"When you miss Dave, modprobe sch_cake!" — A tribute to the soul of bufferbloat mitigation.
(A Linux Pun: In our world, a wish ending in .sh is a command to be executed!)
(Making a time-traveling dream come true!)
"一支穿雲箭，千軍萬馬來相見" (One arrow pierces the clouds, and ten thousand troops come to meet.)
This Chinese idiom describes a signal so powerful it rallies everyone. Dave was that arrow. Just like fireworks are most mesmerizing in the darkest night, Dave shone brightest when fighting the invisible enemy of Bufferbloat.
- "The darker the night, the brighter the light."
- He worked tirelessly in the dead of night (just as we often do) to tame the network chaos.
- Now, "Ten Thousand" (萬) legacy devices are rallying to his call.
While digging through Dave's old blog posts and presentations, I found a chilling coincidence that proves this project was meant to be.
1. The "Archer" & The Arrow The router series I ported this to is named "Archer" (TP-Link). An Archer shoots an Arrow. This perfectly matches our tribute slogan: "一支穿雲箭 (One Cloud-Piercing Arrow)".
2. The C7 Origin In the original 2015 "Cake" presentation at Battlemesh v8, Dave and Jonathan Morton used a TP-Link Archer C7 to demonstrate that CAKE could shape traffic at 115Mbps while HTB failed.
"HTB can’t shape at 115Mbps. Cake can." — Battlemesh v8 (2015)
3. The C2 Connection In his 2016 blog post "Finally... the real net-next 4.8 fq_codel results", Dave wrote:
"I pulled the odroid C2 out, and made it the test driver..." Today, we have successfully ported his work to the TP-Link Archer C2.
Dave was the Archer. The Code is the Arrow.
Sources:
In his famous 2016 blog post "Hardware from hell", Dave expressed his frustration with locked hardware. But amidst the chaos, he had his eyes on a specific target—the MediaTek (mt76) platform.
"I tried to get a mt76 box from alibaba - sold out - this is the new hotness in the OpenWrt 802.11ac world... A turris omnia will probably become my next eval platform unless I can get a mt76 up and running." — Dave Täht (2016)
The Tragedy: He couldn't get one. It was sold out. He was forced to struggle with older devices. The Fulfillment: This repository is dedicated entirely to MT7620/MT7621 devices.
We finally got that "mt76 box" up and running for you, Dave. The "new hotness" you foresaw is now the stable foundation carrying your legacy.
🇹🇼：遲來的約定 當他在 2016 年苦尋不到一台 MT76 路由器時，也許沒想到，幾年後會有成千上萬台 MT76 設備，運行著他的 CAKE 演算法，在網路上奔馳。 Dave，這台 MT76，我們幫你跑起來了！
Source: Hardware from hell (Dave Täht, 2016)
"The darker the night, the brighter the light."
Did you know? Dave's surname "Täht" literally means "Star" in Estonian.
If this project helps you, or if you simply want to honor his legacy, please Light up the "Star" in the top-right corner of this repository.
Let's keep his Star shining bright in the open-source world, guiding packets through the dark.
We are fulfilling a specific wish he made 5 years ago on Reddit:
The BEST engineering result I ever had: Essentially the summation of my 16+ years of work to that point on making wifi better. Unpatented. Please share and enjoy. Help port the code to more chipsets.
— Dave Täht (Reddit, 5 years ago)
Original Source: Reddit - r/Starlink
Dave turned down numerous lucrative contracts to keep his code Free and Open Source. He valued global impact over prestige. Because of him, millions of devices—from Starlink satellites to rural ISP routers—deliver smoother connectivity.
👉 Read the full Memorial at LibreQoS
(Forever maintaining an open and open-source spirit)
This repository is based on the stable padavan-ng with Linux 3.4 kernel. We believe in giving power back to the user while honoring the giants who paved the way.
- CAKE Integration: By default, we aim to support the
sch_cakemodule (backported to 3.4) to honor Dave's legacy. - Easy Multi-Model Support: Support for a massive range of legacy devices, keeping them alive and fast.
- Flexible Language System:
- English Base: The firmware defaults to a clean, English-only interface.
- Custom Language Packs: You can select one additional language (Traditional Chinese, Russian, etc.) during the build process to keep the firmware lightweight yet localized.
"Dave’s impact on society was immense... He wanted, ultimately, to speed up the internet so that a drummer in London could play in real-time with a guitarist in Los Angeles." — Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
"I will miss him but will be always grateful to have known him." — Vint Cerf
"Without him, Netflix and similar services might still be plagued by glitches and stutters." — Eric S. Raymond
We support a massive array of MT7620/MT7621 devices. Pick the one you love!
(This list corresponds directly to the target_select menu in the build workflow.)
