How to build IPQ4018 firmware

[chunkeey]

@dissent1

As for current issues: the Qualcomm' provided ath10k-firmware: firmware-5.bin_10.4-3.4-00082 isn't as stable/robust as the older firmware-5.bin_10.4-3.2.1-00053. It looks like this is more of a problem for the QCA9984 with a IPQ806X (R7800 and friends) but so far, nobody tested that. Instead they are blaming it on the RX ring memory reduction patches.

Because those patches stink
I've tested all firmware branches including 1st release, there has been no difference or whatsoever in capped 2.4ghz wireless performance, probably caused by the same issue

Well:

Netgear R7800 exploration (IPQ8065, QCA9984)

Unfortunately, it doesn't compile for me: /lede1701/build_dir/target-arm_cortex-a15+neon-vfpv4_musl-1.1.16_eabi/linux-ipq806x/shortcut-fe/sfe_ipv4.c:1366:5: error: 'struct sk_buff' has no member named 'fast_forwarded' Does that look familiar? Edit: I see that this error is because the patches in hack-4.4 hasn't been applied. I didn't manually copy the patches to the patches-4.4 directory, which I should have. I'll leave this post here anyway, even if it shows my utter lack of understanding...…

"You might be interested to test reverting the ath10k buffer reduction that was done in March in master. That might help with performance issues.

The background is that the ath10k buffer size reduction was introduced a bit sneakily into ipq806x with a commit improving support for QCA4019. (The commit title talks about QCA4019 but does not mention that ath10k buffers get reduced for all chips):
https://git.lede-project.org/?p=source.git;a=commit;h=cc189c0b7fa015978b04bb663a75b1da726376b56

I tried to initiate discussion about that action later, but that got no traction as there was no real proof that the buffer reduction caused harm in a significant way. If there would be proof, the action might hopefully be retracted."

Netgear R7800 exploration (IPQ8065, QCA9984)

I couldn't wait, so I tested it just now. Bad news though, performance on wifi is still abysmal. I did the same test as before, and download speed was 20-30 Mbit/s on 5 GHz wifi. Upload speed was actually quite OK (better than before, and on par with stable), but just one time. I repeated the test, but when upload was about to start, something went wrong. The router didn't crash, but the phone lost wifi connectivity and the upload was aborted. The log had this: Fri Aug 11 21:51:33 2017 kern.war…

"I couldn't wait, so I tested it just now. Bad news though, performance on wifi is still abysmal."

Thing is, this wasn't the first time. It comes up again and again, if 2.4G acts up on the R7800.
As for the IPQ4019, In my observations, the firmware-5.bin_10.4-3.4-00082 isn't as stable/robust as the older firmware-5.bin_10.4-3.2.1-00053. So maybe the same is true for the QCA9984, you could ask people that have a problem with the 2.4GHz stability to try the older firmware. But YMMV.