Hello there,
So I own 2 Deco x20 and am using them as my main router. Recently I bought a system to install opnsense and I know I would be able to use all the features without openwrt as my wifi access point.
I was wondering if there is anyone who could guide and help me with compiling an image for my Deco.
I see that they are using qualcomm chips so I believe they are doable, forgive me if I am wrong.
I have never done anything like this before so a lot of stuff in there are going over my head. Can you breakdown some stuff. And guide me how and where to begin.
you start by checking the internal photos at https://fccid.io/TE7X20V2/
there you'll see it's a Broadcom device, making it of zero interest to openwrt, since the wifi will be crippled, at best.
feel free to search the board for bcm6755.
Can you check out this link.
It says that it is using a Qualcomm processor.
Then you'll need to open it up, and check who's right, FCC or TP-LINK ...
Might want to check if there are several version of it, too.
Chipsets might get swapped between versions/generations.
I guess I'll do that today then. Hopefully TP-Link is.
Quick question, how hard it will be if it's a Qualcomm chip.
currently, only Mediatek AX radios are supported, so in a way, it's still a dead end, at least for now.
but QC AX support is being worked on (in mainline Linux kernel), but is still far from being mature
enough for openwrt support.
Okay thank you. I'll try to open it up and inform you about it.
Yeah so tried to open it up but I couldn't quite figure it out. Can someone help me with that.
Figure what out?
How to open it up
The deco x20 v4 is 1Ghz Dual core Qualcomm IPQ5018 chip. This seems to be chip thats now common for almost all latest versions of Decos. Also the Deco x20 seems to have a recovery page where you can upload a firmware. Could be interesting if anyone is interested as the chip is quite powerful with 2 A53 cores.
Better, but still a no go, for now.
Quick update.
So the deco X20 versions V1, V1.20, and V4 are based on Qualcomm chips.
While versions V2, V2.6, V3, and V3.6 are based on Broadcom chips.
I got V2 
.
Yep. The latest is v4 and v4.6 the original ones (v1) were quad core A53 chips while the latest ones are dual core A53 chips most likely because of chip issues. The Broadcom is bcm6755 I think which is the same one in x20-4g. I had the x20-4G and x20 v4 and the Qualcomm chip x20 was much better at Wi-Fi than Broadcom and in general too at routing probably because of the NPU.
Deco X20 V3 is actually using a Mediatek chip: https://fccid.io/2AXJ4X20V3/Internal-Photos/2AXJ4X20V3-Internal-Photos-5747213
MT7621AT + MT7905DAN
You can also verify this by downloading the GPL code.
This version could be supported by OpenWRT today.
Hello everyone
I want openwrt support for the TP-LINK DECO X20 v1.20/v1.2; it's definitely qualcomm, and it even has its GPL source code released on its website, and maybe because it has same SOC architecture, for some reason it may also be possible to port Openwrt for the DECO X60
Here is the original source code link for the Deco X20 1.20/1.2 (US):
https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/download/deco-x20/v1.20/#GPL-Code
for your convenience, here is a copy of the gpl src that I had unarchived and uploaded to my github repository:
https://github.com/AmirulAndalib/DECO-X20-V1.20-GPL-SRC
As I am 16 years old, I don't have much knowledge about building OpenWRT for this device; I don't have a serial reader, and I can't mess up with the internal parts. The best I can do is do everything possible from the outside; I know the usage of git, know Linux, and have used OpenWRT on my XiaoQiang 1200AC. But I guess it's worth it for doing research on the X20 v1.20 (specifically just 1.20; no confusion, it's using the QCA chipset).
Thanks for looking into this !
pretty much sure it uses QCA networking 600 as my isp's website mentioned it uses a 1GHZ qca soc, it is possible its QCA N600
https://www.qualcomm.com/products/internet-of-things/networking/wi-fi-networks/networking-pro-series/qualcomm-networking-pro-400-platform
https://4pda.to/2020/07/30/373708/ says the deco x20 v1.20 uses a QCA IPQ 8070 SOC