This approach sounds good.

I think the correct approach is both, if you have the option.

Most devices accept two name servers. Redundancy is always good, especially for DNS.

I’ve used this list generating package for years now with great results: https://github.com/opencoff/unbound-adblock/tree/master

It is designed to generate blocking lists that can be used with unbound, the DNS resolver. There are even instructions for how to configure unbound so if you are new to it all you can follow along.

I use the resulting lists in my two local DNS name servers, running unbound.

The way it works is that if a query for a blocked address comes in to one of thenlocal DNS servers it returns a domain not found result. If the address is not on the block list then it forwards the query on to an internet DNS resolver securely using DoT.

You can gain further control over your DNS results by choosing those upstream resolvers carefully. Quad9 and Cloudflare etc all offer DoT resolving, along with some further filtering (eg. for malware), or completely unfiltered DNS if that’s what you want.

Services like cleanbrowsing.org offer more fine grained filtering, useful if you want a family-friendly set of DNS results, based off categorify.org. You can pay for really fine tuned results, or there is a free layer which provides still very useful basic categories.

Combining the two forms of filtering, local advert and tracking blocking, along with open internet content categorisation, seems to be very effective.

I get complaints about too many adverts when my kids are on WiFi away from home. I take it as a compliment.

Edit: Forgot to mention! Another minor gripe I have is that my current 1 router / 2 routers-as-AP solution isn’t meshed, so my devices have to be aware of all 3 networks as I walk across my property. It’s a pain that I know can be solved with buying dedicated access points (…right?), but I’d like to know other’s experiences with this, either with OpenWRT, or other network solutions!

This works very well with OpenWRT on each AP and/or router device by using the same ESSID and password combo on each of them, enabling WLAN roaming and also 802.11r Fast Transition to allow your mobile devices to hand-off quickly from one AP to another as signal strength levels demand. With this enabled you keep the same IP address, and even SSH sessions don’t drop when you move from one AP to another, it all happens in the background. As far as the end-user is concerned it is all just one big happy wifi network.

802.11r is not mesh, that’s a separate thing but and you can do it with OpenWRT too. I don’t need to because I have ethernet to all my APs, so all the RF bandwidth is available for the last leg from AP to device(s), and not being used by back-haul from AP to AP through to the router as well.

In your use case I would consider grouping devices into categories and having a different wifi network for each category with the dhcp and firewall rules set accordingly.

VLANs on the ethernet-side might also be useful, but it sounds like most of your devices are on WiFi, so it might well be possible to get a “mature” setup without needing that extra complexity.

As others have said, backing these settings up and restoring them to a new device in the case of hardware failure is generally straightforward. Care is needed when replacing the broken device with a new one because of naming conventions varying from device to device, but the network logic, and things like dhcp reservations can be carried over.

Windows 98

If you weren’t at a university it was generally a challenge to get hold of disks. Downloading at home took forever on a 28.8 or even 56k modem (ie. 56 kilobits per second).

Slackware and Redhat disk sets were the thing, in my experience. But generally that only gave you the compiled code, not the source (although there was an another set of disks with the source packages).

If you wanted to recompile stuff you had to download the right set of packages, and be prepared to handle version conflicts on your own (with mailing list and usenet support).

Recompiling the kernel with specific patches for graphics cards, sound cards, modems and other devices (I remember scanners in particular), or specific combinations of hardware was relatively common. “Use the source, Luke!” was a common admonition. Often times specific FAQ pages or howtos would be made available for software packages, including games.

XFree86 was very powerful on hardware it supported, but was very finnicky. See the other posts about the level of detail that had to be supplied to get combinations of graphics cards and monitors working without the appearance of magic smoke.

Running Linux was mostly a enthusiast/hobbyist/geek thing, for those who wanted to see what was possible, and those who wanted to tinker with something approaching Unix, and those who wanted to stretch the limits of what their hardware could do.

Many of those enthusiasts and hobbyists and geeks discovered that Linux could do far more than anyone previously had been prepared to admit or realise. They, and others like them, took it with them into progressively more significant, and valuable projects, and it began to take over the world.