Can upgrades happen between openwrt & immortalwrt with few if any hiccups?

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Can I Attended Sysupgrade between openwrt and immortalwrt without loosing pkgs and settings?

So I noticed that on the Attended Sysupgrade config page on luci you can switch the server and once I do that I can see the different versions available. So my question is, is this safe and has anyone tried it with success? I'm pretty new to openwrt/immortalwrt came from ddwrt which is drastically different.

immortalwrt as i understand it is simply openwrt with a few extra pkgs included automatically. If its just a few extra packages and settings are saved when doing the sysupgrade, the logic stands that it should just work, right?

I originally installed openwrt & switched to immortalwrt & now spent a lot of time configuring it & getting adblock fast all setup how I like it. Hate to start from scratch. I also rather not use backup settings file from immortalwrt to restore to openwrt as I'm sure that will lead to issues. 25.12.1 has a horrible WiFi bug that I'm struggling with, so I need to switch back to openwrt.

Thanks in advance.

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No. They are different projects and have different repos, among other things.

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I personally would try it because I know all the intricacies involved and it sounds like a fun challenge, but that's just me. :blush:

Probably your best way forward is to collect your currrent package list (owut list, if you have owut installed) and build a new image as close as possible to what you have now using Firmware Selector. Make a backup off-device, do sysupgrade -n new-firmware.bin to wipe the router but keep the packages, and then use the files in the backup as a template for rebuilding from scratch.

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Its mind boggling that no one knows or just says it won't work. Its safe to say it won't work of course. I'm so new to openwrt/immortalwrt and I just got it all setup how I like it & really dont want to redo it all. Even the backup file won't keep a list of all the packages I have installed, which is crazy that you have to rely on owut to do that simple thing.

5

It's mind boggling that you expect others to be the guinea pig for your convenience.

As psherman said, both are different projects - with different devices coverage and different objectives. There can be no general answer to your question, as it depends on the individual device specifically. There are known divergences in partitioning (a certain -hard-bricking- killer, if it hits you unprepared), in configurations (because immortalwrt is more on the side of using commercial SDK sources, if that gets them earlier support or proprietary acceleration means; guaranteed to -soft-brick- on upgrades) and required- or default packages (causing issues for asu/ owut, because the package lists can't match) - or even in the details of the device naming (might sound easy, but it messes up your device detection and everything related to it, which is more than you might think).

What applies to your specific device, would be for you to find out - it's not safe, it's not going to work smoothly - and there is a really good chance to brick your device for good. Even in the best of all cases, package coverage and config differences require a reset (at which point asu/ owut really shouldn't be on your radar anyways).

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also mind boggling you had to ask the same question again, here, because you didn't like the "no" you got on reddit.

stay on immortal, problem solved.

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Sorry guys, wasnt meant as any disrespect or attack. Just hoping to avoid a brick of course. ddwrts settings are so easy & cover all the settings & addons etc. Was hoping for more expert advice and maybe something I didn't know about..

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Here on the OpenWrt forum we typically have no idea what changes were made in the ImmortalWrt fork (there may be someone here who knows important details, but they have not chimed in). The bottom line is that the two distros are different enough that there's no clear way to proceed, so the default is start from scratch.

Regarding the "list of packages I have installed": use of owut list is almost exactly analogous to what you do on other distros, for example, on Fedora (or other dnf-based systems) you would likely say something on the order of dnf repoquery --userinstalled --qf "%{name }".

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Since you are new, Ill let you know that you have already received appropriate answers from experts.

OpenWrt is at version 25.12.5 . There were some wifi fixes for some platforms. Perhaps yours, perhaps things are still not fixed. Look at release notes, change logs etc: https://openwrt.org/releases/25.12/notes-25.12.5

Hopefully you will hear from someone within a couple weeks but perhaps you would have better luck on the immortal support forum if one exists.

OpenWrt sysupgrade and owut do exactly this. OpenWrt upgrades are image based. All methods copy a (disk) image to the raw storage device, mount it and copy the backed up config files into place that the upgrade tool created. It just makes the upgrade process a bit quicker and easier than having to restore the configuration backup manually.

OpenWrt has ways to do this. As you learned it is not doing so by default. You can search the documentation wiki and/or this forum for more info. OpenWrt is not marketed as a drop-in free replacement router os that meets everyone's wishes, novice to expert, and can't. Especially with user add-ons. All these foss systems and software are for tinkerers. :slight_smile:

Speaking of add-ons, most/all packages beyond what are in the default images on the OpenWrt download site may just be built from upstream repositories with limited functional or security testing from the OpenWrt maintainers, event the OpenWrt maintainer for those add-on packages. You need to be active in monitoring here on the OpenWrt forum and the developers mailing list, as well as the upstream counterparts to stay on top of issues. Some add-on packages for OpenWrt are customized compared to upstream so be aware of that.

I suggest that you learn how to do backups and restore what you are using today and actually do it to test your workflow. This includes knowing how to recover from a failed upgrade and you wind up with a "bricked" device and either having an image to restore or have an alternate path to get one from immortal etc. This may entail using a serial connection to the bricked device or setting up your pc as a tftp server etc. Once you master that, then testing a direct upgrade to OpenWrt is not so intimidating. Be sure to understand the recovery process in OpenWrt as well.

If you want more help, ask, but be sure to state the device you have and provide good info on what YOU do know and what you need help with to reduce the guessing and back-and-forth questions up front.

If, as you state:

it seems like you might have good results trying a cross-grade if you account for changes from the immortal implementation. It seems like it would be more fruitful to ask about this on the immortal support forum since they forked OpenWrt and modified it for their distro. They are in the best position to define changes that affect switching back to OpenWrt.

Hopefully an expert will chime in if I mis-represented anything.