Currently, I have OpenWRT firmware installed on my router, but the wifi performance is lacking.
I downloaded an OpenWRT fork firmware which is a squashfs-sysupgrade.bin firmware.
How to go about migrating from OpenWRT to the new fork firmware?
Revert back to the OEM firmware then only flash it with new fork firmware?
Your advice is much appreciated.
Thank you.
[Edit] Ok, I should have include more details about my post, it is regarding about the fork-ImmortalWRT. The only relevant piece of information is here:
Scroll down the bottom of the page, there reference links back to OpenWRT's documentation.
I am a newbie when comes to installing OpenWRT firmware. I notice there many ways to flash the router firmware. Because there is NO support given by ImmortalWRT (I tried to contact them, no avail). I thought I gave it a try with OpenWRT forum.
Is this fork created and supported by one of the members of the openwrt forums? (Specifically in the community builds section)?
If so, questions about the fork you are interested in using can be reasonably supported here (although it is recommended to ask in the support thread for that fork). If it is an entirely different form, you should refer to the documentation and support forums that are specific to it.
Telegram support group- https://t.me/ctcgfw_openwrt_discuss
You need to answer a very technical question then only you are allow to join the group, if I am not mistaken. I failed when I answered the question. Therefore, I was not able to gain access to the chat group.
In the case you describe you can simply use the firmware upgrade mechanism of the OpenWrt 22.03.3 firmware image to flash the immortalwrt image. No need to go back to the stock firmware before.
Please report your findings with regard to wifi performance differences also here.
Ok just want to double confirm, because I just hate to brick my router.
Currently have Openwrt 22.03.3 firmware image already installed on my Totolink X5000R router, so I can just flash ImmortalWRT image directly within LuCI, even though ImmortalWRT LATEST firmware is version = 21.02.5 ?? Right?
Oh... I forgot to mention here, the main reason that I want to try this fork firmware is......
Till know the MAC addresses display in OpenWRT firmware is not fixed.
I have 3 units of Totolink X5000R router at home, all have the SAME MAC address when I installed the latest 22.03.3. I had to manually correct the MAC address using UCI commands in SSH.
I do believe this is valuable information and interesting for OpenWrt developers.
ImmortalWrt is not a proprietary vendor fork but rather a friendly free open source software project, so we all learn from each others and there is no reason to not discuss differences here. It can help to improve both projects.
Regarding MAC addresses of the Totolink X5000R: That sounds like a mistake done when initially adding the device. Probably not hard to fix, but we will need to find out where and how the vendor firmware is storing the MAC addresses. If it works with ImmortalWrt it would be very easy...
As ImmortalWrt is based on OpenWrt 21.02 there may be incompatibilities, esp. with regard to network switch setup (DSA vs. swconfig). While upgrading from 21.02 up to 22.03 while keeping configuration is supported in some but not all situations, it is not supported for downgrades.
If you flash another firmware you will anyway allways lose all additionally installed software packages except for what comes with the newly flashed firmware. This happens independently of whether you select Keep configuration or not.
Sharing some basic information about the install process and/or performance observations is certainly reasonable here, especially if the developers (like @daniel ) are interested in the results. Sharing of knowledge is central to the forum, so it’s fine to report back.
But…. Regarding ongoing help and support…
Help should not be expected for forks that deviate significantly from OpenWrt (such as ImmortalWrt). Because of the many under-the-hood differences that may fundamentally alter the way that the system works, specialized knowledge of the fork is often required and the details may not apply to the official OpenWrt builds. Therefore, support should be directed to the maintainers of the fork.
In this case, you should expect to be mostly on your own if the fork doesn’t have good support channels.
This forum does not offer support for most OpenWrt forks, except where the forks are created by active community members who can jump in to clarify where things may differ from the standard/official OpenWrt firmware. (Vendor firmware is, of course, never supported here.)
Provided that they can help, it is certainly fine for support to be provided here. The question about how far removed a fork can be (and still reasonable to support on these forums) has been debated many times, but I think it ultimately boils down to the ability for the maintainers (and/or those with specific knowledge of the differences) to provide the assistance.
Also critical is the disclosure (by the user asking for help) of what firmware is being used.
Yes, I fully understand. Since it is a fork firmware, I don't expect a ton of support from this forum.
I am just merely asking HOW should I go about upgrading my existing OpenWrt to ImmortalWrt firmware, and I am grateful that kind @daniel has responded to my help.
Since one of the ImmortalWrt maintainers, @1715173329, is in this forum, hopefully he/she is active enough to contribute some comments.
Till know the MAC addresses display in OpenWRT firmware is not fixed.
For Totolink X5000R, we use the same source code as upstram OpenWrt,
so if you have some issues with official OpenWrt, then our fork will have them too.
This is the only difference between OpenWrt 21.02 and OpenWrt 22.03, and it's unlikely the cause.
If you want to install ImmortalWrt 21.02 from OpenWrt 22.03, just do it via LuCI, and yes, you have to drop your current configurations, everything will get lost, so backup them to a safe place before you flashing it.
