[384.9_Alpha - builds] Testing all variants.

[jerry6]

so you're saying the ac3200 is not getting support from Asus , it is going eol if they are not developing new FW , 384 Thats what they are saying in my books ,wish they would be more upfront about this besides no more Merlin I DROP my ac3200 . ,

 

[skeal]

so you're saying the ac3200 is not getting support from Asus , it is going eol if they are not developing new FW , 384 Thats what they are saying in my books ,wish they would be more upfront about this besides no more Merlin I DROP my ac3200 . ,

It is not their flagship model for a reason. It's been a problem from the get go. Asus would probably like to stop supporting it, as soon as possible. I wish there was a better solution. I almost bought one when I got my AC3100, It sucks that this does happen with all manufacturers. D-link is really bad for this. 1 Year support if that. You could look at @john9527 fork to see if your model is supported, it has many feature of this f/w and more.

 

[john9527]

You could look at @john9527 fork to see if your model is supported, it has many feature of this f/w and more.

Sorry, but my forks stops at the AC68

 

[rich710]

So, I'm on a AC87U since some years, if I decide to change it to be able to run the latest Merlin in the future, which Router do you Recommend to get the most bang for the bucks and the most future-safe solution. Even if I know that you can't answer for when Asus decide to not support it anymore.

Thanks
Richard

[QUOTE="Bottom line is, RT-AC3200 (and RT-AC87U) owners are currently on an extended lease in terms of support by my firmware. Officially, I should have abandoned support for it the instant Asus migrated everything else to the 384 codebase. At the time it only required a couple of kludges to the code to make the two work together, so I kept going on with them. But, I always suspected that as the differences will grow between 382 and 384, it might eventually reach a point where it will no longer be possible for me to support the 382-based models at all."[/QUOTE]

 

[D_Day]

So, I'm on a AC87U since some years, if I decide to change it to be able to run the latest Merlin in the future, wich Router do you Recommend to get the most bang for the bucks and the most future-safe solution. Even if I know that you can't answer for when Asus decide to not support it anymore.

Thanks
Richard

[QUOTE="Bottom line is, RT-AC3200 (and RT-AC87U) owners are currently on an extended lease in terms of support by my firmware. Officially, I should have abandoned support for it the instant Asus migrated everything else to the 384 codebase. At the time it only required a couple of kludges to the code to make the two work together, so I kept going on with them. But, I always suspected that as the differences will grow between 382 and 384, it might eventually reach a point where it will no longer be possible for me to support the 382-based models at all.

[/QUOTE]
I would say look for their best selling routers and go with those.

 

[visortgw]

So, I'm on a AC87U since some years, if I decide to change it to be able to run the latest Merlin in the future, which Router do you Recommend to get the most bang for the bucks and the most future-safe solution. Even if I know that you can't answer for when Asus decide to not support it anymore.

Thanks
Richard

[QUOTE="Bottom line is, RT-AC3200 (and RT-AC87U) owners are currently on an extended lease in terms of support by my firmware. Officially, I should have abandoned support for it the instant Asus migrated everything else to the 384 codebase. At the time it only required a couple of kludges to the code to make the two work together, so I kept going on with them. But, I always suspected that as the differences will grow between 382 and 384, it might eventually reach a point where it will no longer be possible for me to support the 382-based models at all."

RT-AC86U. I transitioned from an RT-AC68U, and a friend transitioned from his RT-AC87U. Both of us are impressed with the 86U, and we don't regret our decision at all. FYI, we both ran the latest Merlin firmware on our legacy devices.

 

[D_Day]

RT-AC86U. I transitioned from an RT-AC68U, and a friend transitioned from his RT-AC87U. Both of us are impressed with the 86U, and we don't regret our decision at all. FYI, we both ran the latest Merlin firmware on our legacy devices.

I’ve transitioned from ac68u to ac86u and it’s a great router.

 

[DAVID LONG]

I’ve transitioned from ac68u to ac86u and it’s a great router.

Ditto.

 

[D_Day]

Ditto.

I still use my ac68u as a repeater because I live in a big old house with thick walls, both work well together

 

[matthew johnson]

Those are simply the filesystem partitions getting mounted, nothing unusual there.

Thank You. I did not ever see them before and had saw it in the logs when i was searching for a issue with 2.4. It happened right after i turned 2.4 wireless off and back on cause it had stop working. It was the weirdest thing.Everything else had connections and internet except 2.4 it was on and had connections but no internet access.

 

[RMerlin]

so you're saying the ac3200 is not getting support from Asus , it is going eol if they are not developing new FW , 384 Thats what they are saying in my books ,wish they would be more upfront about this besides no more Merlin I DROP my ac3200 . ,

No. Being EOL means they would no longer release any firmware at all, which is not the case. They simply aren't adding new features. They are still releasing new firmwares with bug and security fixes.

 

[RMerlin]

Thank You. I did not ever see them before and had saw it in the logs when i was searching for a issue with 2.4. It happened right after i turned 2.4 wireless off and back on cause it had stop working. It was the weirdest thing.Everything else had connections and internet except 2.4 it was on and had connections but no internet access.

