Skip to main content

OpenWRT - Introduction

Introduction

OpenWrt is a highly extensible GNU/Linux distribution for embedded devices (typically wireless routers). Unlike many other distributions for routers, OpenWrt is built from the ground up to be a full-featured, easily modifiable operating system for embedded devices. In practice, this means that you can have all the features you need with none of the bloat, powered by a modern Linux kernel.

image.pngLuCi OpenWRT WebUI

People install OpenWrt because they believe it works better than the stock firmware from their vendor. They find it is more stable, offers more features, is more secure and has better support.

  • Extensibility: OpenWrt provides many capabilities found only in high-end devices. Its 3000+ application packages are standardized, so you can easily replicate the same setup on any supported device, including two (or even five) year old routers. More...
  • Performance and Stability: OpenWrt firmware is made of standardized modules used in all supported devices. This means each module will likely receive more testing and bug fixing than stock firmware which can be tweaked for each product line and never touched again. More...
  • Strong Community Support: OpenWrt team members are regular participants on the OpenWrt Forum, OpenWrt Developer and OpenWrt Admin mailing lists, and OpenWrt's IRC channels. You can interact directly with developers, volunteers managing the software modules and with other long-time OpenWrt users, drastically increasing the chances you will solve the issue at hand. More...
  • Research: Many teams use OpenWrt as a platform for their research into network performance. This means that the improvements of their successful experiments will be available in OpenWrt first, well before it gets incorporated into mainline, vendor firmware. More...
  • Open Source/No additional cost: OpenWrt is provided without any monetary cost. It has been entirely created by a team of volunteers: developers and maintainers, individuals and companies. If you enjoy using OpenWrt, consider contributing some effort to help us improve it for others! All of the above is possible because OpenWrt is part of the Open Source community, and powered by Linux kernel. Get the source code...
  • And more...

Supported Devices

First, we need to check if our device is supported here. Also, the general requirements for OpenWRT support are:

  1. Sufficient flash to accomodate OpenWRT firmware image: 16MB to accomodate OpenWRT and other apps.
  2. Sufficient RAM for stable operation: 128MB better

Download

On the Table of Hardware we can see what is the latest available release for our device. For example, to download the latest available release for the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B I would click here:

image.png

Also, we can click on the Page button, that would take us to the specific doc page regarding the Raspberry Pi, where additional info can be found:

image.png

Here we can see that the latest supported release for the Pi 3 Model B is the 24.10.4

 

 

 

Back to top