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

[Joe Touch]

Hi, Rich,

On 7/6/2015 7:23 PM, Rich Brown wrote:
> Hi Joe,
> 
> The OpenWrt firmware project is a "some assembly required" affair. 

That might be less daunting if there were assembly instructions. I.e.,
I'm suggesting that the instructions need revision. Work there could
have a significant payoff in a larger test community (I'm not exactly a
hardware noob, but I found it annoyingly obfuscated).

> Although it's not always easy to find, the site has a number of resources:
> 	- Buyer's Guide at http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buyerguide

That is useful for picking from among the currently supported versions,
but perhaps it'd be useful to take a colleague with you to a store and
see how helpful that all is. It's nearly impossible to find any of the
devices in the list or to verify whether a particular device in a box
has the required version of motherboard and firmware needed.

> 	- The specific guidance to search Amazon for "OpenWrt" - see: http://amzn.to/1mONYr0

That turns up quite a bit of devices that aren't supported, FWIW.

> 	- The forum at: https://forum.openwrt.org/viewforum.php?id=10 mentions lots of routers

Indeed; more isn't better.

> As for specific routers:
> - The WNDR3800 remains our gold standard for CeroWrt builds. It'll
> do SQM up to ~30 mbps, then the CPU runs out of gas.

May I also suggest moving to another standard that hasn't been
explicitly "end-of-life'd" by the manufacturer.

> - Check the OpenWrt Table of Hardware (ToH) to see what other routers
> support the current stable 14.07/Barrier Breaker (BB) builds.

Sure - I spent several days in Target, Best Buy, and Fry's trying to
decipher whether particular products were supported - again often
difficult without UPC numbers (boxes don't always indicate version)

> - Many people on this list have good luck with the TP-Link Archer C7
> v2. I believe it'll route at cable speeds. I'm using it very
> successfully with OpenWrt BB release on a 7 mbps DSL line.

Here's a good example of how useful the information on the OpenWRT
website can be. Everyone seems to refer to this as "Archer C7", everyone
except the TP-Link website. Their search finds no products matching that
description, and the WIFI routers there are listed with other codes,
e.g.:TL-WDR7500 - except you won't find that number on the hardware page
-- you have to click through to the page for that device.

For that device, like for many, the most recent version (i.e., the one
more likely to arrive on a blind web order, or on most store shelves) is
not yet supported.

> - If you have been following the Linksys WRT1900AC and WRT1200AC 
> thread at
> https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=50173&action=newyou'll see
> that the CC builds are sorta, kinda working. There are a lot of moving
> pieces still, and despite the CC RC2 status, stable builds only come
> out a few days apart. I would stay away from it if you're not willing
> to participate in a science experiment.

Well, the 23-Apr-2015 build by Kaloz works fine - except that the SQM
package fails to install.

What I'm baffled by here is that the main trunk builds leave LUCI out;
that's seems
quite short-sighted, IMO.

> There is a team working to improve the OpenWrt site, but our work
> has not yet been "blessed" by the the admin's who maintain the core pages of
> the site.

And I appreciate and understand that. The CeroWRT site could similarly
use an update.

I.e., there's ample opportunity here to build a larger community with a
few simple steps:

	- refer to routers by the manufacturer's designation
	- create builds with both LUCI and (if possible) SQM
	- make a short-list of a few currently available routers
	for which an integrated build exists *for the most recent
	motherboard version*

All of this could be done on the CeroWRT site until it can be put on
OpenWRT.

These are fairly direct ways to lower the bar, which seems unnecessarily
high here.

Joe

> Best,
> 
> Rich Brown
> 
> On Jul 6, 2015, at 9:02 PM, Joe Touch <touch at isi.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Hi, all,
>>
>> I'm posting because of my recent frustration with the claim that
>> bufferbloat solutions have been "pushed up into the OpenWRT and
>> commercial routers.
>>
>> I spent the bulk of last weekend trying to find a COTS WIFI router that
>> supported OpenWRT with bufferbloat (SQM) extensions.
>>
>> I tried a Linksys WRT1200AC, and here's what I found:
>>
>> 	- Kaloz's 23-Apr-2015 build installs fine and comes up
>> 	with a web server (LUCI), but does NOT include SQM
>>
>> 		- trying to install the SQM packages fails
>> 		due to a kernel version incompatibility
>> 		(for a 23-Apr-2015 build?!)
>>
>> 	- 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
>>
>> 		- 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
>>
>> Given the "declared victory" (http://www.bufferbloat.net/news/53),
>> perhaps someone one one of these lists can explain why there's no clear
>> information on a current device that supports a current build that
>> actually supports these fixes?
>>
>> I.e., if you were trying to make this obscure, you're doing a very good job.
>>
>> FWIW.
>>
>> Joe
>>
>>
>>
>> 	
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>