Hello,
I am trying to install one -whichever- version of OpenWrt on an old router I have. It is a Belkin F5D7633-4. The chipset is brcm6348 as stated in the title and its CFE states that the board is the 96348GW which I doubt but I am not sure what this is even for.
So my problem are as follow. I have a jtag connected and get into the CFE, open up the browser and load firmwares to program. Some do, most don't. This is weird as there are versions for both the F5D7633 and the board in the releases but most will not work.
As stated in the document of the chipset it seems like the first official release to support this CPU is the 10.03.1. But even if I manage to program it, it never boots. Strangely enough the only versions that I could painstakingly find that would both program and boot are the 17.01.4 and the 15.05.1.
The problem being that this router only has 4mb flash, 16mb ram and both of these versions are WAY too heavy to do anything more than boot and maybe display 2-3 pages on their webserver. After that things just start being killed because of memory.
As I am a really new user I do not have a lot of experience to make what I want. Which is an older, hopefully lighter version of the system that will still run. I have programming experience but not with the specific program so I am open to suggestions.
What I already tried on the running versions:
To disable some services.
Remove some module (I am not even sorry for ipv6).
More minor things.
I do not care a lot about security (old versions) as the other way is the original firmware which is for sure way better.
Any help will be greatly appreciated and maybe one day I could give back to the community if I learn enough through this little adventure.
OpenWrt support for Broadcom devices is generally poor. Most issues are with little or non existent support for wifi.
DDwrt has better support for Broadcom devices, but very few if any modem routers are supported to best of my knowledge. (Vaguely recall some Buffalo models are supported)
I would suggest you just purchase a device which is already supported by OpenWrt. OpenWrt favours Qualcomm powered devices. https://openwrt.org/toh/start
If you require ADSL or VDSL modem enabled device, best OpenWrt support is for some Lantiq powered devices.
If you state your country of origin, someone may be able to offer some suggestions as to what is readily available.
Yeah I know the age of this router and I really don't expect for the dsl part of it to have support. But even if it would kill wifi I would still be interested to do this. For me it's not that much a build it and forget it project than a build to learn and if I brick this device totally (maybe I accidentally overwrite the CFE loader for example) I would not care that much.
So yes I am aware of all the points but still interested. More for the tinkering itself.
I am aware of that fact. This is why I am targeting for older versions.
Also it is a test platform for me before I go on with a 16/64 (within spec) same cpu family router ( https://openwrt.org/toh/adb/p.dg_av4202n ) which though I am not too easy on bricking all together.
ADB P.DG AV4202N won't provide you with much joy either, as neither of its (possible-) WLAN cards are supported (only via b43, up to 54 MBit/s, which I wouldn't consider as supported), nor is the VDSL modem.
What about https://openwrt.org/toh/bt/homehub_v5a - <10 EUR plus shipping with the OEM firmware, ~30+ EUR for devices pre-flashed with OpenWrt (the initial flashing is a bit more complex). Contrary to your preference for bcm63xx, this lantiq VRX2xx device is fully supported (VDSL2+vectoring/ profile 17b and 3x3:3 802.11ac/ wave1 wireless).