of my interest with the >> project is people being able to repurpose their routers, either >> automatically with software, or manually through a comprehensive guide. >> Ideally middle school/high school kids should be able to convert their >> routers. >> >> In other words, if you plan on not keeping these routers around, I would >> rather use them to test firmware builds. Sorry Pete, I don't want to brick >> your router. :P Also, I'm interested in expanding the walkthrough more at >> this week's hack night if anybody is interested. >> > > > > >> Jeremy >> >> On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 12:00 PM, &lt;mesh-request(a)lists.sudoroom.org&gt; wrote: >> >>> Send mesh mailing list submissions to >>> mesh(a)lists.sudoroom.org >>> >>> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit >>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/mesh >>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to >>> mesh-request(a)lists.sudoroom.org >>> >>> You can reach the person managing the list at >>> mesh-owner(a)lists.sudoroom.org >>> >>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific >>> than "Re: Contents of mesh digest..." >>> >>> >>> Today's Topics: >>> >>> 1. Re: Wi-Fi gear (mark burdett) >>> >>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >>> Message: 1 >>> Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2013 22:27:54 -0800 >>> From: mark burdett &lt;mfburdett(a)gmail.com&gt; >>> To: &quot;mesh(a)lists.sudoroom.org&quot; &lt;mesh(a)lists.sudoroom.org&gt; >>> Subject: Re: [Mesh] Wi-Fi gear >>> Message-ID: >>> <CALd=3MJ-6ANdtzm8= >>> gZiMo5-0YQQrCMr8uip2bxd6Bc+Rp+m2A(a)mail.gmail.com&gt; >>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" >>> >>> Ok I looked up OpenWRT compatibility. I will start trying to find homes >>> for >>> this stuff, but let me know if it's useful. >>> >>> 1 ? Asus RT-N53 >>>> >>> Don't think it supports OpenWRT >>> >>>> 1 ? Belkin N450 DB >>>> >>> Don't think it supports OpenWRT >>> >>>> 1 ? Linksys WRT54GL >>>> >>> Supports OpenWRT but maybe not worth keeping around? >>> >>>> 1 ? Linksys WRT54GL v1.1 >>>> >>> Supports OpenWRT but maybe not worth keeping around? >>> >>>> 1 ? Linksys WRT300N v1 >>>> >>> Supports OpenWRT >>> >>>> 1 ? Netgear WNDR3300 >>>> >>> Supports OpenWRT >>> >>>> 5 ? Netgear WNDR4000 >>>> >>> Supports OpenWRT >>> >>>> 1 ? Netgear WG311v3 (PCI card) >>>> >>> N/A it's a PCI card :) >>> >>> --mark >>>