Device Integration

Supporting new devices is among the most critical topics in the community. Old, but awesome devices are pulled from the market while new ones hit the market lacking support.

Before a device can be integrated into Gluon it needs to be integrated into OpenWrt. If the device is already supported, adding it could be as simple as following the guide: Adding support for new hardware.

Device Support Policy

the Gluon developers agreed on the following policy regarding support for additional hardware in Gluon.

criteria:

• next branch

  • no pull requests accepted, too much hurdle when rebasing

• master branch (non-BROKEN)

  • supported upstream (OpenWrt)
    • ar71xx is deprecated, devices for that platform need to be supported in ath79
  • installation possible without opening the device (e.g. to access serial console)
    • attaching to a serial console which is accessible from the outside also qualifies for non-BROKEN
    • new flags describing features/impairment of devices to decide at build time which devices should be built TODO
  • integration tested (not only "this should work", see criteria above)
    • create pull request template with test checklist
  • basic required featureset:
    • sysupgrade support
    • correct LED mapping
    • primary mac (usually wlan0, but may differ) should match the one on the backcover
      • if none printed on the device use the one on wlan0
  • hardware:
    • parallel AP/11s support, if applicable
    • working reset button to (re-)enter config mode
    • devices using ath10k should have at least 128M
  • no development-only boards you can't buy
    • only without backport patches
  • Backports (when patches need to be ported from a newer OpenWrt base release down to the one used in Gluon, where they would need to be maintained)
    • (widely available hardware with good price and featureset) (vague)
    • provides value
      • No devices with only 4M flash or 32M memory
      • new HW revision of already supported devices
      • new HW replacing a popular device
      • Would you buy the device for yourself?

• master branch (BROKEN)

  • everything from non-BROKEN with the following exceptions
    • ath10k devices lacking sufficient amount of memory
    • no AP/11s support
    • not (fully) tested yet
    • not all radios working
  • no backports (from OpenWrt) for BROKEN devices

• stable branch

  • supported in master branch without BROKEN flag
  • tested with stable branch
  • doesn't risk breaking other devices
  • doesn't need backports affecting other devices (e.g. driver updates)
  • doesn't need backport of a whole target
  • provides value to Gluon
    • currently produced
    • available from multiple merchants

• oldstable branch

  • no new device support at all
  • unmaintained (few exceptions like problems with upgrade to newer Gluon releases)