I read the dangowrt guide for getting OpenWRT on this new device. I never heard of auc before. If I want to flash a new snapshot of pure openwrt not dangowrt, do I use auc or can I use the old method of LuCI>System>Backup/Flash Firmware? Can I just download and use the nightly OpenWRT snapshots or is something special needed?
Once you have completed the install instructions, you can just upgrade snapshots using either auc or the 'attended sysupgrade' in LuCi:
I have used the latter very often - it seems very resilient. It builds a custom snapshot based on the packages you have installed.
You could also build your own firmware instead and then flash, but auc or the LuCi attended sysupgrade saves you an enormous amount of trouble, and loss of time, facilitating better use of the limited time we have available with our lives.
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But if I just want to use the daily snapshot, can I just use System>Backup/Flash Firmware>Flash image and make sure to use the the one called openwrt-mediatek-mt7622-linksys_e8450-ubi-squashfs-sysupgrade.itb and be good?
Why wouldn't you just use the methods above?
I think at least @hnyman will be able to answer your question though.
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I have been using snapshots for a long time on my old router and never had a problem. This seems new and if I don't have to change my method of flashing I would like not to do.
Yes, you would be good with the normal sysupgrade flash, but note that the normal daily snapshot images are without LuCI GUI, so you need to install it from ssh console via opkg.
AUC, attended sysupgrade, online imagebuilder or whatever, is a newish tool to enable adding packages to the sysupgrade image.
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Thanks @hnyman.
By the way @msilletti lots of individuals are already using AUC and attended sysupgrade and it works very well.
@hnyman am I right in thinking there is a memory footprint benefit to having firmware built with custom packages? My understanding is this respect is a bit hazy, but I thought there was a benefit along those lines.
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Yes.
If the packages are included in the firmware image, they get compressed more efficiently, so they take less flash space.
If they are later installed via opkg, the possible compression is much weaker.
The difference was meaningful with routers with small 4 MB / 8 MB flash memories, but is normally not so important any more with current 64+ MB flash memories.
(PS. I have always compiled my own images from sources with the full toolchain, so I have never used auc or the traditional imagebuilder.)
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