rt-ac68u and dsl-ac68u firmware question

[pete y testing]

hi guys

this is more a question to clear up a question i have been asked over at whirlpool and one i cant explain

the post indicates he has sucessfully installed both the stock rt-ac68u firmware and the merlin fw on a dsl-ac68u and it shows all the working of the merlin firmware yet still works as a modem as well

here is a vid of him explaining what he has done

i would have expected this not to be possible and it makes no sense to me how it can be , i havnt tried it yet as my daughter has my dsl-ac68u

what if any down sides would be expected and is this just smoke an mirrors or has this guy found a work around for closed source

just wanting ideas on whats going on

thanks

pete

 

[L&LD]

I don't see how this can work (and yes, I did watch the whole video).

RMerlin's firmware is not DSL aware. So, how can it possibly work (as a router and DSL modem)?

I do not know if there are any specific tabs for configuring the DSL connection, but if there are, they were surely missing as shown in the video right near the end.

 

[pete y testing]

merlin . do you have any comment on this ? as im a tad confused but admit i dont know the logistics of how the fw works on the coding side

 

[RMerlin]

I don't know the hardware specifications of the DSL-AC68U. If it's based on the same hardware as the RT-AC68U, then the router portion of it might work if you use the RT-AC68U firmware, but the DSL modem won't be initialized at all. There might also be some quirks with anything related to GPIOs (such as led control) if they don't match.

 

[L&LD]

Thinking about this some more, I am pretty sure that a reset to factory defaults was not performed after flashing the router only firmware. This may explain why it 'seems' to work for the utuber.

 

[pete y testing]

I don't know the hardware specifications of the DSL-AC68U. If it's based on the same hardware as the RT-AC68U, then the router portion of it might work if you use the RT-AC68U firmware

according to wikidevi

https://wikidevi.com/wiki/ASUS_DSL-AC68U

and

https://wikidevi.com/wiki/ASUS_RT-AC68U

they are exactly the same with the mediatek chipset bolted onto the front of the dsl -ac68u

yes i suspect at the end of the day the poster has just turned his dsl-ac68u into a rt-ac68u he seems to claim it works as a modem as well

will have to screw around with my dsl-ac68u if for no other reason to satisfy my own curiosity and to then suggest to others if its wise to do it or not

will let you guys know

pete

 

[Latte2]

according to wikidevi

https://wikidevi.com/wiki/ASUS_DSL-AC68U

and

https://wikidevi.com/wiki/ASUS_RT-AC68U

they are exactly the same with the mediatek chipset bolted onto the front of the dsl -ac68u

yes i suspect at the end of the day the poster has just turned his dsl-ac68u into a rt-ac68u he seems to claim it works as a modem as well

will have to screw around with my dsl-ac68u if for no other reason to satisfy my own curiosity and to then suggest to others if its wise to do it or not

will let you guys know

pete

I would like to know if it works even if the modem part is dissabled while running Merlin, as I won't always be using ADSL so to be able to flash to Merlin would be great

 

[anthonyl]

Same here, I don't need the DSL component at all, and would be happy to just have a working RT-AC68U.

 

[TylerComputereGuru]

Same here, I don't need the DSL component at all, and would be happy to just have a working RT-AC68U.

YES it definitely does work

 

[TylerComputereGuru]

I would like to know if it works even if the modem part is dissabled while running Merlin, as I won't always be using ADSL so to be able to flash to Merlin would be great

Yes it definitely does work AsusWRT BY MERLIN on the ASUS DSL-AC68U

 

[TylerComputereGuru]

I don't know the hardware specifications of the DSL-AC68U. If it's based on the same hardware as the RT-AC68U, then the router portion of it might
work if you use the RT-AC68U firmware, but the DSL modem won't be initialized at all. There might also be some quirks with anything related to GPIOs (such as led control) if they don't match.

hey merlin i am the person who made that video but dont remember saying the modem part of it works after flashing with asuswrt by merlin

 

[RMerlin]

hey merlin i am the person who made that video but dont remember saying the modem part of it works after flashing with asuswrt by merlin

It should be specified that the modem WONT work however, since I would expect the majority of DSL-AC68U owners to own that because they needed the DSL modem. A lot of people will be confused, and expect it to work. Such as what the original poster in this thread wrote.

 

[TylerComputereGuru]

It should be specified that the modem WONT work however, since I would expect the majority of DSL-AC68U owners to own that because they needed the DSL modem. A lot of people will be confused, and expect it to work. Such as what the original poster in this thread wrote.

yeah didnt think about i am going to make that clear in saying that i haven't tested whether it works as a modem if asuswrt by merlin on it

 

[sfx2000]

yeah didnt think about i am going to make that clear in saying that i haven't tested whether it works as a modem if asuswrt by merlin on it

One of the risks here is that the DSL based devices might have carrier/operator customization that might not be applicable to the operator/market that the DSL-AC68U is deployed in - and whether this is customer owned, or carrier owned/leased to the end user.

 

[hggomes]

An interested user on that model can easily integrate the Modem/DSL code from DSL-AC68U FW on RMerlin FW and make it work.

 

[sfx2000]

An interested user on that model can easily integrate the Modem/DSL code from DSL-AC68U FW on RMerlin FW and make it work.

Yeah, but do you really want to go down that rat hole?

I think Eric's approach is better - not supported outside of specific devices.

 

[hggomes]

Can't follow your rat hole thing...

Officially is not supported by RMerlin, but any user can simply fork it and add the missing DSL-AC68U code there, so it will end up on RMerlin FW supporting DSL-AC68U model and fully working with the official modem/dsl software, these should take less than a couple of hours to be honest, it's just a matter of someone give it a try.

 

[sfx2000]

Can't follow your rat hole thing...

Officially is not supported by RMerlin, but any user can simply fork it and add the missing DSL-AC68U code there, so it will end up on RMerlin FW supporting DSL-AC68U model and fully working with the official modem/dsl software, these should take less than a couple of hours to be honest.

It's the DSL side that is a mess... folks can do what they want - sync up to the git and go from there... but I really don't want to see a lot of posts here about it "not working"...

 

[hggomes]

Why it must be that way? And not the opposite? "working fine" posts?

Like i said before it's all a matter of moving the DSL code to RMerlin FW... Obviously it shouldn't be done by someone without the skills or you will be right about it.

If people really think that way nothing would ever come up.

 

[hggomes]

Quick hint:

DSL=y DSL_TCLINUX=y VDSL=y

Beside some components (dsl_drv_tool) and the WEBUI code.