[04:12] <lotuspsychje> good morning
[06:54] <ducasse> good morning
[08:11] <TJ->  After 2 days of headaches I've finally discovered Intel is hostile to operating WiFi APs especially in 5GHz mode
[08:18] <ducasse> hiya TJ- 
[08:18]  * TJ- waves
[08:20] <ducasse> looking into getting a new laptop for ubuntu, what are you guys using?
[08:20] <TJ-> I've been trying to set up an AP on a PC Engines APU2 for 2 weeks now. Having done research, chose an Atheros device. Turns out ath10k and the core ath driver conspire with the device firmware to prevent access to the correct frequencies and operating parameters for most countries (specifically GB here) by forcing the minimal 'worldwide' regulatory domain which prevents initiating Tx (NO-IR
[08:20] <TJ-> flag)
[08:21] <TJ-> After applying various hacks to ath from openwrt and my own devising although ath now accepts and reports the correct country-code via 'iw reg get' it still lists only the minimal actual frequencies/operating modes with 'iw list' and is still NO-IR. 
[08:22] <ducasse> wow
[08:22] <ducasse> is there a reasoning for this?
[08:24] <TJ-> So, thought I'd get an Intel device since they're also open source, and bought an AX200 (802.11ax) device. That turns out to declare itself "self-managed" and can't be set using the kernel regulatory functions at all, and it does active detection (LAR - Location Aware Regulatory) which implies ti cannot do master/AP since it needs to receive beacons from other APs that are correctly sending
[08:24] <TJ-> IE Country frames
[08:24] <TJ-> up until kernel v5.5 iwlwifi had a module parameter lar_disable where you could override that and use the kernel setting ut it was removed "because user's shouldn't be setting it" !
[08:25] <TJ-> so now I have 2 supposedly open-source devices that actively prevent my operating correctly in my region as an AP
[08:25] <TJ-> ducasse: laptop: Lenovo E495 AMD Ryzen 7 based
[08:27] <ducasse> great, thanks
[08:27] <TJ-> I bought 6 of these in early 2020 just before  CoViD caused prices to go up; UK £550 each
[09:35] <tomreyn> ducasse: latest amd cpu (and graphics) generation with my preferences (this is mostly for the german market, yours may differ) https://geizhals.eu/?cat=nb&v=k&sort=p&bl1_id=30&xf=11120_2~12_8192~13697_300~15313_beleuchtet~18398_1~18749_802.11ax~525_Lenovo~6763_Ryzen+5000~8149_zzw~83_IPS
[09:36] <ducasse> thanks, tomreyn 
[09:37] <tomreyn> i didn't spot an option to choose between plastic / aluminium case there, though.
[09:37] <tomreyn> and watch out about ram: some are non-extendable
[09:38] <tomreyn> (and non-replacable, soldered-on)
[09:39] <TJ-> The E495s we upgraded from 8GiB to 32GiB without any problems - 4 minute job
[10:04] <ducasse> i'd just go for 32gb to begin with, i think
[10:05] <ducasse> that way i won't need a new desktop
[10:07] <TJ-> We did it that way because it was /much/ cheaper than buying the 32GIB preinstalled
[10:08] <ducasse> yeah, i can imagine