SMP or generic image for Comtrend AR-5381u

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hello,

I have a Comtrend AR-5381u device and I want to install last OpenWRT image on it.

There are two image available: SMP and generic.

Which one could I choose? Which is the difference?

This is the device information: https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/comtrend/ar5381u

Thanks for your help.

Kind regards.

1 Like
2

From: https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/comtrend/comtrend_ar-5381u

Firmware OpenWrt Install URL:

http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.1/targets/brcm63xx/generic/openwrt-18.06.1-brcm63xx-generic-AR5381u-squashfs-cfe.bin

Firmware OpenWrt Upgrade URL:

http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.1/targets/brcm63xx/generic/openwrt-18.06.1-brcm63xx-generic-AR5381u-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

  • Please explain where you see SMP and generic?
3

Hello,

Here: http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.1/targets/brcm63xx/

There are 2 folders, and inside there are the all the images:

http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.1/targets/brcm63xx/smp/openwrt-18.06.1-brcm63xx-smp-AR5381u-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

http://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.1/targets/brcm63xx/generic/openwrt-18.06.1-brcm63xx-generic-AR5381u-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

Regards.

4

See https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/targets/brcm63xx

SMP (Symmetric multiprocessing) is supposed to take the advantage of using two cores when present and supported by the Linux kernel.
For multicore devices it is recommended to use the SMP firmware, unless you experience problems when using two cores.

Since AR-5381u has BCM6328, which is single core, I'd guess that the generic images are the right ones (which leaves the question why smp images exist).

5

Thanks thomas,

I installed the SMP image (I do it before read your reply) and it is working great. I will change it to generic version later.

In this case (single core) looks that it has no sense to add more modules in the kernel that it is not going to use.

Thanks for your replies.

Kind regards.