Just before the 19.07 rc1 is out, I could find squashfs builds for tiny branch in 19.07 snapshot, but since then, I can not find such builds in 19.07rc1 nor in 19.07 snapshot.
Does this mean that the final 19.07 would not build for these 4/32 tiny devices?
https://openwrt.org/meetings/hamburg2019/start#decisions1 states that
19.07 will be the last release with support for 4/32 MB devices
There are "tiny" builds at, for example
Note that ar71xx has been deprecated, replaced by ath79.
If a specific "sysupgrade.bin" image isn't there, it is possible that the build failed. (Which, just as a guess, means that it is too large for the flash.)
Few devices builds, and mostly initramfs builds.
Like I said, just before rc1 is out, on 2nd november 2019, I could still find squashfs builds in 19.07 snapshot. So I don't think it's a problem of flash size.
Which specific device are you looking for?
I don't see a "fail log" for the images themselves, but I could at least try a local build here.
Thanks Jeff,
Actually I am looking squashfs for a wr841n V7, I can live today with my november 2nd download or DDWrt, just like to know if no squashfs builds is deliberate or it will be available in final rc1.
Thank you for taking time to verify that the squashfs build can be make. I am hoping that the final rc1 will re-poplate these tiny devices.
Note that the master snapshot has squashfs builds for tiny devices, just can not install Luci due to lack of memory.
As a follow up, the ath79 tiny build release candidates did not seem to migrate to squashfs builds, and with 19.07 released the tiny directories for the ar71xx were only built for a handful of models, despite the release notes saying it would be built as an alternative to the ath79.
This release provides initial support for the new
ath79target, the future device tree based successor of the popularar71xxtarget. For 19.07, both targets are still built
The ath79 is even worse with most models continuing to only have initramfs builds and only 4 having squashfs down from about ~80 models for ar71xx tiny 18.0.6.6
https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/19.07.0/targets/ath79/tiny/
https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/19.07.0/targets/ar71xx/tiny/
And for comparison
https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.6/targets/ar71xx/tiny/ (
If you go to both those directories it doesn't look like much of anything was built, compared to 18.06.6 tiny directory, much less builds for both targets.
Where all those initramfs builds just orphaned, or was there a stall? I love openwrt so I am in no rush, just wondering if they got forgotten in the chaos?
The more probable explanation is those images were too big. There are quite a few of those 'images are too big' errors in the ath79/tiny buildlog - 44 if I'm to believe my browser's search function.
Thank you for your reply.
Despite the quite large number of build failures are the developers aware that the issue happened? As there are a lot of models and the automation might of obscured this. I didn't find much on the mailing list about this problem or the forums other than this post.
The gist was 4 MB devices failing their builds would have builds disabled, if people reported them breaking because of space issues. The newer (and bigger) kernel broke quite a few of those devices.
It looks like, if you'd like 19.07 images, you'll have to try compiling yourself (you can strip out PPP support e.g. if you don't need it, that will already free up quite a bit of space).
Edit: the thread linked below is a good starting point, along with this thorough wiki entry:
I can recommend this to anyone wanting to try 19.07 for their 4 MB devices.
The official declaration to formally cease distribution of firmware images for devices with just 4 MB flash is merely following the existing fact that the default package set (even for the tiny targets) doesn't fit into that insufficient amount of space anymore. This isn't a political decision to actively stop working on a functional target, but the realization that it has been broken for a long time already and that there's barely anything left that would manage to succeed building a firmware image (and even less that then still manage to create a functional overlay).
Given that there is no more space to free on these images, there is no other fix than to disable building these devices and tiny targets. If you can come up with a revolutionary idea to save these devices, you should have spoken up (in the form of actionable patches, not just random ideas) over the last three years. This situation has been announced -and discussed to total exhaustion- many, many, many times since 2016, without ever coming to a conclusion other than realizing that it's not going to fit into 4 MB anymore.
dear slh, thanks with my respect.
Nevertheless, Jeff had kindly checked that at least tl-wr841nv7 could be build with 19.07 rc1 and I downloaded a build on 2nd November 2019 just before the rc1 that works for my dumb AP.
/builder/shared-workdir/build/staging_dir/host/bin/mktplinkfw -H 0x08410007 -W 0x1 -F 4M -N OpenWrt -V r10860-a3ffeb413b -m 1 -k /builder/shared-workdir/build/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tplink_tl-wr841-v7-kernel.bin -r /builder/shared-workdir/build/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-19.07.0-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr841-v7-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin -o /builder/shared-workdir/build/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-19.07.0-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr841-v7-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin.new -j -X 0x40000 -a 0x4 -s && mv /builder/shared-workdir/build/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-19.07.0-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr841-v7-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin.new /builder/shared-workdir/build/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-19.07.0-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr841-v7-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin || rm -f /builder/shared-workdir/build/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-19.07.0-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr841-v7-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
[mktplinkfw] rootfs offset aligned to 0x1432832
[mktplinkfw] *** error: images are too big by 23973 bytes
echo '{ "metadata_version": "1.0", "supported_devices":["tplink,tl-wr841-v7","tl-wr841-v7"], "version": { "dist": "OpenWrt", "version": "19.07.0", "revision": "r10860-a3ffeb413b", "target": "ath79/tiny", "board": "tplink_tl-wr841-v7" } }' | fwtool -I - /builder/shared-workdir/build/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-19.07.0-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr841-v7-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
Failed to open firmware file
Makefile:82: recipe for target '/builder/shared-workdir/build/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-19.07.0-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr841-v7-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin' failed
make[4]: [/builder/shared-workdir/build/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-19.07.0-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr841-v7-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin] Error 1 (ignored)
Tiny size differences easily arise if the used build config differs slightly, e.g. not building all devices of the given target (which do have an influence of the kernel config) for build-time reasons. But the situation is very simple, the image would be ~24 KB to big to fit into your device (and even if it were to magically shrink by 24 KB, that doesn't imply that you still have enough space for a persistent overlay).
You can still build an image yourself, if you're willing to sacrifice some packages that would be part of a release build (e.g. opkg, ppp, luci, uhttpd, ...), but a normal release can no longer be built for this device.
dear slh, thanks for your efforts.
Now I am fixed. I was wondering if this is intentional. Now it's not.
OpenWrt has no interest in intentionally deprecating devices. I wonder why you'd think that. As I pointed out with the build log OpenWrt has simply outgrown the 4 MB limit.
Planned obsolescence is something for commercial parties.
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