RT-N66U still officially supported

[n0x0n]

Hi crowd, I did not find an answer using search, so please forgive me if it has been asked before:
The RT-N66U is still officially supported by ASUS, who just released Version 3.0.0.4.382.50470 a couple of weeks ago.

Q: What is / are are the reason(s) that merlin dropped RT-N66U support?

 

[kfp]

Time. Asus continues to expand their line-up and Merlin is adding support for those new devices. His time is limited which means older devices have to go.

Plus there is still John’s fork that backports security fixes to keep the fire going on the older modes, including N66.

 

[n0x0n]

Hmm... Without knowing, I assumed the different merlin firmwares were build on top of a common core with only drivers being different...

 

[kfp]

Hmm... Without knowing, I assumed the different merlin firmwares were build on top of a common core with only drivers being different...

That’s a reasonable assumption to make, and more or less true for some time until Merlin dropped support for MIPS. That’s when John’s fork started IIRC, and more recently Merlin moved on from the 380 platform to 384 and some more devices were dropped; that’s when some older devices were dropped.

Edit: clarified timeline
Edit2: I did not remembered correctly

 

[MichaelCG]

Isn't this the one that is related to CPU architecture that makes it different enough to not justify the effort to keep going with it?

 

[kfp]

Isn't this the one that is related to CPU architecture that makes it different enough to not justify the effort to keep going with it?

You’re right N66 dropped when MIPS support was dropped, I’ll edit my comment.

 

[cmkelley]

That’s a reasonable assumption to make, and more or less true for some time until Merlin dropped support for MIPS. That’s when John’s fork started IIRC, and more recently Merlin moved on from the 380 platform to 384 and some more devices were dropped; that’s when some older devices were dropped.

Edit: clarified timeline

No, John's fork has been around since at least August 2014. Merlin announced dropping support for the MIPS platform at the end of 2017. His reasons are listed here: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/end-of-year-2017-development-update.42965/ and include:

• They are still very actively supported by John's fork
• There were a number of limitations related to that older MIPS platform and its older Linux kernel
• Dropping an entire SDK (6.34 + Kernel 2.6.19) removes a significant burden from the project, which now has to deal with a new (radically different) platform, with the RT-AC86U's Broadcom HND SDK.
• I don't know yet what are Asus's plans regarding 382 and these two models, but even if they get migrated, I suspect they won't be as frequently updated as newer models, which is now an important factor due to the amount of closed source components part of Asuswrt

And really, the core wasn't all that "common". Different kernel versions with different capabilities needing different hooks and different source trees.