Because i had to struggle around some time i would like to release a howto for updating the firmware. Most information is available somewhere over the internet. Here a more combined version.
This howto is for GNU-Linux OS. I dont care about closed source OS like Windows, MacOS, ...
In general i would recommend to use the AVM Fritzbox 7490 firmware to get the firmware from. Reason for this is because this Router get most frequent firmware updates. It also have Annex A and Annex B firmware inside. Both Annex A and Annex B version support vectoring.
The howto is written to be most time reusable. So the firmware file to the AVM 7490 is not directly linked.
In general: You get the latest firmware from here: https://ftp.avm.de/ There are stable and beta (even more up to date) releases. You can choose on yourself what you prefere.
- download the firmware from the website. If you download a version in an zip, extract it. We need the *.image file.
- Install p7zip package if not installed and run "7z e [filename_of_firmware].image -r filesystem.image" and then "7z e filesystem.image filesystem_core.squashfs"
- Now we need software from freetz fo extract further. You have to first install the prequirements for the build process. Check https://www.freetz.org/wiki/help/howtos/common/install.en . When you have installed the required software from your OS packaging system, run "svn checkout http://svn.freetz.org/trunk freetz-trunk" followed by "cd freetz-trunk" followed by "make menuconfig". In make menuconfig you dont have to change anything. Just press esc and confirm saving. Now build the required tools for extraction - "make tools"
- In freetz-trunk/tools/ you should now find unsquashfs4-avm-be. Run "unsquashfs4-avm-be filesystem_core.squashfs -e lib/modules/dsp_vr9/" followed by "cd lib/modules/dsp_vr9/" followed by " bspatch vr9-B-dsl.bin vr9-A-dsl.bin vr9-A-dsl.bin.bsdiff" .
- Done. Now you have your two files with the latest DSL firmware. One is named "vr9-A-dsl.bin" and the second is named "vr9-B-dsl.bin".
- Copy the Annex A oder Annex B file on your router: "scp vr9-*-dsl.bin root@192.168.1.1:/lib/firmware/"
- Go with your webbrowser to luci(by default 192.168.1.1) and configure in Network-> Interfaces the line "Firmware File". You have to enter there for example "/lib/firmware/vr9-B-dsl.bin". Then press on save&apply. Your dsl connection should restart and resync. Done
I have asked some people at intel few times to finally release a new firmware file that can be included into the openwrt image by default. They dont answer to my emails.
Sources of the knowledge: