Evaluating a return to it from some time in pfSense--it is wonderfully simple. At the same time, its the wrong abstraction for most people who want to manage childrens' devices and iots because it is no abstraction, the operator must know many implementation details that aren't worth knowing outside the system.
Could you provide any specifics? Are you wanting a dumbed-down UI that hides most of the functionality, or are you wanting the existing functionality to be exposed to the user differently?
To be clear, OpenWRT is a great OS. The UI is a bit old fashioned, existing functionality could be exposed more cleanly, and the terminology could be more intuitive.
This is basically what gl-inet did! You can compare how they expose functionality. Of course, it’s limited, but eventually the remaining features in LUCI could be incorporated in the same UI.
IMO it's valid criticism and at the same time IMO GUIs are unnecessary frills.
If you've tried Cisco routers - you can export ALL configurations by running command `show running-configuration`, or `display current-configuration` on Huawei routers, or `show configuration commands`on Vyatta/VyOS/EdgeOS, which can then be restored onto a brand new router by just right click pasting that log into the ssh session.
That's VASTLY superior to ANY GUI. IMO. YMMV. IANAL. Views are my own. But it is.
All UCI configuration on OpenWRT is stored in /etc/config/, and exporting/importing it is as simple as one scp command. The GUI is great for discoverability, on the other hand.
It’s not user friendly at all.