[Discuss] iGuardian "enterprise-grade" home router

[tmetro+blu at gmail.com (Tom Metro)]

Richard Pieri wrote:
> Ubiquiti's...OS is proprietary...

It's a Debian fork, 2-steps removed. (Fork of a fork.)

Similarly iGuardian is packaging OpenWRT, which may or may not qualify
as a fork. It might in the sense that they probably bundle binary blobs
to support their hardware, which you are stuck with.

Both provide root shell access without going through any hoops.
With either one, adding 3rd party packages should be just a matter of
installing them via apt-get or optware package managers.


> and I have no idea how stable it would be after coercing it
> to do something unsupported.

I don't really have any information as to how well either vendor
supports their platform if you start monkeying with the software stack.
iGuardian in their FAQ seems to imply they would, but lets be real,
they're a startup with limited resources, so if you complained something
wasn't working, their first response is going to be to reset the device
back to the factory software.

I'd like to find an online community of EdgeRouter users to learn more
about what real world problems and limitations those users run into. The
only end-user info I've seen so far has been from a small number of
product reviews.


> Ubiquiti's hardware is pretty open...

I wouldn't consider either to meet the definition of open hardware. To
be open hardware you need to share the design (schematics), and use
components that don't require binary blobs, and have all the chip
specifications published openly so anyone can create drivers. The
Raspberry Pi isn't open hardware, for example, though on the spectrum
between open and closed, its closer to the open side.

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
The Perl Shop, Newton, MA, USA
"Predictable On-demand Perl Consulting."
http://www.theperlshop.com/