OpenWRT for Linksys WRT1900AC

[Mordred]

Well, this is a start...last time a router came along that had a Marvell chip set in it and I was interested in it, there was not going to be any third-party or open source firmware support for it (Linksys E4200v2). So I couldn't use it *smile*. Seems as though Marvell now sees the value of having open source firmware available for this one, glad to see it.

It is hard for a company with a history of proprietary software/firmware to swing around to full support of open source. Usually there's a deep-seated cultural belief that their business is based on that proprietary software/firmware. So it also isn't surprising to see them not provide a top-quality open source driver the first time around. But something to start with, and maybe better quality to come when they really start to believe that open source firmware can help sell their hardware. I guess that time will tell, and that Marvell will be keeping an eye on what this does for their bottom line *smile*.

For me, great news!

If it is the same BS as the broadcom opensource drivers, then forget it.

If you look at the openwrt dev comments, then it really sounds like the driver, that was posted, is unusable. Who knows if the performance of that oss driver is any close to the closed source which is not even as good as broadcoms, according to snb benchmark.

Thus the intention of opening up is just a disguise.
Now nobody can sue them for false advertising.

According to what I have seen, their own firmware sucks completely and includes lot of bugs too, just look at the linksys forum.


For $300 I expect a lot more. Right now getting an AC68U or R7000 is the better choice. They have DD-WRT support and soon Tomato support.

 

[RogerSC]

If it is the same BS as the broadcom opensource drivers, then forget it.

If you look at the openwrt dev comments, then it really sounds like the driver, that was posted, is unusable. Who knows if the performance of that oss driver is any close to the closed source which is not even as good as broadcoms, according to snb benchmark.

Thus the intention of opening up is just a disguise.
Now nobody can sue them for false advertising.

According to what I have seen, their own firmware sucks completely and includes lot of bugs too, just look at the linksys forum.


For $300 I expect a lot more. Right now getting an AC68U or R7000 is the better choice. They have DD-WRT support and soon Tomato support.

I do have an R7000 that I use with dd-wrt firmware...None the less, I think we'll have to wait and see where Marvell goes with this. And what can be done with what they've handed off.

Just my opinion...I'm glad to see a proprietary-oriented company stick their toe into open source, depends on what follows as to the usefulness of it.

 

[jalyst]

If you look at the openwrt dev comments, then it really sounds like the driver, that was posted, is unusable. Who knows if the performance of that oss driver is any close to the closed source which is not even as good as broadcoms, according to snb benchmark.

The one posted IS their driver, one & the same, that's the whole point, the reason why it's "unusable", is it's full of internalisms that only the devs intimately involved "get". It's poorly commented/doco'd, it's doco'd in such a way that's only easily intelligible by the devs originally involved, that compounds the diff. approach/structure openwrt devs are likely to prefer.

 

[xterc]

There is a huge difference between the Stock Linksys Firmware and the OpenWRT firmware for the WRT1900AC. I was going to return the router before installing OpenWRT (as it kept dropping packets). Streaming anything on my network was an impossibility, even over the wired connections.

After installing OpenWRT I've had no connection issues and the wireless signal is rock solid. I've managed to configure the firewall to prevent my son playing on his Vita past bed time (I've never used OpenWRT before, or played with Linux firewall settings).

Opening a video from a usb3 drive connected to the router was extremely quick (much quicker than from my NAS).

I've not looked at the source code for the driver, but I am aware of the differences between distributing source code for internal or public consumption. At least they have released something ?.?

I'm hoping to write some code in the router to interface to a wireless Arduino, I'm not sure what yet, but it should be interesting.

 

[jalyst]

I do find it odd that there'd be such a dramatic difference at this point, be good to hear other folks experiences...
Then again, perhaps the more comprehensive UI opens up extra controls/configurability of the radio which has made all the difference.

 

[Mordred]

The one posted IS their driver, one & the same, that's the whole point, the reason why it's "unusable", is it's full of internalisms that only the devs intimately involved "get". It's poorly commented/doco'd, it's doco'd in such a way that's only easily intelligible by the devs originally involved, that compounds the diff. approach/structure openwrt devs are likely to prefer.

If that is the case, why did they post a binary to the openwrt mailinglist and why does the openwrt sdk they posted only contains a binary module.
That does not make any sense it is more likely, that the driver that was included in the linksys gpl release is not the same driver as in official release and openwrt sdk.

If they ever wanted to work with openwrt and if they intended to open up the driver from the beginning, then they could have talked to openwrt devs month ago.

No, if you ask me, than this is complete BS. They claim opensource support, they publish some BS and now tell the customer it is up to the openwrt community.

Thus, unless this unit shows up in any official openwrt/dd-wrt/tomato list for supported routers, people should stay away from it.

 

[jalyst]

Take a deep breathe... ;-)
The info's just not there yet to be so, "knowing", that's the problem we have, at this point.

 

[speedingcheetah]

There is a huge difference between the Stock Linksys Firmware and the OpenWRT firmware for the WRT1900AC. I was going to return the router before installing OpenWRT (as it kept dropping packets). Streaming anything on my network was an impossibility, even over the wired connections.

After installing OpenWRT I've had no connection issues and the wireless signal is rock solid. I've managed to configure the firewall to prevent my son playing on his Vita past bed time (I've never used OpenWRT before, or played with Linux firewall settings).

Opening a video from a usb3 drive connected to the router was extremely quick (much quicker than from my NAS).

I've not looked at the source code for the driver, but I am aware of the differences between distributing source code for internal or public consumption. At least they have released something ?.?

I'm hoping to write some code in the router to interface to a wireless Arduino, I'm not sure what yet, but it should be interesting.

How are you installing OpenWRT on this model as of yet?....I don't see any builds for it.

Last I read, the weren't just getting to the planning stages of thinking about it. And having to recode the crap code they got from Marvel.

 

[jalyst]

There's a readme there (along with some other interesting doco):
https://github.com/wrt1900ac/opensource/tree/master/l_03Mar14_SDK_v3.5_OpenWRT/v3.5
If still having problems, read the posts here for some further clues/info:
https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=231045#p231045
All looks pretty straight-forward, don't have one myself to try it out, yet.
The wireless driver is what's "a mess" (from some OpenWRT devs perspective).

 

[xterc]

How are you installing OpenWRT on this model as of yet?....I don't see any builds for it.

Last I read, the weren't just getting to the planning stages of thinking about it. And having to recode the crap code they got from Marvel.

This seems to be a common misconception. Simply install the 'openwrt-armadaxp--jffs2-128k.img' found in the GitHub repository using the stock firmware updater.

 

[speedingcheetah]

This seems to be a common misconception. Simply install the 'openwrt-armadaxp--jffs2-128k.img' found in the GitHub repository using the stock firmware updater.

A pre-alpha or just to see if it runs build. Too risky. They are still missing stuff they need according to the other posts.
They haven't actually made a release yet. Everywhere else I read, won't be a release for quite some time. I would rather wait until a stable version is released....much less risk.

I assume you can flash the stock firmware back after you flash to OpenWRT. Also, how easy is this router to brick and how to unbrick it? I have read some posts from that link posted of people that flashed that image and it caused issues. There is something abut it having dual firmware partions you can boot to in case one fails, but then, if you mess up both...how you can use either? I am not sure of the details....it is quite early in the game here.

I have only used OpenWRT on an old Dlink DIR615 model and that was listed on their website download area. I didn't really like it that much. Tomato was so much better and more organized.

Speaking of Tomato...anyone over there working on this model?

 

[xterc]

Either way, for me the 'pre-build' is more stable than the stock release firmware.

 

[jalyst]

A pre-alpha or just to see if it runs build. Too risky. They are still missing stuff they need according to the other posts.
They haven't actually made a release yet. Everywhere else I read, won't be a release for quite some time. I would rather wait until a stable version is released....much less risk.

