[Cerowrt-devel] WNDR3700v4 is out...

[dpreed at reed.com]

Does anyone happen to know exactly what (Chinese) shop does the software for Netgear?  I bet Atheros/Qualcomm have a favorite outsourcing partner.
 
It is quite interesting that it is OpenWRT-based.   The reason I mention this is that one goal is to get all the goodies adopted in the commercial market, and perhaps we could encourage that shop (and other ones) to get the fixes in Cerowrt into their pipeline somehow.
 
It's kind of neutral with respect to FOSS - I think for the purpose of FOSS there needs to be one truly open hardware platform with state of the art capabiliities.   But one can have a much more effective conversation with the software shop than with Netgear, which probably has no capabilities whatever to change the software in-house.  (as I know from HP and Cisco - who outsource all their technical work to China).
 
-----Original Message-----
From: "Dave Taht" <dave.taht at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2012 8:02am
To: "David Lang" <david at lang.hm>
Cc: "Richard Brown" <richard.e.brown at dartware.com>, "<cerowrt-devel at lists.bufferbloat.net>" <cerowrt-devel at lists.bufferbloat.net>
Subject: Re: [Cerowrt-devel] WNDR3700v4 is out...



On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 2:27 AM, David Lang <david at lang.hm> wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Dec 2012, Richard Brown wrote:
>
>> The wndr3700v4 is out, and appears to be a good hardware upgrade from
>> the 3800 series, but it's not supported by openwrt yet.
>>
>> I took a look at their GPL source distribution. And yea! it's openwrt.
>> And boo! it's ancient openwrt, for example dnsmasq is 2.39 (current is
>> 2.64), and their kernel is 2.6.31.
>>
>> I think the cpu and ethernet chips tho look a lot better: Atheros
>> AR9344+ AR9580(5GHz)+AR9344(2.4GHz). It's my hope these do ipv6
>> better.
>>
>> I found a WNDR3700v4 at the local Staples for $99.99. I wasn't brave
>> enough to buy it. Here's an image of the box so you can recognize it...
>
>
> I've purchased one, but I don't have the openwrt experiance to bootstrap
> this. I have built my own openwrt images for the 3700v2 and 3800 and have
> been using Linux since the 0.99 kernel days, so I am very comfortable
> mucking with kernel compile options.
>
> If someone is willing to coach me through the process, I'd be happy to do
> the experimentation.

I've ordered one too, but I would argue that a concerted effort would
need to be made on the part of some core #openwrt devs to get it
anywhere. The cpu is a mips 74k. It's a dual issue core with a very,
very long pipeline, so although it boasts twice the instructions per
clock than the 24k, and in simple benchmarks like drystone, rocks,
that deep pipeline isn't helpful for tons of code. (IMHO). It doesn't
look like the cache architecture is improved much, either.

It's not clear what the ethernet driver is, there appear to be legal
issues on the equivalent broadcom ethernet device, and so on, and so
forth.

You will need, at least, a 3.3v serial port and adaptor, and jtag
might be needed. If you want to learn about just how painful it is to
bring up a new board, this is your chance!

It makes sense to start a thread on openwrt-devel about doing the port.

https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=41092

And/or find some other still supported hardware still being shipped by
some other manufacturer.

Frankly, if we truly have to jump platforms, I'd rather go arm.

> David Lang
> _______________________________________________
> Cerowrt-devel mailing list
> Cerowrt-devel at lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/cerowrt-devel



-- 
Dave Täht

Fixing bufferbloat with cerowrt: http://www.teklibre.com/cerowrt/subscribe.html
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