| Brand | Supported Models |
|---|---|
| TP-Link | Archer C2 (V1), C20 (V1/V4/V5), C5 (V4), C50 (V1/V3/V4), EC220-G5 (V2), MR200 (V1), MR3020 (V3), MR3420 (V5), WDR7300 (V5), WR840N (V4/V5/V6/RU), WR841N (V13/V14), WR842N (V5), WR845N (V3/V4) |
| Xiaomi | MI-3, MI-3C, MI-4 (A/C/SPI), MI-4A (100M), MI-MINI, MI-NANO, MI-R3G (v1/v2/SPI), MI-R3P (Pro), R2100 (AC2100), RM-AC2100 |
| ASUS | RT-AC1200 (GU/HP), RT-AC51U, RT-AC54U, RT-N10+, RT-N11P (B1), RT-N12+, RT-N13U (B1), RT-N14U, RT-N56U (A1/B1/GE2), RP-AC56 |
| ZyXEL | Keenetic Series: Giga III, Ultra II, Extra (I/II), Lite (I/II/III/3B), Omni (I/II), Start II, Viva, 4G III (B) |
| D-Link | DIR-300 (B1/B7), DIR-320 (B1), DIR-620 (A1/D1), DIR-860L, DIR-882 |
| Newifi | Newifi D1, Newifi D2, Newifi Mini, Newifi Y1S |
| GL.iNet | GL-MT300A, GL-MT300N (V1/V2) |
| Phicomm | K2P (PSG1218), 256PSG1218 |
| ZBT | WE1326, WE1626, WE826-T2, WG3526 (-32), WR8305RT |
| Others | Ubiquiti ER-X, Linksys EA-8100, Belkin F9K1103, Totolink A3004NS, HiWiFi HC5661A, Youku L1/L1C, ZTE E8820S |
| OEM/Misc | 5K-W20, A5-V11, ALR-U270, MQ-WITI, Nexx WT3020 (A/H), Samsung SWR1100, Sercomm (S1010/SmartBox), SNR (MD1/ME1/W4N), Tuoshi TS7620N, Unielec U7621, Wall-AP, Youhua WR1200JS |
We believe in a borderless internet. The firmware now supports 14 Languages out of the box!
(Select your preferred language in the language_select menu.)
- English_Only (Default)
- CN (繁體中文) - Traditional Chinese
- RU (Pусский) - Russian
- ES (Español) - Spanish
- BR (Brazil) - Portuguese
- CZ (Česky) - Czech
- DA (Dansk) - Danish
- DE (Deutsch) - German
- FI (Finsk) - Finnish
- FR (Français) - French
- NO (Norsk) - Norwegian
- PL (Polski) - Polish
- SV (Svensk) - Swedish
- UK (Українська) - Ukrainian
- Kernel: Highly optimized Linux 3.4.x (Padavan-NG foundation).
- Performance & Queue Management:
- CAKE / FQ_CoDel (The Dave Täht Special) - Backported to 3.4 to mitigate bufferbloat on older devices!
- Hardware NAT (PPE) support for gigabit speeds.
- Wireless: Optimized drivers for MT7603/MT7612/MT7620/MT7628.
- Network:
- IPv6 support.
- WireGuard support.
- Hardware flow offloading.
- Control: LED & GPIO control via sysfs.
We support both GitHub Actions (for ease of use) and Manual Compilation.
Just go to the Actions tab in this repository, select Build firmware (Ultimate Fix), and choose:
- Target Model: (e.g.,
TL_C2-V1,MI-MINI,RT-N56U...) - Language: (e.g.,
English_OnlyorCN (繁體中文)) - Toolchain: (Default or Padavan-NG)
The system will automatically apply the CAKE Patch, configure your language, and build your firmware.
Please see the original part of readme below!
Welcome to the padavan-ng project
This project aims to improve the supported devices on the software part, allowing power user to take full control over their hardware. This project was created in hope to be useful, but comes without warranty or support. Installing it will probably void your warranty. Contributors of this project are not responsible for what happens next. Flash at your own risk!
Feel free to send in improvements/fixes. I'll keep the issue/pull request system open for that purpose. NOTE: if and when a possible interesting change will get added depends on a verification/test of the particular change and if i have time to do it.
- Install dependencies
# I recommend building only on OS: Ubuntu Desktop 22.04.4 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) and Before building the firmware, select "App Updates" and install them. Next, update the packages
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install autoconf autoconf-archive automake autopoint bison build-essential ca-certificates cmake cpio curl dos2unix doxygen fakeroot flex gawk gettext git gperf help2man htop kmod libarchive-tools libblkid-dev libc-ares-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libdevmapper-dev libev-dev libevent-dev libexif-dev libflac-dev libgmp3-dev libid3tag0-dev libidn2-dev libjpeg-dev libkeyutils-dev libltdl-dev libmpc-dev libmpfr-dev libncurses5-dev libogg-dev libsqlite3-dev libssl-dev libsystemd-dev libtool libtool-bin libudev-dev libunbound-dev libvorbis-dev libxml2-dev locales mc nano pkg-config ppp-dev python3 python3-docutils sshpass texinfo unzip uuid uuid-dev vim wget xxd zlib1g-dev
Automatic Padavan firmware builds using GitHub servers
Автоматическая сборка прошивки Padavan на серверах GitHub
Login details
IP: 192.168.1.1 or http://my.router
User: admin
Password: admin
WiFi name 2.4GHz: Padavan_2.4GHz
WiFi name 5GHz: Padavan_5GHz
WiFi Password 2.4/5GHz: 1234567890Чтобы выразить благодарность и поддержать мою работу:
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Большое спасибо вам за вашу поддержку!
Желаю всем добра, а так же Здоровья! Вы даёте мне возможоность жить и дышать! © by Sergey Hadzhioglu
To express gratitude and support my work:
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Thank you very much for your support!
I wish you all the best, and also Health! You give me the opportunity to live and breathe! © by Sergey Hadzhioglu
IMPORTANT NOTE!! PLEASE READ IT CAREFULLY!!
This product includes copyrighted third-party software licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Please see The GNU General Public License for the exact terms and conditions of this license. The firmware or any other product designed or produced by this project may contain in whole or in part pre-release, untested, or not fully tested works. This may contain errors that could cause failures or loss of data, and may be incomplete or contain inaccuracies. You expressly acknowledge and agree that use of software or any part, produced by this project, is at Your sole and entire risk.
ANY PRODUCT IS PROVIDED 'AS IS' AND WITHOUT WARRANTY, UPGRADES OR SUPPORT OF ANY KIND. ALL CONTRIBUTORS EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND/OR CONDITIONS, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES AND/OR CONDITIONS OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OF ACCURACY, OF QUIET ENJOYMENT, AND NONINFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS.