[Release 380/Legacy] Asuswrt-Merlin 380.70 is now available

[HawkInOz]

Working great on my RT-AC88U for two days now. Thank you!

 

[Sanna1967]

+ 1 . Thanx for this final release

 

[RMerlin]

versus John's which is based on the quite old 374 branch

Don't pay too much attention to the fact his version shows 374.xx - John backported a lot of fixes from newer releases. His code is much newer than the original 374 code it was initially based on.

 

[hjohan13]

Working great on my AC5300 for 2 straight days without any glitch. Great work Merlin.

 

[kjoshj]

Don't pay too much attention to the fact his version shows 374.xx - John backported a lot of fixes from newer releases. His code is much newer than the original 374 code it was initially based on.

This is very true, I also question the pace of releases on updates from Asus on the two models not making it to NG, it feels like Asus is already love lost for the N66, AC66, and even the AC56 it looks like.

380.70 is working fine on my AC66, though I do nothing unusual with it.

 

[Beherit]

Thanks for this one. I upgraded from 380.67 on my AC87 and no longer have issues connecting my old ASUS laptop to the 5 GHz WiFi. Previously it used to disconnect and reconnect constantly, forcing me to use the 2,4 GHz WiFi instead.

 

[netware5]

I suppose that upgrading from 380.68_4 does not need factory reset? Isn't it?

 

[Blinkyz]

I suppose that upgrading from 380.68_4 does not need factory reset? Isn't it?

No

 

[Sanna1967]

upgrading from 380.68_4 does not need factory reset?

No need

 

[jass]

Just a curiousity.

This is mainly written so it might possible contribute in some way to the debugging of the Asus fw.

I have the following setup (all still on Merlin 380.70 due to stability reasons):

1 ac88u router
3 ac88u ap's
2 ac66u ap's

approx: 75 users/clients of all sorts

I decided to switch my ap's back from ap mode to router mode, so i could make use of bandwidth limiter on all my "AP's" in hope of more stability/uptime.

I went flawlessly on the three ac88u's, and pretty much on auto pilot the same on the ac66. After a short time the complaints started to come, and there were something that was not right.

After a bit of head scrathing, it turned out that the two ac66 magically had gotten the same mac adress as the laptop I used to make the changes.

This only applied to the two ac66. I made the changes wirelessly connected to each ap, and did exactly the same on all five ap's.


And I would also like to mention another experience.

For the last couple of years i've been battling bufferbloats, bandwidth hogs and all sorts in my efford to get the most my network. And my experience is that nothing come close to using the plain bandwidth limiter with fq_codel. This is by far the best way in my opinion to achieve: fair sharing of bandwidth for all, max use of the available bandwidth and max router stability.

I keep reading of people using special scripts, tuning and tweeking QoS settings, but still not satisfied (most likely due to Asus original fw still has a lot of bugs, which also affects Merlins fw to some degree when it's closed source). But this is the really easy way to get all the above.

But remember two things:

if your local network is 192.168.1.1, type in the following in the clientlist section of the bandwidth limiter: 192.168.1.0/24 along with your slightly reduced download/upload values and hit apply.

Also remember that whenever you make any changes in any of the router setup pages, hit the apply button in the bandwidth limiter section again as the last thing you do each time.

It just don't get any easier nor better than this, but thats just my opinion.

 

[nash16]

Hi @RMerlin

Thank you very much for your support Eric, it is brilliant and appreciated, I would ask if RT-AC66U would be able to upgrade as well as original firmware does from Asus (at least security fixes), because it has been revamped yesterday to: 3.0.0.4.382.50470.

So it's a new GPL with different base, and maybe the stability and security fixes help to our legacy routers with a new life for people without too much money for upgrade the hardware.


Thanks again and congrats for NG branch too!

 

[joegreat]

Hi @RMerlinI would ask if RT-AC66U would be able to upgrade as well as original firmware does from Asus (at least security fixes), because it has been revamped yesterday to: 3.0.0.4.382.50470.

So it's a new GPL with different base, and maybe the stability and security fixes help to our legacy routers with a new life for people without too much money for upgrade the hardware.

As the 380.70 change-log explains: There will be no further updates on the 380 branch...

380.70 (8-Apr-2018)
- NOTE: This will be the final 380.xx release for
all models. The RT-N66U and RT-AC66U
support will be dropped, and all other
models have been migrated to the new gen
branch, as of release 384.4.​

 

[Adamm]

Hi @RMerlin

Thank you very much for your support Eric, it is brilliant and appreciated, I would ask if RT-AC66U would be able to upgrade as well as original firmware does from Asus (at least security fixes), because it has been revamped yesterday to: 3.0.0.4.382.50470.

So it's a new GPL with different base, and maybe the stability and security fixes help to our legacy routers with a new life for people without too much money for upgrade the hardware.


Thanks again and congrats for NG branch too!

The main issue is that the AC66U is a MIPS router, whereas newer models are ARM/HND. So essentially support for a whole architecture has to be added just to support 1 router.

 

[nash16]

I understand, no problem and thank you for your replies

 

[joegreat]

The main issue is that the AC66U is a MIPS router, whereas newer models are ARM/HND. So essentially support for a whole architecture has to be added just to support 1 router.

See first thread posting by Merlin:

People using an RT-N66U or RT-AC66U and wishing to gain continued updates are urged to consider switching to @john9527 's fork, which is still in active development.​

 

[Master3395]

Does that mean that his fork has all the features, that your latest version does?

Don't pay too much attention to the fact his version shows 374.xx - John backported a lot of fixes from newer releases. His code is much newer than the original 374 code it was initially based on.

 

[RMerlin]

Does that mean that his fork has all the features, that your latest version does?

No. Separate branches, with a few differences in features.

 

[Master3395]

Do you remember what features the other version does not have, that yours does?

No. Separate branches, with a few differences in features.

 

[RMerlin]

Do you remember what features the other version does not have, that yours does?

All documented in its thread.