I have had some sort of computers for a long time. Those are not particularly interesting, and I do not see myself bothering to write anything about them.

However, the actual networking and infrastructure part is interesting as I have had to deal with computer infrastructure in various workplaces over the years, and reflecting on how I have set up my home over time brings up some lessons I have learned.

90s - 10BASE-T = king

In the early 90s, I had really sad networking setups (e.g. modem uplink to Internet, peaking at 34 kbps if I remember right), and quite odd local networking setups. Back then, I had scavenged some token ring cards from someplace really cheaply, and had two gaming PCs (perhaps 486s or so) interconnected using those for playing e.g. Doom and original Command and Conquer). That was cool hardware at the time, but the connectivity was quite sad - all file transfers from the internet (or bulletin board systems) took about forever.

However, once I moved to university student housing with 10BASE-T (symmetric) ethernet connection, everything changed. At that time e.g. transferring whole CDs become feasible, as well as transferring any data I really cared to transfer, in either direction, in reasonable timeframe.

Back then I did not yet really have any infrastructure to speak of - the computers were directly connected to either modem or ethernet port.

2000s - really varying internet speeds, still boring infrastructure

I mostly used ADSL (and subsequently VDSL) for home internet access after moving out of the student housing, and those were quite a downgrade; I don’t remember the data rates anymore, but they were probably order of magnitude worse than what I had earlier.

This changed in 2006 when I moved to Japan. I had fiber-based connectivity with symmetric 100 Mbit up/download, and that felt really awesome at the time. I also got my first NAS box (Buffalo TeraStation - quite awkwardly slow) at the time while living in Japan. After that experience I decided that most likely custom PCs are the sane way going forward. I did not get around to building one until years later, though.

I think I used some random ISP-supplied boxes for most part around that time, although I remember Apple Airport Extreme being quite awesome - I possibly picked one up in 2008 or bit earlier. That is when I had to deal once more with bit slower internet access that was available in Finland at the time.

Fine art version circa 2008:

     ┌────────────┐
     │   Modem    │
     └────────────┘
            │
            │
    ┌──────────────┐
    │   Airport    │         .───────────────.
    │   Extreme    │────────(      WIFI       )
    └──────────────┘         `───────────────'
            │                        │
   ┌────────┼───────┐                │
   │        │       │                │
┌────┐      │  ┌─────────┐   ┌──────────────┐
│NAS │      │  │ Laptop  │   │ Phones, etc. │
└────┘      │  └─────────┘   └──────────────┘
            │
            │
      ┌──────────┐
      │Gaming PC │
      └──────────┘

2010s - varying speed, more and more OpenWrt

I started using OpenWrt [OpenWrt Wiki] Welcome to the OpenWrt Project for real at some around 2010-2011 at home. Before that I had used Kamikaze (2007) and Backfire (2010) versions for some consulting projects. I do not remember which devices they were, but probably something quite low-end.

My home infrastructure started getting more and more complex around this time; Philips Hue bulbs and lamps, some wifi-controlled electricity switches, and so on. Their amount just gradually escalated over time. I also built proper NAS out of old gaming PC (originally 4x 3TB drive - now it is 2x 12TB and 2x 16TB), and there were even some personal home automation projects (c.f. GitHub - fingon/kodin-henki: ‘Spirit of home’ - my home automation project written in Python 2/3. which I started in 2014, and stopped using in 2018). After that, for a long while, I didn’t actually use anything custom for home automation - the basic automation built-in to Phillips Hue was enough at the time.

I experimented a lot during the decade with different OpenWrt hardware platforms; Raspberry Pis were unfortunately somewhat unstable ( frequently SD card issues ) and lacking in network ports, there were some decent devices (Buffalo ones early, Turris Omnia around 2016). I had fun with ordering various components from China and connecting them to Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins, but in hindsight that time could have perhaps been used better.

One interesting observation I made was that running one stable over-provisioned device was much, much better than running a lot of small devices. Once the original Turris Omnia showed up, I got rid of both my OpenWrt router, as well as Raspberry Pi home automation node and I never looked back.

The networking speed didn’t change that dramatically over the period - I think I had VDSL2 or something early in the decade, and some symmetric fiber-to-the-curb later with relatively low speed (100Mbit) as I chose not to pay extra for more bandwidth.

Fine art version circa 2019:

     ┌────────────┐
     │   Modem    │
     └────────────┘
            │
            │
    ┌──────────────┐        .───────────────.
    │ Turris Omnia │───────(      WIFI       )
    └──────────────┘        `───────────────'
            │                       │
   ┌────────┼───────┐               │
   │        │       │               ├────────────────────┐
   │        │       │               │                    │
┌────┐      │  ┌─────────┐          │                    │
│NAS │      │  │ Laptop  │  ┌──────────────┐             │
└────┘      │  └─────────┘  │   Buffalo    │     ┌──────────────┐
            │               │  (OpenWrt)   │     │ Phones, etc. │
      ┌──────────┐          └──────────────┘     └──────────────┘
      │Gaming PC │                  │                    │
      └──────────┘                  │                    │
                                    │                    │
                            .───────────────.            │
                           (      WIFI       )───────────┘
                            `───────────────'

2020s - virtual OpenWrt, crazily fast home router

My home network connectivity has been cable modem based recently; download around 200+Mbit, and upload bit less. Still, it has worked out quite nicely. In yet another ‘give in to the dark side’, in 2020 I got tired of trying to get my Turris and random OpenWrt access point to provide good wifi experience and just bought Netgear Orbi mesh kit. Initially I tried to use the Orbi as firewall replacement, but its configurability (and stability) left something to be desired, so instead I switched to using them for bridged wifi, and the Turris Omnia was just used as firewall (and network switch).

Except for the Orbi purchase, the hardware was relatively stable until 2023; at that point I finally started wanting something bit more powerful than Turris Omnia, and I also wanted to get rid of e.g. HTPC role of my laptop (I attempted using Raspberry Pis for that too, but transcoding there simply was not an option despite the ‘hardware acceleration’; Turris Omnia was not powerful enough for that too).

So, as this is history overview, I’m stopping writing about it now. The next post will detail what I built in 2023 and it might even feature non-ASCII graphics.