[[!meta title="New Linux wireless gigabit Linux router for ungleich office"]]

[[!img rb2011uas2hnd-in.jpg alt="Mikrotik RB2011UAS-2HnD-IN"]]


## Introduction

We are getting a new 150Mbit/s (down) Internet connection
in the [ungleich office](http://www.ungleich.ch) in August 2013.
Unfortunately, our current router **katze**, a 
[Soekris net5501](http://soekris.com/products/net5501.html),
is not able to process 150 Mbit/s, as it contains only
Fast Ethernet interfaces.

So it's time for a geeky replacement.

## Searching for available products

What's the best plattform to search for a Linux based
router that is probably good supported by FOSS?

I started to cross match devices from the local
vendor [digitec](http://www.digitec.ch) with the list
of [supported device of OpenWRT](http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start).

Essentially I was looking for devices with

 * high cpu speed (to be able to handle gigabit traffic)
 * some memory to flash an open image like OpenWRT on it
 * support for hardware already in the Linux kernel
 * support for at least 802.11n, 802.11ac optional

## Selecting a router

After digging into the specs of many routers, the
[TP-Link Archer C7](http://www.tp-link.com.de/products/details/?categoryid=2872&model=Archer+C7) looked pretty well and even supports 802.11ac.
Drawback: It has only 8 MiB of flash attached
and its [OpenWRT and 802.11ac support](https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=44201) is still work in progress.

Given that all our clients support 802.11n only currently,
I was considering other routers as well. Remembering that
I've recently installed a
[RB750GL](http://routerboard.com/RB750GL) 
at [panter](http://www.panter.ch) and seen some
Mikrotik devices on the OpenWRT page, I also checked out
their website, which brings me to the router I chose:
[RB2011UAS-2HnD-IN](http://routerboard.com/RB2011UAS-2HnD-IN):

 * Gigabit, 802.11n supported
 * Should be OpenWRT supported using nand flash
 * Geeky LCD
 * 11W power consumption

As [Mikrotik](http://www.mikrotik.com/) 
seems to produce a lot of cool devices, the decision
was also made to support this company instead of the usual
big ones.

[[!tag net unix foss ungleich]]