I assume you can flash the stock firmware back after you flash to OpenWRT. Also, how easy is this router to brick and how to unbrick it? I have read some posts from that link posted of people that flashed that image and it caused issues. There is something abut it having dual firmware partions you can boot to in case one fails, but then, if you mess up both...how you can use either? I am not sure of the details....it is quite early in the game here.

I have only used OpenWRT on an old Dlink DIR615 model and that was listed on their website download area. I didn't really like it that much. Tomato was so much better and more organized.

Speaking of Tomato...anyone over there working on this model?

OWRT is (more-or-less) the meta-distro for all others, it's where they get their base.
So, the sooner we get a stable OpenWRT, the sooner we'll ultimately get the others.
The stable will only come with testing, that's the whole point...
If folks do their homework, they'll have a solid backup/recovery process, thus they'll have piece of mind.

Every user I've seen post their experience has only had minor issues, on-the-whole it's been a better experience than stock.
Where are you reading all these supposedly very bad experiences?
That's not to say they won't come at some point for some users, they probably will.
Your remaining answers are in those links I referenced, if you need further guiding I'd start with their mail-list/IRC_channel.

 

[jalyst]

Also, don't quote me on this but I vaguely recall Belkin expressing a liberal support policy, for now.
e.g. you brick yours & try everything to de-brick w/o success, you send it to them & they'll try too, if they're unsuccessful they'll repair/replace.*
Best to confirm that with Belkin though by asking more than one diff. contact point...

*most likely the latter, I assume

 

[thiggins]

Every user I've seen post their experience has only had minor issues, on-the-whole it's been a better experience than stock.

What is better than stock? My impression is that people are finding the router is stable. The issue is not enough features.

 

[thiggins]

Also, don't quote me on this but I vaguely recall Belkin expressing a liberal support policy, for now.
e.g. you brick yours & try everything to de-brick w/o success, you send it to them & they'll try too, if they're unsuccessful they'll repair/replace.*
Best to confirm that with Belkin though by asking more than one diff. contact point...

*most likely the latter, I assume

Really? That would be highly unusual.

 

[jalyst]

What is better than stock? My impression is that people are finding the router is stable. The issue is not enough features.

I was referring to the beta fw image that's now available...
According to those who've tried it so far, it's more feature rich* yet still quite stable/usable.
I haven't tried it myself so I can't speak from experience...

*obviously not significantly more on the wireless side

Really? That would be highly unusual.

I concur....

 

[RogerSC]

What is better than stock? My impression is that people are finding the router is stable. The issue is not enough features.

Yes, I'd say the major difference between the R7000 on dd-wrt and the WRT1900AC on stock firmware is indeed lack of features on the latter *smile*. No problem with either with the hardware, the WRT1900AC feels as solid as I had been hearing, but the stock firmware for both of these are not really up to my expectations for their hardware quality. However, using dd-wrt on the R7000 is much better, both in regard to stability and features.

When dd-wrt and/or tomato comes out for the WRT1900AC, I would expect to find the level of features that I want to see for this router.

 

[jalyst]

So, compare non-stock to non-stock, there's an OpenWRT image for the 1900AC now, folks have been using it w/o huge issues (so far).

*UPDATE*
There seems to be more fresh activity, & (yet another) new batch of code:
https://github.com/wrt1900ac/opensource/commits/master

P.S.
You really like to "smile" ;-)

 

[speedingcheetah]

So, compare non-stock to non-stock, there's an OpenWRT image for the 1900AC now, folks have been using it w/o huge issues (so far).

*UPDATE*
There seems to be more fresh activity, & (yet another) new batch of code:
https://github.com/wrt1900ac/opensource/commits/master

P.S.
You really like to "smile" ;-)

Not really....I see more than 1 user with issues.

http://community.linksys.com/t5/Wireless-Routers/WRT1900AC-May-have-bricked-it/td-p/811096

http://community.linksys.com/t5/Wireless-Routers/WRT1900AC-and-OpenWrt/td-p/810750