These typically occur at boot time.

 

[cmkelley]

No. Being EOL means they would no longer release any firmware at all, which is not the case. They simply aren't adding new features. They are still releasing new firmwares with bug and security fixes.

Which, while it's not really what we've come to expect from ASUS, is still above average for the industry. The 3200 was released 4 years ago, and has to some extent been the problem child ... there has to be a reason ASUS hasn't moved it to the 384 code base, but has for (some) other routers of the same age or older.

In my mind, even the AC86 / AX88 are a bit risky having the HND platform which isn't shared with any other routers. ASUS could decide to go another direction and orphan these. Searching the archives, the 3200 is (or was in 2016) on its own SDK, complicating things, are the HND routers on their own SDK?

 

[RMerlin]

Which, while it's not really what we've come to expect from ASUS, is still above average for the industry. The 3200 was released 4 years ago, and has to some extent been the problem child ... there has to be a reason ASUS hasn't moved it to the 384 code base, but has for (some) other routers of the same age or older.

That's because the 384 codebase is currently reserved to AiMesh-enabled models. There are in fact bugs in the code that prevents it from working properly on non-AiMesh models at this time (which I had to fix on my end). Everything else is on the 380 or 382 codebase, with a few exceptions that might be on a special dedicated branch.

In my mind, even the AC86 / AX88 are a bit risky having the HND platform which isn't shared with any other routers.

No more risky than the RT-AC88U/AC3100/AC5300 which are the only devices on the SDK 7.14 platform. HND is simply the latest, up-to-date Broadcom platform.

RT-N66U, RT-AC66U: SDK 6.34 (MIPS)
RT-AC56/68/87: SDK 6.37 (ARM)
RT-AC3200: SDK 7.x (the release before 7.14)
RT-AC88U/AC3100/AC5300: SDK 7.14
RT-AC86U, GT-AC5300, RT-AX88U, GT-AX11000: HND 5.02

It's simply the newer SDK, which replaces the older one as there has been further hardware changes.

 

[cmkelley]

No more risky than the RT-AC88U/AC3100/AC5300 which are the only devices on the SDK 7.14 platform. HND is simply the latest, up-to-date Broadcom platform.

It's simply the newer SDK, which replaces the older one as there has been further hardware changes.

Apparently I know far less than I think I do. :-( I mis-understood the meaning of your August 2016 update ...

 

[jerry6]

It is not their flagship model for a reason. It's been a problem from the get go. Asus would probably like to stop supporting it, as soon as possible. I wish there was a better solution. I almost bought one when I got my AC3100, It sucks that this does happen with all manufacturers. D-link is really bad for this. 1 Year support if that. You could look at @john9527 fork to see if your model is supported, it has many feature of this f/w and more.

to bad as it's a damn good router been zero downtime in 4 years , only trouble was early onwith smaet connectother than that problem freeand dlink linksys netgear been here lost support and never fixed bugs after 6 month nrver mind years

 

[jerry6]

Which, while it's not really what we've come to expect from ASUS, is still above average for the industry. The 3200 was released 4 years ago, and has to some extent been the problem child ... there has to be a reason ASUS hasn't moved it to the 384 code base, but has for (some) other routers of the same age or older.

3200 problem child mine has been problem free for years most stablew router i've ever oned , only pro was smart connect inthe beginning , other than tht it;s been great i have 3 and maintain another 5 to 20 for people , not one has ever had a problem

In my mind, even the AC86 / AX88 are a bit risky having the HND platform which isn't shared with any other routers. ASUS could decide to go another direction and orphan these. Searching the archives, the 3200 is (or was in 2016) on its own SDK, complicating things, are the HND routers on their own SDK?

 

[RMerlin]

Apparently I know far less than I think I do. :-( I mis-understood the meaning of your August 2016 update ...

That's because back when it was introduced, it was a major change from the previous SDK, with a rather different architecture. It just required some time to mature, and for Asus to iron out the new issues introduced by it. By now I would say HND is much more mature, and the most important issues it had introduced have been taken care of.

The RT-AC56U and RT-AC68U went through similar growing pains when they were introduced, as Asus's first ARM-based routers. Today, the RT-AC68U is one of their most stable platform.

 

[cmkelley]

That's because back when it was introduced, it was a major change from the previous SDK, with a rather different architecture. It just required some time to mature, and for Asus to iron out the new issues introduced by it. By now I would say HND is much more mature, and the most important issues it had introduced have been taken care of.

The RT-AC56U and RT-AC68U went through similar growing pains when they were introduced, as Asus's first ARM-based routers. Today, the RT-AC68U is one of their most stable platform.

I also meant as far as the 3200 ... when I read the Aug 2016 update I thought it meant the 3200 was all on its own, I didn't realize there were more than just 1 other SDKs at that time.

 

[m33ts4k0z]

@RMerlin thanks for your continued updates. I just saw that Asus released the gpl 384.45149 for the AC88U. Will you add it to 384.9? Thanks in advance