OpenWrt’s latest update adds a piece of Alpine Linux
OpenWrt’s latest update adds a piece of Alpine Linux
https://www.howtogeek.com/openwrt-latest-update-adds-a-piece-of-alpine-linux/
Publish Date: 2026-03-06 12:00:00
Source Domain: www.howtogeek.com
The popular open-source firmware for routers and other networking equipment, OpenWrt, just released a new major update. OpenWrt 25.12 is now available after “over one year” of development, with new features and more supported devices.
If you’ve never used it, OpenWrt is an alternative firmware for wireless routers, access points, network switches, and other embedded devices, powered by the Linux kernel. It can be an excellent option for reviving and repurposing old networking hardware, or just a way to turn a Raspberry Pi or regular PC into a high-end router.
OpenWrt 25.12 is switching the package manager from opkg to apk, the Alpine Package Keeper. That’s the same software used for installing and updating packages on Alpine Linux, postmarketOS, and various other Linux projects. The reason for the switch is simple—apk is an active software project, but opkg is a fork only used by OpenWrt and no longer maintained.
The developers noted that apk “supports most features of opkg,” and “only very few package names changed.” There’s a support document that can help you migrate existing OpenWrt systems, and it explains the new equivalents to old opkg commands.
The attended.sysupgrade LuCI application is also now installed by default, if your device has enough storage space. It can help you upgrade to new OpenWrt firmware versions, preserve the system configuration during upgrades, rebuild firmware images with your currently-installed packages, and other tasks. The developers explained, “This dramatically simplifies upgrades: with just a few clicks in LuCI and a short wait, a custom firmware image is built and installed without manual intervention.”
There’s another helpful upgrade for commands: OpenWrt 25.12 now saves the shell command history in a RAM-backed filesystem. That means your command history is no longer lost between logins, and it prevents unnecessary writes to flash storage, which can limit the lifespan of some…
