X86 Intel drivers update

I have fully working, x86 router OpenWrt, with x4 i210-AT intel chips, how i can install driver updates for those microships? Should i downaload intel Linux driver and build it as package or how?

NOTE: Recent intel drivers brings huge stability and secutiry fixes, so yes, i need it even it works great now.

p.s. Whole my life i lived on windows, so please don't be rude at me, i know about linux nothing. just give me way and some explains.

Generally you don't. For drivers you're looking for kmod packages in the repository (to make you hardware work).

You network cards should work just fine out-the-box, and should security issues arise then you need to depend on the maintainers to fix via service release (or in snapshot). Personally I trust that openwrt is already seriously focused on security and stability.

You will find lots of things that won't work out-the-box e.g. USB sticks, file systems, SD cards etc but there'll be a kmod. It's generally a bad idea though idea to go updating packages willy nilly. You will break something eventually as software packages move on ahead of the released version and compatibility with it.

Whilst there nothing stopping you installing custom packages (search openwrt on github for example) you need to be wanting to do something special, and at your own risk very much. It ain't Windows and personally I don't ever need to.

Since your running an x86 - good idea to use multiple partitions and installs. Keep a golden one and use another for mucking about / testing.

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I suppose, Intel drivers are closed-source one. So you can only install supported version of Linux, and configure it manually.

It's entirely possible to use the out of tree Intel drivers. However, it requires a level of knowledge sufficient to build your own firmware from the source code. There's a big learning curve, especially if you've never used Linux and then compiling new drivers that are not part of the base openwrt distribution requires another level of knowledge on top of that

I've used both the upstream drivers (which are the ones shipped with the kernel) and the Intel out of tree drivers you're referring to. There's really not any obvious difference and I don't think you're going to gain anything at all from using them, certainly nothing worth the effort of compiling your own firmware.

That said, if you really want to spend the many hours learning how to compile your own firmware or if there's anyone else looking to do the same thing, here's a Makefile for the Intel out-of-tree igb drivers.

#
# Drivers Copyright (C) 2019 Intel Corporation
#
# This is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.
#

include $(TOPDIR)/rules.mk

PKG_NAME:=kmod-igb-intel
PKG_VERSION:=5.3.5.42
PKG_RELEASE:=1

PKG_SOURCE:=igb-$(PKG_VERSION).tar.gz
PKG_SOURCE_URL:=http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/e1000/igb%20stable/$(PKG_VERSION)/
PKG_MD5SUM:=b9c27bccb28432807955b8ff116ab029

include $(INCLUDE_DIR)/kernel.mk
include $(INCLUDE_DIR)/package.mk

PKG_UNPACK:=zcat $(DL_DIR)/$(PKG_SOURCE) | $(TAR) -C $(PKG_BUILD_DIR) --strip-components=1 -xf -

MAKE_PATH:=src

MAKE_VARS:= \
	KSRC="$(LINUX_DIR)" 

MAKE_OPTS:= \
	ARCH="$(LINUX_KARCH)" \
	CROSS_COMPILE="$(KERNEL_CROSS)" 

define KernelPackage/igb-intel
  SUBMENU:=Network Devices
  TITLE:=Intel igb drivers - out of tree version
  DEPENDS:=+kmod-ptp @PCI_SUPPORT 
  KCONFIG:=CONFIG_IGB \
    CONFIG_IGB_HWMON=n \
    CONFIG_IGB_DCA=n
  FILES:=$(PKG_BUILD_DIR)/src/igb.ko
  AUTOLOAD:=$(call AutoLoad,35,igb)
endef

define KernelPackage/igb-intel/description
 Kernel modules for Intel igb out of tree drivers
 Warning: do not select the core package kmod-igb as this is an
 updated version of the igb driver that shares the same module name
endef

$(eval $(call KernelPackage,igb-intel))
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you mean install linux distr like ubuntu and install drivers?

No, we don't mean that.

The advice you're getting is: the drivers in Openwrt are the ones in the kernel already. They are good enough. No reason to use anything else.

Thanks! i guess it's not worth it, works fine now, didn't saw any troubles. Marked your answer as a Solution.

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