I received my GL-A1800 (Flint) router the other day and am very happy with the prompt and efficient dispatch of the item.
One concern I have though is that the OS is based on OpenWRT 15.05 because of the dated Qualcomm SDK (see comment here).
This is a really dated and I’m concerned about software vulnerabilities such as the KRACK vulnerability discovered in 2016 (published 2017).
What efforts are being made by GL-iNet to work towards updating the SDK that is used so that these and other vulnerabilities are patched and the OS can be bought up-to-date to 21.02?
It is also somewhat baffling that the router is marketed as being WiFi6 enabled and yet, as per the above comment I link to from @alzhao …
Is there work in the background contributing to the improvement of this situation?
I purchased the GL-AX1800 to replace a Linksys WRT-1900ACS but given these short-comings I’m not ready to do so just yet and was wondering what timeline and/or release schedule there might be for updating the software.
Feels rather like Caveat emptor to me and that I should have done my research in greater detail about the constraint of the hardware. I’ll sell the GL-AX1800 as I’d have no use for it if I bought another router.
I would have to go digging to find out and may do, but at the moment do not know if this is the actually the case.
After searching official OpenWRT forum, I can make sure Qualcomm chipset support on OpenWRT is very few, even IPQ6018’s big brother chipset IPQ80XX is also the same.
Seems like a bizzare choice to have gone for on the GL-AX1800 then. I appreciate there are global issues with components and so forth, but given GL-iNet appear to use OpenWRT as a base for all their products its just seems quite bizzare.
Oh well, I guess I’ll see what I can flog this router for and look for alternatives.
I was expecting to replace my Mango (great toy and soooo cheap) with this. Oh well, I guess I will have to do what I was trying to avoid, build x86 OpenWrt on fanless Atom or go pfSense
Personally I suspect, semi functional OpenSource drivers in 1 year. Maybe then I will dust off my Flint
But ASUS have been doing some good work on their latest AX routers with ASUS-WRT, adding support for WireGuard. Not sure which version of OpenWRT they use.
Really its the whole ecosystem of software that concerns me as its not transparent if all packages are up-to-date. Having a Mango like @avatar4 I was pleased to see it being kept up-to-date and that was what encouraged me to purchase the GL-AX1800 during the early-bird offers.
If its just an old kernel has it been patched?
If its all software packages as well that are still on the 15.05 release thats even more of a concern.
I also pre-ordered and it will be going onto a shelf, unopened, when it arrives until this issue is fixed. I am not holding my breath. I am more likely to buy a router from a different company and drop this off at Goodwill.
I see its in beta but can’t see any ChangeLog detailing what has changed (kernel, modules, OpenWRT base on which its built etc.) and no release notes as with the stable branch. Any idea where these details can be found?
Seems like a bizzare choice to have gone for on the GL-AX1800 then. I appreciate there are global issues with components and so forth, but given GL-iNet appear to use OpenWRT as a base for all their products its just seems quite bizzare.
