So, OpenWRT didn't boot on my Orange Pi 5 Plus. I compiled the image correctly, flashed it to an eMMC, and...nothing.
My next option is to use an Ubuntu 24.04 Rockchip image for the Orange Pi 5 Plus. It's the most vanilla Ubuntu experience one can get on that board, AFAIK.
There are a couple guides I'm following to setup Ubuntu as a router. Both guides say to use DHCP for the WAN interface. I'm just not sure if that would work with my ISP modem in bridge mode. Does anyone know how this would work? Would it just receive the ISP gateway information automatically?
I can try it out first, but if it doesn't receive the default gateway from my ISP then I might have to configure the WAN interface to use static IPs, which hopefully would work.
First I'm going to read these guides thoroughly and write up a note in Obsidian on how I'm going to setup the Ubuntu router. There are a few things I want to do differently from the guides, namely using firewalld instead of iptables, and use Pihole with local Unbound recursive DNS resolver. I'd want Pihole to also act as the DHCP server.
As far a wifi is concerned, the Orange Pi 5 Plus board does not have a built in wifi card, so I'd have to use a dongle with hostapd, or I can use a separate standalone access point device that I connect to the LAN switch via ethernet. I'm leaning toward the latter, as it seems easier. It turns out I already have an access point device that supports WiFi 6, which I originally bought as a range repeater for my previous place of residence. Apparently it doubles as an AP, too.