I got me one of those hyped up Linksys 8450 routers and I am aware that there is a procedure to follow that I found on the Openwrt website, which I plan on doing to convert the file system. So far, so good. During my further digging I also discovered different sysupgrade images and that is where the confusion starts. There is a UBI-Sysupgrade and a “regular” sysupgrade. Do I just use the UBI version just once as outlined in the guide and then I use the regular sysupgrade file thereafter ? There has to be a reason that there are two different varieties of the sysupgrade file.
Your questions are answered there. I think it’s important that you fully understand what you are doing, not just follow what someone on the forum tells you.
WARNING #1 This will replace the bootloader (TF-A 2.4, U-Boot 2022.01) and convert the flash layout of the device to UBI. The installer stores a copy of the previous bootchain in a dedicated UBI volume boot_backup.
WARNING #2 Re-flashing the installer when the device is already using UBI flash layout will erase the previously backed up bootchain, which in most cases would be the vendor/official one.
WARNING #3 The installer is meant to be executed only once per device. Executing the installer more than once should be avoided! Use normal *-linksys_e8450-ubi-squashfs-sysupgrade.itb images provided by openwrt.org insted.
I get that. But my conventional wisdom would be that after the conversion is done I would just use the “linksys_e8450-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin” because that’s what I am used to from previous routers…. I use the bin file to do a version upgrade. But the text above says use the itb file to upgrade ? That’s where I was asking for clarification.
I think the readme could be improved because daniel recommends to use auc to do regular sysupgrade. Maybe more safe because attended sysupgrade checks the environment before flashing a new version but not everyone likes to only use auc.
Greetings and salutations to all. I like to search youtube for a tutorial to clarify things.*
I initially updated the Linksys E8450 factory firmware to .....3016 (latest at the time of writing) and did a factory reset as recommended prior to flashing OpenWRT.
Following OpenWRT recommendations this device is best run as UBI (as demonstrated in the video). The non-UBI no longer works.
The device in the video is the Belkin RT3200 which at the hardware level is the same device as the Linksys E8450. The linksys required an internet connection to satisfy the installation wizard whereas the belkin doesn't. So you can ignore the minor differences between the belkin /linksys factory firmware GUI's and get to the linksys setting/firmware upgrade page you are good.
Thank-you so much to everyone that got this beast running.
I am getting full gigabit on the wan and 500Mbps wireguard. What am I going to do with all this free memory? 339MB???
*The documentation in it's current state is not an easy "how-to" for new users - it is a complex technical document that represents 2 years of development. Many thanks. Much happiness. Running solid on v23.05.0-rc1 with vlans. I am not using the radios at this time so I can't comment there.
Thanks a lot. I will check into the YouTube tutorials as well, definitely a good hint. I have done just about anything over the years, from simple flashing to serial pin open heart surgery. So this should be an interesting project
It's my understanding that once you convert to UBI, you stay UBI forever. In other words, from that point forward you would always use the UBI sysupgrade images.
That’s what I gathered so far from all the input. I didn’t really think there is really a workable non-UBI solution. Some comments suggested that it worked at one point but not any more.
