Google Rolls Out OnHub Router, Powered By Gentoo Linux

[duby229]

It's because gentoo is designed to be a meta distro. If you're building static images for release, gentoo is the best by far.

[Adarion]

Gentoo is international and stable. And flexible because it is a meta-distribution. Also performant for the same reasons. You can trim it down to a bare minimum and compile it for your very hardware. Also have your own kernel config. Also it is quite close to upstream I'd say. And ChromeOS is based on Gentoo as far as I know. Many good reasons to use Gentoo for them. Most end users of their devices will probably never see a CFLAG or USE flag.

[SyXbiT]

I'm very surprised this doesn't run Brillo...

[FishB8]

Why not OpenWRT, which is actually tuned to be a router OS?

Because building out OpenWRT is a massive monolithic build process. Not so bad if you need to build once and be done, but a big pain in the ass if you want to role your own custom system. Gentoo is more than a distro, it's a very flexible DIY system builder that is very flexible and a fantastic system for development.

[Danny3]

So they really want to spy users
For users that don't want to use Google they made Chrome
For users that don't want to use Chrome they made Chromebook and Android
Fror users that don't want to use Chromebook and Android they made this so they cand spy they can spy all devices on the user's private network, no tmatter the device and OS
I would rather pay with money than to pay with my privacy

[lodup29]

According to this it doesn't have ZWave capabilties as stated by phoronix's acticle.

[robclark]

Interesting to me that Google seems to prefer Gentoo over Arch, or Ubuntu for a lot of their products (ChromeOS is Gentoo as well). I wonder if its for the rolling release, or if there's a different reason.

I suspect it is basically CrOS minus UI ;-)

CrOS kernels have been landing ipq8064 stuff for a while (as has upstream).. wonder how hackable this thing will be? I guess the good news is it won't have an ancient 3.4 android kernel :-P

[gens]

Interesting to me that Google seems to prefer Gentoo over Arch, or Ubuntu for a lot of their products (ChromeOS is Gentoo as well). I wonder if its for the rolling release, or if there's a different reason.

it is interesting that they went with any distro at all

for devices where the hardware doesn't change it is easy to just make a one page shell script init (dd-wrt does it with busybox and a couple programs rewritten to be small)
the kernel does the routing/firewall and a good part of wireless
then just add binaries if needed (a server for the settings webpage, for example)

actually, why not dd-wrt

[horizonbrave]

QOS or ip based bandwidth throttling? or is it asking too much?
TP-Link is usually not bad on those side of things...
too many routers on the dance floor

[liam]

On googles product page is says

5 GHz wireless

802.11a/n/ac 3x3 with smart antenna

That makes a lot more sense.
Still, thats a pretty old chipset. qcm announced qca99X4 earlier this year.
mumimo is a really needed tech if you're buying a new router and have multiple devicies simultaneously connecting to it.