[Bloat] [Cerowrt-devel] failing to find the "declared victory" in a current wifi router

[Mikael Abrahamsson]

On Mon, 6 Jul 2015, Joe Touch wrote:

> 	- CC-rc2 doesn't have a WRT1200AC build
> 	presumably I should have used mvebu-armada-385-linksys-caiman,
> 	but it's not at all clear

Yes, that's the one for the WRT1200AC. It's called "caiman" internally at 
Linksys it seems.

> 		- and I'd have to install LUCI and/or reinstall
> 		factory firmware from the command line, and none
> 		of that is all that clear, esp. a recovery route
> 		that doesn't involve voiding warranty to wire in
> 		a serial port

You can flash back the factory firmware without serial, you just use 
sysupgrade with the Linksys factory image. I've done this. It's not easy 
to get into the box, and I have plastic dents on my unit now because I 
failed to understand how it fits together. I also ended up buying pin 
headers with tweezers to connect the TTL-USB serial device to the 
connector on the PCB. I have since then received proper cables so now I 
have wires sticking out and I'm waiting for connectors so I can make a 
more permanent solution.

I have also had to use the serial console on mine because something broke 
in the upgrade process one of the 30-40 times I did sysupgrade.

I won't speak of the "declared victory". In my opinion the victory might 
be "there is now knowledge on how to do this and there is substantial 
awareness in the rest of the industry" but it's definitely not executed 
yet.

And yes, you're right, there is very little "mainstream" about OpenWrt. 
It's reasonably easy with a lot of devices (and there are guides to read), 
but it's not like anyone can do it. It's like changing oil in a car, it's 
not that hard, but if you don't know how to do it, you need to study first 
and find correct tools in order to do it. Also, if you get it wrong you 
might damage things.

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se