State of the project - 2016 in review

[tcool93]

There is nothing wrong with the Vortex firmware. Many people use it for their Netgear R7000. I used it on my Netgear R7000 until I upgraded to my AC88U router.

 

[dvohwinkel]

There is nothing wrong with the Vortex firmware. Many people use it for their Netgear R7000. I used it on my Netgear R7000 until I upgraded to my AC88U router.

Unless you care about licensing and what sounds like a GPL violation. It's kind of funny because he uses RMerlin's code which is only available because he follows the GPL.

 

[jtp10181]

Thanks for the continued support and updates on this firmware. You said you were surprised of the popularity because it is only an enhanced version of the stock firmware. Well that is the exact reason I love it. I think the stock firmware is pretty darn good. There was some specific things I could not do early on (cant recall what it was) and I knew I could in Tomato-Shibby but I really liked the Asus GUI and was dreading flashing over to Tomato. That's when I found this project, and never looked back. It is simple yet powerful. Just the right set of features without overkill.

 

[jmrdv]

Merlin,
A very belated Happy Holidays and indeed thanks for all your hard work and effort. I read this forum and learn about your excellent output.

Good Health and happiness
John

 

[cyroxn]

The 382 sure sounds scary from what you're writing. Thank you for the great support and for the work you're doing.

 

[sfx2000]

There is nothing wrong with the Vortex firmware. Many people use it for their Netgear R7000. I used it on my Netgear R7000 until I upgraded to my AC88U router.

It's just bad karma - just because a lot of people use it, doesn't make it right...

Best approach is to just not support it - and push it back to XVortex...

AsusWRT released the GPL sources - not just to comply with GPL on upstream, but also to enable folks to integrate and improve Asus devices in general - while there is nothing to stop folks like XVortex, the fact that he doesn't share back is the bigger deal.

I'm hoping this thread doesn't go down the GPL rat-hole, as that rat-hole is pretty deep, even inside the AsusWRT community.

 

[unsynaps]

Last time someone asked him a few weeks ago, he flat out posted that he didn't care about the GPL.

So my advice is to stay away from this firmware, until he complies.

Just found the post pertaining to this. Just... wow. Yeah I would not trust that firmware any farther than I could throw it.

 

[Curado Kev]

Thanks Merlin - I have been using your firmware for 2+ years and it's the best. Not sure what busybox is but looking forward to it.

Thanks for everyone's support for this project !

 

[R1-Limited]

Just found the post pertaining to this. Just... wow. Yeah I would not trust that firmware any farther than I could throw it.

Sometimes it is so hard not to join the festivities. I mean bad Karma is using the wrong colored power band for the wqrong motorcycle. Power bands can be used in 5ghrz too if adopted by a common twists per inch like cat5 vs cat6

 

[silencer]

I'd like to just add that there is a large community of Chinese users that I'm aware of, using certain very actively maintained forked versions that are based on your Asuswrt-Merlin firmware. Since most of them don't speak English, they never post on this forum and most likely do not show up in your stats tracker (since the forks most likely changed your version checker), but those users are all nonetheless grateful for your work and you indeed have a big reputation to them.

In short, your user base is even larger than you think, and potentially even significantly larger. And I agree with some of the comment here, that even those Chinese users know of your name and your firmware before they buy the router.

And I'm one of them.

 

[R1-Limited]

Damn Russians too,

 

[cybrnook]

Wait, the world is bigger than America?

 

[stambeccuccio]

With all honesty and sincerity
If there was not the Merlin firmware, I would have never bought an Asus router.
I bought an Asus router just because there is Merlin firmware.
Thank You.

 

[tcool93]

Unless you care about licensing and what sounds like a GPL violation. It's kind of funny because he uses RMerlin's code which is only available because he follows the GPL.

He also has his own code in it. He is the only person porting it for the Netgear router.

Unless you care about licensing and what sounds like a GPL violation. It's kind of funny because he uses RMerlin's code which is only available because he follows the GPL.

I don't see rmerlin firmware supporting the r7000 router. Yet people here want to trash Vortex for doing so.

 

[Andyf66]

He also has his own code in it. He is the only person porting it for the Netgear router.

I don't see rmerlin firmware supporting the r7000 router. Yet people here want to trash Vortex for doing so.

Err... They don't want to trash him for supporting the R7000. They want to trash him for not following GPL, and especially the fact that his work wouldn't even be possible if RMerlin had chosen to act in the same way as him and keep his work hidden and private.

 

[R1-Limited]

Err... They don't want to trash him for supporting the R7000. They want to trash him for not following GPL, and especially the fact that his work wouldn't even be possible if RMerlin had chosen to act in the same way as him and keep his work hidden and private.

Yup smack talk aside, if you don't abide you must be fried

 

[Anaximandre]

Any chance to see the GT-AC5300 supported soon? The stock firmware has an interface that may appeal to gamers but that is difficult on the eyes, and buggy (updates to manual DHCP list do not get saved half of the time, plus are limited to 64). If not for the 8 ports and possibility to get Merlin later, it would go back to the shop asap...

 

[RMerlin]

Any chance to see the GT-AC5300 supported soon?

Definitely not in the short term, and no decision yet regarding the long term. That model is a completely new hardware architecture, and is based on a quite different firmware codebase. If I were to decide to implement support for it, I'd be looking at weeks, if not months of work.

 

[Agrajag]

Thanks for this effort. I know it's LATE, but I finally moved my RT-AC66U to this after years of frustration with Asus' default firmware.

The only thing I'm curious about: Is it normal after updating to always have to go through Quick Setup? That was always the hitch with the Asus path for me for some reason and it would fail continually costing me an entire afternoon or evening of machinations to try to get it working again. I found after flashing this that, once again, I was getting the typical "Your ISP's DHCP....." and no connection. I did Quick Setup and it ran for longer than it ever has, but the difference this time is it worked on the first pass.

Thanks again!

 

[RMerlin]

The only thing I'm curious about: Is it normal after updating to always have to go through Quick Setup?

It shouldn't be, unless your router is either running low on free nvram, or the content is somehow corrupted.