On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the project, the developers of the OpenWrt distribution initiated the creation of the community-driven OpenWrt One wireless router (AP-24.X). OpenWrt One is proposed to be based on hardware similar to Banana Pi (BPi-R4) boards, which come with open firmware (except for the wireless chip firmware), are supplied with U-Boot, and are supported in the Linux kernel. Schematics for the custom device assembly will be provided under one of the open licenses (the exact license has not yet been chosen). The cost of the device will not exceed $100.
The platform will be built on the MediaTek MT7981B SoC and the MediaTek MT7976C wireless chip (2×2 2.4 GHz + 3×3/2×2 + DFS 5GHz). The router will be equipped with 1 GB of RAM (DDR4), 128 MB of SPI NAND Flash, and 4 MB of SPI NOR Flash. There is an M.2 slot for NVMe SSD (PCIe gen 2 x1) to connect additional storage. Among the stated ports are: 2 Ethernet (2.5 GbE + 1 GbE), USB 2.0 host Type-A, USB-C (Holtek HT42B534-2 UART with a USB converter, console, and CDC-ACM support), a 10-pin JTAG, and a mikroBUS expansion slot. The case will feature two buttons (reset and user button), four LEDs, and a mechanical switch to select the boot mode (recovery or normal mode).
One of the key ideas is the desire to make the device unbricking-proof and highly protected against bricking. The router will have several recovery modes, easy access to the console, and the use of an external hardware watchdog monitor based on the EM Microelectronic EM6324 chip, connected via GPIO. Furthermore, to enhance reliability, it has been decided to use two different types of Flash memory: NAND for the U-Boot bootloader and the Linux image, and a write-protected NOR Flash with an additional bootloader and recovery image. The device will have a hardware switch to choose between booting from NOR or NAND. Additionally, the presence of an M.2 slot for NVMe will allow for the booting of additional distributions such as Debian and Alpine.
To maintain accurate time in the device, an RTC based on the NXP PCF8563TS with a backup battery is planned to be used. A non-profit organization, Software Freedom Conservancy, will be engaged for the sale and distribution of the device, which is currently focused on raising sponsorship funds and providing legal support for the OpenWrt project.
Source: opennet.ru
