Tagging dual boot devices

Talk about Documentation
1

We currently do not have a tag for dual boot / dual partition devices.

  1. Are these all devices with this functionality or are there more?
    • Linksys EA3500
    • Linksys E4200v2
    • Linksys EA4500
    • Linksys EA6350v3
    • Linksys EA8500
    • Linksys WRT1200AC
    • Linksys WRT1900AC
    • Linksys WRT1900ACv2
    • Linksys WRT1900ACS
    • Linksys WRT3200ACM
    • Linksys WRT32X
    • ZyXEL NBG6817
  2. What would be the correct tag?
  • dual boot
  • dual partition
  • dual firmware
  • something else

0 voters

2 Likes
2

Linksys EA8300 -- Dual NAND firmware

GL.iNet AR300M, if the ath79, SPI-NAND PR is ever merged, will boot from either NOR or from NAND, with failover from NAND to NOR on excessive boot failures.

Without much coffee this morning, "dual firmware" seems reasonable.

"Dual boot" suggests to me that it runs two different OSes (which, I guess it could, but...).

Here's all the targets with a bootcount init script:

jeff@deb-devel:~/devel/openwrt$ find target -name 'bootcount'
target/linux/ipq806x/base-files/etc/init.d/bootcount
target/linux/kirkwood/base-files/etc/init.d/bootcount
target/linux/mvebu/base-files/etc/init.d/bootcount
target/linux/ipq40xx/base-files/etc/init.d/bootcount
target/linux/ath79/base-files/etc/init.d/bootcount
target/linux/ramips/base-files/etc/init.d/bootcount
3 Likes
3

Is there anyone with this device who is willing to help me get luci-app-advanced-reboot working for it?

PS. I know that technically these devices have more than 2 partitions, but in terms of explaining how things work to users, I believe dual-partition naming is better.

4

@stangri lib/upgrade/linksys.sh and Script: Mount "Alternate" NAND Firmware (Linksys +?) should have most of what you need. PM me for anything and I can test as well.

5

agree...

generic enough to cover the many "flavours" that no doubt will manifest going forward. maybe with a hyphen... to pretty it up a bit :wink:

dual-firmware

6

BTW: I added a vote to the first posting.

2 Likes
7

@tmomas -- I'll be submitting a PR for an updated version of advanced reboot luci app within a few days and I want to include a link to ToH listing all dual-boot devices in the README. Can you please help me with a link? Would it be something like: https://openwrt.org/toh/start?dataflt[Device+Techdata_pageid*~]=dual ?

8

For me +1 dual firmware seems generic enough, although unlisted, "failover firmware" is appealing to me also because of the intended usage from the manufacturers, that is really to recover from flash failure. Dual firmware might not ring a bell immediately to new users as to what the purpose of the second firmware is.

2 Likes
9

What about devices like the Xiaomi Mi Router 3G which has a dual partition layout with the factory firmware and only a single partition layout on OpenWRT?

10

Sorry for the late reply.

Example link (showing nothing since no pages tagged yet):
https://openwrt.org/tag/dual_firmware?do=showtag&tag=dual_firmware

1 Like
11

Good question.

As a user who wants to buy a device, I would expect this functionality to be present also with OpenWrt. Since it is not, I wouldn't tag those devices with dual firmware.

Is the R3G the only device where this feature is lost after installing OpenWrt?

1 Like
12

Thank you, I'll monitor this thread and push the new README with the link when the devices are actually tagged.

13

Would it be possible for the "Dataentry" to list Dual Partition/Firmware Support with options of YES, NO, STOCK ONLY?

14

For dataentries, yes.

15

Turris Omnia can boot from eMMC or mPCIe SSD or USB.

16

And it automatically boots from other media if booting fails (for whatever reason)?

17

Standard is eMMC. Booting from SSD or USB requires the u-boot env to be set accordingly.

Hence, it has a fallback routine to emergency boot (accessible via UART) but I am not aware that u-boot provides a routine to check if one boot media fails and falls back to the other. Perhaps it is possible somehow but I have not looked into how that works.

Time being I got in total four partitions (1 x eMMC, 3 x USB) from which to choose to boot, via ssh setting the fw_setenv and rebooting the node to the chosen partition. If that goes haywire however have to get out the UART kit and set things straight again.

Would have also partitions on the SSD but that is using GPT and the u-boot implementation in OpenWrt has not integrated support for it.

1 Like
18

I think the netgear r7800 is another candidate for "stock only" if i'm right...

19

What makes you believe that Netgear's OEM firmware for the r7800 offers dualboot?

20

I have closed the poll now.

OK, then "dual firmware" will be the tag to use for such devices.
I will tag the ones listed in my first posting (+EA8300) accordingly.

Edit: Done, dual firmware devices are now listed at
https://openwrt.org/tag/dual_firmware

2 Likes