Porting OpenWrt

[susy]

Hi guys i am trying to port openwrt to a new board with mips cpu. Actually the card already mounts an old version of openwrt, apparently opwnrt backfire 10.03:

BusyBox v1.15.3 (2020-04-21 14:41:24 CST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

  _______                     ________        __
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 |_______||   __|_____|__|__||________||__|  |____|
          |__| W I R E L E S S   F R E E D O M
 Backfire (10.03, r131) --------------------------
  * 1/3 shot Kahlua    In a shot glass, layer Kahlua
  * 1/3 shot Bailey's  on the bottom, then Bailey's,
  * 1/3 shot Vodka     then Vodka.
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DISTRIB_ID="OpenWrt"
DISTRIB_RELEASE="10.03"
DISTRIB_CODENAME="backfire"
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="OpenWrt Backfire 10.03"

system type             : Montage Soc
processor               : 0
cpu model               : MIPS 4KEc V7.0
cpu MHz                 : 320.00
BogoMIPS                : 319.48
wait instruction        : yes
microsecond timers      : no
tlb_entries             : 16
extra interrupt vector  : yes
hardware watchpoint     : no
ASEs implemented        : mips16
shadow register sets    : 1
core                    : 0
VCED exceptions         : not available
VCEI exceptions         : not available

Linux version 2.6.32.11.as (zhouzhiyuan@HFS1) (gcc version 4.8.3 20140401 (prerelease) (Linaro GCC 4.8-2014.04) ) #58 PREEMPT Tue Apr 21 14:52:21 CST 2020
CPU revision is: 00019070 (MIPS 4KEc)
Determined physical RAM map:
User-defined physical RAM map:
 memory: 02000000 @ 00000000 (usable)
Initrd not found or empty - disabling initrd
Zone PFN ranges:
  Normal   0x00000000 -> 0x00002000
Movable zone start PFN for each node
early_node_map[1] active PFN ranges
    0: 0x00000000 -> 0x00002000
On node 0 totalpages: 8192
free_area_init_node: node 0, pgdat 80265bb0, node_mem_map 81000000
  Normal zone: 64 pages used for m
....

dev:    size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00010000 00010000 "boot"
mtd1: 00010000 00010000 "cdb"
mtd2: 006e0000 00010000 "firmware"
mtd3: 000e0000 00010000 "linux"
mtd4: 005fffd0 00010000 "rootfs"
mtd5: 00900000 00010000 "rwfs"

Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root                 2.6M      2.6M         0 100% /
devtmpfs                 14.5M         0     14.5M   0% /dev
tmpfs                    14.5M      2.3M     12.2M  16% /tmp
mini_fo:/tmp/etc          2.6M      2.6M         0 100% /etc

I tried to contact the manufacturer but they didn't answer me. so with the info I had I went in search of a toolchain to compile my tool written in rust, managing to run it on the machine. But now I would like to compile an openwrt release at least the backfire version but I don't know where to start, do you have any ideas?

The toolchain I used is this toolchain-mips_r2_gcc-4.6-linaro_uClibc-0.9.33.2

[WereCatf]

@susy

do you have any ideas?

Download the OpenWrt source-code from e.g. their Github-repo, find a device that resembles yours as much as possible in target/linux/, then modify the DTS-file accordingly, compile an initramfs-image and figure out how to boot it with whatever bootloader you got.

[slh]

Realistically speaking, this isn't going to happen.

The SOC isn't supported by OpenWrt so far, which would mean you don't 'just' have to add a new board to an already existing (well-maintained) target, but you'd also have to develop SOC and driver support first (which would be a far bigger task, especially as there's zero mainline support either). It doesn't help at all that your device is very low-spec (below minimum system requirements) with 32 MB RAM and just 320 MHz mips 4KEc doesn't promise acceptable usability either.

[susy]

I agree with your point of view, soc, ram .. they are at their lowest but for what I should do with them they may be fine. My idea is to start a mini webapp written in rust that manages periodic tasks (http requests to some devices connected to the network) and activates some pins when a certain condition occurs.

Luckily I was able to find the full build for openwrt backfire with kernel, driver... (everything). I was also able to compile a custom image. But now I'm having problems cross-compiling with rust, the kernel that mounts is at the linux-2.6.32.11 version and the uclibc toolchain doesn't help, what i would like to do is update to a newer version. I don't need luci or who knows what, i'd set everything to a minimum.

Is there a way to bring everything to a newer version by also changing the toolchain?

[slh]

Forget about rust on backfire or kernel 2.6.x, it's just way too old for that, either translate your program to a different (more bare bones) language (C or lua come to mind) or (better) forward port SOC/ device support into the modern world (master/ kernel v5.15+) - but that's where the device specs come back to bite you…

The only reasonable approach would be to look on your local used markets for a more modern, supported, device with comfortable system specs (you can find pretty amazing stuff in the 1-10 buck bracket already), stuff that would just work within 10 minutes - rather than requiring you to spend months on below-spec hardware.

[susy]

Yes at least the 4 * version of the kernel would be a good step forward, alternatively I should just use lua with uhttpd, but I've never used this approach.

Anyway, I chose the card because it couldn't be better for less than $ ~15. I was looking for a small card with an ethernet port on board and a few pins. You will be surprised by its size (that's why i love the Chinese market)