This is my actual policy. Upgrading can be done by returning to Linksys OEM, and flashing a newer factory image. It's longer than the usual sysupgrade, but I don't do it this much, also considering that "my" device is not at home but in a relative's.
There's a thread somewhere on that on what specifically is technically needed. But basically, there's not enough interest from people who own the devices to do the work. This is a common thing with OpenWRT devices. For example take the Cisco MR43 and MR52. The uboot loader on both devices is garbage, it lacks a ton of features. However, uboot on the MR52 is just barely adequate to boot OpenWRT so the developers that figured out the partition layout and hardware for that hardware, stopped once they got OpenWRT running on the MR52. However, on the older unit, uboot isn't able to boot OpenWRT so the developers put extra effort into modifying uboot and part of the install instructions have people flashing a new uboot.
The EA7300 works fine booting from partition 1 so no effort was spent figuring out how to get the dual boot "feature" working to boot different primary and secondary openwrt images. While it might seem like a cool feature, from the developers POV,99.99% of the unit's time is spent running openwrt, not the bootloader - so the development effort is focused on openwrt, not fixing the broken bootloader.
I just got my hands on a free EA7450 which I think is the same hardware as an EA7300v2. I just flashed the OpenWRT firmware for the EA7300v2 and it works. I wanted to get the dual partition working correctly and I ran into another thread which introduced dual partition support for the EA7300:
https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/9749
The PR was from 2022, so I updated it for Master and 24.10.0 and made my own builds and it does work. I have OpenWRT 24.10.0 on both partitions. It would be nice if the PR could get updated and merged in. Maybe we need more people to test it? @arrmo, would you want to update the PR? Was there any reason it wasn't merged?
I see there's been some work on this getting it ready for merger:
I'm trying to get it noticed. I know the fixes work for me on both 24.10.1 and Master. I hope it can be merged in so I don't have to keep building images from scratch.
I would be delighted to see this merged in 24.10 and future. I struggled to get OpenWrt running on this device, and I wrote the wiki about it. Upgrading is not that much hard, but a standard double-firmware behavior would be nicer.
Hi.
Any news about the PR? Any way to help?
I have recovered the device (it was in a relative's home) and can proceed to test if needed.
I don’t know. It’s just a matter of getting one of the developers to review it. I’m not sure how to get their attention.
Indeed I saw on the Github thread that you've tried to reach several devs.
Suppose I want to build from source (I know how to do), how do I include your patch? (I don't know that). Your PR is for main only, or also 24.10?
The changes in the PR were for main only. I’m also build 24.10 from source myself. I have another branch for that: https://github.com/trinidude4/openwrt/tree/openwrt-24.10-dualEA7300v2
The specific files that need to be changed for 24.10 are shown in this commit: https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/commit/b3137e5afdb113d5758e3d3a11881ef2befdb9f1
Is there a way to flash a specific partition via command line while we wait this merge request to be done?
Presently, OpenWrt MUST be on partition 1 in order to run (+ the tweak). So you don't have to worry about flashing on a specific partition.
the "tweak" does not work for the V3
I add it to the local startup, but if i do 3 router reboots, first reboot, then i wait to the router fully boots, then i repeat the process 3 times and it goes back to partition 2 with OEM firmware.
/rom/sbin/mtd unlock s_env
/rom/sbin/mtd erase s_env
exit 0
You answered on the wrong thread: we were talking on the EA7500 v3 thread. It was indeed worth to try the "tweak". I guess you have to try something else.