Will there be "OpenWRT 18.06" support for TL-MR3220? (4/32 tiny device)

Hi! I see that the router still has support for LEDE 17.01.5 and snapshot builds, but will it have support for OpenWRT 18.6.0 or is it impossible?

I don't know why it hasn't been built. It's available as a choice in the the build configuration, so I think it is possible for you to build it yourself.

It is a 4/32 device, so possibly the built firmware with LuCI exceeds the maximum size for that device.

It is already in the ar71xx/tiny target, but maybe even that is too large.

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So I also have a similar ....

I just has a look at this TL-MR3420v2 snapshsot with a built date Fri Aug 3 06:07:46 2018:
https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/ar71xx/tiny/openwrt-ar71xx-tiny-tl-mr3420-v2-squashfs-factory.bin

Does this mean it will be available as a future tiny 18.6.x download, to be found here?:
https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.0/targets/ar71xx/tiny/

Snapshots do not include LuCI and are smaller due to that.

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Generally the footprint of Openwrt with typical minimal stuff has overgrown the 4 MB flash space, and Linux kernel & typical add-on programs have overgrown the 32 MB RAM limit.

The 4/32 warning page explains the matter more closely:
https://openwrt.org/supported_devices/432_warning
(regarding flash space, read also the part "An analysis of the issue done by forum user slh")

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That would be OK with me!

As I only need to install a few packages, block-mount kmod-usb-storage kmod-fs-ext4, then configure ExtRoot for storage space on a USB stick. Once accomplished I will then install LUCI and any other packages I require.

My intention is to find out if a tiny image will be available as a 18.6.x download?

Just reading it now!

18.06 images include LuCI and that pushes the size too much, I guess. So no ready 18.06 image forthcoming

Best solution would be use the 18.06 imagebuilder to tailor an 18.06 image by yourself, including just those packages you need. That would ensure having as much flash space available as possible.

Note that there is already now the "master" branch image (of the bleeding edge development) available from https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/ar71xx/tiny/

I'm familiar with imagebuilder, I've only just built a 17.01.5 image (with minimal packages yesterday) and done what I described here, thinking there wouldn't be an image available...

Yes I just noticed it in the last hour (because of this topic!) and only created today!

So does this mean even though there are 18.06 'tiny snapshots', won't this lead to 'tiny release' builds also?

No it won't. Tiny snapshots do not include LuCI and are thus small enough. Release images always include LuCI and will thus be too big to get built. There will be no release images without LuCI to avoid inconsistencies.

OK wasn't aware of this, I've only download releases to date.

So the only 18.06 constraint would be the amount of free memory? With 17.01.5 this is what I've got ATM as a completed build.

root@LEDE:~# free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:         28120      25860       2260         92       2000      10536
-/+ buffers/cache:      13324      14796
Swap:            0          0          0

32 MB RAM is limiting but the main constraint is to fit it into the 4 MB flash memory. You'll probably have to compile an image with extroot to be able to do anything useful other than just routing and NAT. Select the rest of the packages you want as (M) and install them afterwards.

It would be nice with an "auto extroot image", which would contain just enough to get extroot up and running. The rest, as in anything not needed to mount the extroot, could be installed afterwards. I doubt anyone can be bothered to make it, though.

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Thanks hnyman! I assumed it was because of that, but I wanted to be sure.

I will follow your advice. Thank you very much hnyman!

It would be nice with an "auto extroot image", which would contain just enough to get extroot up and running.

+1 !

I've planned to get 18.06 onto the mr3420v2 using the 'tiny' imagebuilder that I've just become aware of.

It's great that we're lucky to have such a great response to any issues that do arise if required!

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I did it with the TL-MR3220 v1 and it works very well.luci

Cool!

Just keep an eye out on the processor usage, seems a tad high! (Carga Media)

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Luci's auto-refresh on the status overview page (which is quite taxing on these old low-end routers) is the most likely reason for this elevated CPU usage reading.

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Good to know, I'll keep an eye out on this when I finally upgrade my mr3420v2 to 18.06.