Hi, after two days of trying, I'm posting to see if somebody can help me out.
I know installation on this one is through uboot with a tftp server. Ok. I have everything under control, almost, but one thing is driving me mad.
When uboot is starting and I'm watching the console output on the terminal, when it asks:
Please choose the operation:
1: Load system code to SDRAM via TFTP.
2: Load system code then write to Flash via TFTP.
3: Boot system code via Flash (default).
(etc)
It autoselects option 3), the default one. But without giving me any option to enter number 2 which is the one to write the firmware through tftp. Here you can see the output at that moment:
I have already read many times the 4 pages on the old forum about R36:
https://forum.archive.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=31264&p=3
...the thing is that thinking that I could have some problem with my serial devices... I have check with two different USB TTLs using putty from windows to get the console, but because they both do exactly what I'm telling you, as I third try I'm doing it with a raspberry pi 2, through raspbian, with minicom serial software and connecting it through serial GPIOS to the alfa_R36 and... ...
it DOES just THE SAME!!!. ...lightspeed uboot autoselecting option 3 without time to press anything. I have tried pressing key '2' even before powering the R36, but no luck, uboot always starting with flash image.
note: after trying many times with original alfa firmware installed v1.3.0.0RA(Feb 17 2012), I finally update to latest alfa version v2.32(2017) to see if that change something on the uboot start sequence, but it does the same.
edit: (I already did a loopback test of the terminal, conecting Tx to Rx directly and what I press on the keyboard are correctly typed on terminal screen, so cable conections seem right).
Tested with diferrent terminal programs, putty(windows), minicom, picocom, screen (linux)... everyone behaves the same.
Any help to try something different will be very appreciated. Thanks!.