<hexa->
I maintain a regional mesh network with ~700 nodes
<hexa->
(using batman-adv)
<hexa->
we have looked into SBCs and WLAN, and the situation is not great
<hexa->
adding USB based WLAN isn't great either, better than SDIO, but not quite PCIe
<hexa->
which you get on every access point for free
<hexa->
if you have questions, I'll be around tomorrow again :)
<hexa->
good night
<matthewcroughan>
hexa-: I'm absolutely at your feet :D
<matthewcroughan>
I just want the cheapest possible nixos router with good wifi, I don't want to use openwrt, I'm really convinced I want to use flakes to manage a network
<matthewcroughan>
if you think that's silly, let me know why, happy to take criticism! :D
<hexa->
Look at nixwrt then
<matthewcroughan>
Yeah Nixwrt is interesting, but I can't do OTA updates of OpenWRT devices.
<matthewcroughan>
My desire would be for the devices themselves, to be polling a git repo every 5 mins to see if the flake has changed, if so, rebuild themselves.
<matthewcroughan>
It's a different approach.
<hexa->
It feels silly, but i am Not Sold on nixwrt either
<matthewcroughan>
Robotnix is something that is really complete enough to use.
<matthewcroughan>
if you have see nit
<matthewcroughan>
seen it*
<hexa->
I have Not, opened a Tab thougj
<matthewcroughan>
nix build github:matthewcroughan/nixcfg#robotnixConfigurations.pyxis.img will get you a LineageOS 18.1 img to flash via TWRP.
<matthewcroughan>
That's how cool it is :P
<matthewcroughan>
tab complete all the other member attributes of pyxis,
<matthewcroughan>
Get to sleep :)
<aleph->
matthewcroughan: Could maybe do an apu2. Think there's a way to get some wifi cards in there
<hexa->
yup, that is true
<hexa->
2x minipcie, 1x msata
<hexa->
minipcie wifi cards you can get, though newer standards come on m.2
<hexa->
the bummer really is, that one wifi card is just one frequency band usually
<hexa->
so you can get only dualband wifi with an apu
<hexa->
and for proper meshing I'd really want to have 2x2:2 2.4/5 GHz client and 4x4:4 5 GHz backhaul
<hexa->
so three radios ideally
<hexa->
or more ideally … fiber to the barn!
<n0emis[m]>
when you can run openwrt on such devices, would'nt it be possible to run nixos with the patched kernel from openwrt?
<hexa->
that is what nixwrt does
<hexa->
you'd need a more minimal userland though :)
<hexa->
and even then openwrt offers you a backported mac80211 stack
<hexa->
ubus patched into all components
<hexa->
band steering and roaming
<hexa->
(on top of the ubus stuff)
<hexa->
things you don't get with a stock hostapd really