Is there any Linux based* router distribution which is not OpenWRT and is maintained?

OpenWRT lacks any support for running virtual machines in a sane way.

*) so no pfsense/opnsense

@hrw

you should decide if you want a router or a hypervisor.

@UffTaTa this router has lot of spare cpu/memory and I would like to run HomeAssistant in a VM on it.

So I can power off my NAS without losing control over my lights.

@hrw

but if you want either of that, but instead a egglayingmilkandwollgivingpig, then take any of that plugable server distros that are around where you can plug in router and NAS and VM functionality ( Domain server distos, Zentyal, UCS, Unraid, etc ...)

@hrw

a real router has a stripped down OS for security reasons to minimize the attack surface. So what you want is a hypervisor running a router VM in it, to circumvent that restrictions.

@UffTaTa hardware is unable to passthrough network cards.

Checked that way already.

@hrw There's always Yocto. *runs*

@hrw Why "router distribution" and not a general purpose distro like Debian stable then? It provides the functionality of the router distro, plus more.
I just revert to router distro like OpenWRT if it's about lean hardware where I can't install something like Debian.

@globalc I like Luci (OpenWRT web interface).

Sure,can configure everything once and keep it running, but sometimes you just need to click something.

@hrw @UffTaTa is the VM part really mandatory as people seem to be doing this with containers (LXC or docker) to run Home Assistant e.g. on Turris Omnia routers.

@vbabka @UffTaTa the amount of "you cannot do that in a container" in HA was scary.

VM just works.

@hrw If it has kvm built as a module, I wonder how hard it would be to run firecracker inside openwrt; I think it's pretty self contained.

@hrw depending on how diy you wanna go theres always alpine/pmos

(seriously though not ootb, although i would love to have some pre-configured router stuff in pmOS)