Nbg6716 ath79 which image - 4M-kernel or not?

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi,
I have a Zyxel NBG6716 running 19.07.1 (ar71xx).

I am considering moving to Ath79 (no real reason or need)
What is the difference between the available images, and which one should I pick?

  • zyxel_nbg6716-squashfs-sysupgrade-4M-Kernel.bin
  • zyxel_nbg6716-squashfs-sysupgrade.tar

Also, my version has a Hynix NAND 256MiB onboard, on another post I read ath79 only supports 128MiB is this still correct? I'd hate to lose that extra space.

thanks!

2

This hopefully describes the purpose for 4M-Kernel:

3

yes I read that too, but it's not really conclusive. The way I read it is:

So I need to flash the 4M first, and then flash the regular one over it?
but that is not how I read the ar71 to ath79 migration guide.

use sysupgrade -n <your-device-19.07-image-sysupgrade.bin>

4

I tried the 4M-kernel.bin file - I've decided to stick with ar71xx.

sysupgrade -n openwrt-ath79-nand-zyxel_nbg6716-squashfs-sysupgrade-4M-Kernel.bin
Image metadata not found
Invalid sysupgrade file.
Image check failed.

I don't want to try forcing the sysupgrade (or directly writing into the flash as per the commit) it's too risky for me. And it looks as ath79 would indeed mean losing 128MB of flash...

it's also not clear what benefits moving to ath79 would actually bring.
I've decided to stick with ar71xx.

5
  • ar71xx = no future support after 19.07.x; no ar71xx images will be built with the next stable release (20.x)
  • ath79 = future support will be available even after 19.07.x
1 Like
6

That will indeed be a difficult choice once 20.x arrives, barring any performance upgrades or functional improvements it's difficult to give up half the storage. Let's hope that gets fixed by then.

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