The RTL8196E is not like a Broadcom or Qualcomm Atheros chip. Realtek has historically been unfriendly to the open-source community. Here is the technical breakdown: If your Wi-Fi keeps crashing
Even a $10 used TP-Link TL-WR841N (AR9331) will outperform it by a factor of 5x with modern, secure OpenWrt 23.05. If you already own one, use it as a dumb switch with stock firmware, not a router.
While these forks can get the router up and running with a LuCI web interface, they come with significant downsides:
The RTL8196E is not like a Broadcom or Qualcomm Atheros chip. Realtek has historically been unfriendly to the open-source community. Here is the technical breakdown:
Even a $10 used TP-Link TL-WR841N (AR9331) will outperform it by a factor of 5x with modern, secure OpenWrt 23.05. If you already own one, use it as a dumb switch with stock firmware, not a router.
While these forks can get the router up and running with a LuCI web interface, they come with significant downsides: