OpenWrt Forum Archive

Topic: Belkin F5D8235-4 N router with gigabit switch

The content of this topic has been archived between 15 Apr 2018 and 25 Apr 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

Just got to start working on mine again as well. The latest trunk build of Openwrt boots just fine on this router, but I can't even see the ethernet devices much less use them. I know I read somewhere that the drivers for the wireless are proprietary, so you can only get them in binary form from the stock firmware source. However, there is a driver listed for the switch chip in the kernel configuration. I don't quite understand why I can't see the switch device when I boot. Maybe it has something to do with the initialization DorianGrey mentioned in his last post.

Hi all

This board looks very interesting, so..
I've been working on this board lately and have it running openwrt now (well few months ago..).
Patches are submitted to openwrt-devel list (I hope they will be commited soon) and also available here: http://advem.lv/openwrt/
Last patch in the directory is not submitted (configs) as I didn't understand how to profile configuration files for different boards.
Also there is no support for USB now but I hope I'll have time to add it or maybe someone else will do it.
Patches are tested but it would be good to be tested by others also.

Waiting for comments...

Regards,
Roman Yeryomin

Wow.... that looks complicated.....

Patches 01 and 03 where commited (Belkin board support and rtl8366rb switch mods) to trunk so I've deleted them.
Profile patches reworked and new versions sent to the list, so I expect them to be commited soon.

But there is question with ramips_esw.c patch - it partially breaks ramips target. Without this change all other patches are useless - ethernet simply won't work.

I'm working on USB support right now. It's mostly done but not tested yet. I'll publish what I have soon.

Xander, I can help testing!

Well, it is not very easy in fact...

I've modified some recent drivers that were published on linuxppc-dev in October. I had to convert them to using platform bus instead of of_platform and fix several bugs and arch-specific things. BTW the driver requires at least kernel 2.6.35. I'm using it on 2.6.36. It's still missing some rt305x/board specific initialization because it can't even initialize AHB. At least I fixed some terrible bugs. I'm diving into docs.

The code is here: https://github.com/ago/openwrt
Don't forget to add rt305x_register_usb() call to your machine type initialization function.

Can you please test the code? I'd want to know if my problems are board specific (proboably not) or rt305x specific. If the latter is true I have some ideas for further testing.

I made AHB working but now it lockups. WIll publish the code soon.

Ok, found the problem. If I don't enable interrupts from the usb controller it doesn't hang. But the problem is not in the interrupt hander of the driver because it doesn't ever take control (it doesn't printk). So the problem is in the board specific irq code related/INTC code. Any thoughts?

It works!!!

Just noticed your messages.. cool!
Can you make a patch which can be applied to openwrt trunk?

Yes, it's in progress. I'll send it to openwrt-devel and publish in my git repo.

any progress on this unit?
i got this machine,but really don't like the official firmware
hope can supported by OpenWrt.
thx!

Hi guys. I see you went deeper than my superficial attempts for doing something with this router. Kudos for that.
I've recently noticed I cannot put this router into bridge mode (no options for doing it), and thus I would be interested to switch to openwrt firmware, and reading above I understand you guys made it work smile I mean does it fully work really? It seems like a dream come true xD

As I understand it the working code is here ? https://github.com/ago/openwrt
Can anyone say what doesn't work?
I'm assuming everything works.. ?
Anyway I'm not sure how to burn that yet, any help would be appreciated.. I still have 2.01.07 official firmware

Thanks a bunch!

No, the published code is not fully functional yet. I fixed some bugs but not all of them, I think. And it's still a mess. I'm quite busy now but I'll publish everything soon. I'll have to fix bugs and rebase it against the current trunk.

(Last edited by Xander on 22 Dec 2010, 03:40)

Hey, ok, thanks for the uber quick reply smile
That sounds good.
I was reading some of earlier posts and I guess I'll have to use this config that herb mentioned http://olecam.online.fr/dir-300-b2/rt305x.config
since I don't see a(n obvious) config file in your repo smile
I think I'll try to compile something, not sure which (your repo or current openwrt one)
Hope to hear from you soon.

Actually the only thing which wasn't working was usb until Xander appeared smile
I'm using this router with openwrt for about 4-5 months already (without usb).

Could you give a link to your config please roman ?
I got side-tracked and forgot to build anything, was trying to make windows 7's tree folding expand/collapse icons not fade away when not mover over or focused (seems almost impossible probably have to modify DirectUI XML inside shell32.dll or shellstyle.dll or somewhere - no luck yet).
Anyway, if anyone could give a few hints on how to build openwrt for F5D8235-4 v2000 would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance smile

sorry for delay and happy New Year to everybody! smile

I've put my .config to the same folder with patches. It's from revision 24146. I've seen that there were changes to ramips, so it could be that this .config can't be applied directly. But you always can checkout 24146.

Hi,
      Looking for a RT305x port that can have network support. Has anybody been able to support even 1 Ethernet ? I could do a ping with one image but nothing beyond ping (and even ping took loong time).

I am now trying Xanders build if I could get something better. My hardware is a typical OEM with RT3052 (8M/32M) with 4+1 Ethernet ports and the PHY used is from the SoC.

Please advice,

-Happy New Year and happy hacking. :-)

Xander's build gave  same results as standard openwrt -- OS is up but no network and no USB

Xanders build (and mine also) is for Belkin F5D8235 which has external gigabit switch - of cause it's not working for you. You should try other images (whr-g300n or fonera for example) which are using internal switch (I suppose this is your case).

Thanks - I could flash the fon firmware. Strange thing now is I can ping but ssh/telnet/web access are all disabled.
Can you please advice what could be the reason ? I can ping another machine and it can get ping response both ways.

Last time I tried to build OpenWrt, Xander's build didn't have a target for this Belkin, and the stock OpenWRT didn't have the ramips external-switch patches.  Oh, and those patches... are they against Xander's tree, or the stock tree?  They seem to have missed the change from ramips_esw_wr to rt305x_esw_wr, in recent stock OpenWRT.

I finally rebased and tested my patchset with USB support against the latest trunk. Just sent it to openwrt-devel.

The discussion might have continued from here.