OpenWrt Forum Archive

Topic: Openwrt on PC Engines APU2

The content of this topic has been archived on 15 Apr 2018.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

Hi,

I'm planning on buying a PC Engines APU2 (apu2b2 or apu2b4).
But about the LEDs. I saw serveral patches and build targets for the APU. But what is the current support in CC for the LEDs of the APU?

Regards,
Timeless

No one that can help me with my problem?

You might find some owners on irc #openwrt.

I will try tomorrow. But isn't it just better to use the forum instead so everyone can see the progress?

It does help to document your progress here big_smile  But the developers and senior users may hang out more on IRC.

So please report back!  TIA.

Clemmitt

Timeless wrote:

No one that can help me with my problem?

I'm using an apu apu1d4 with current trunk. To be honest I never take care of the three LEDs, not really a vital part of a router ... smile

No clue if this will help but here is the config from my ALIX system file:

config led
    option name 'LAN'
    option sysfs 'alix:1'
    option default '1'
    option trigger 'netdev'
    option dev 'br-lan'
    option mode 'tx rx'

config led
    option default '0'
    option name 'WiFi'
    option sysfs 'alix:2'
    option trigger 'none'

config led
    option default '0'
    option name 'Heartbeat'
    option sysfs 'alix:3'
    option trigger 'heartbeat'

And then maybe then can help you ID what's what to set things up
http://www.pcengines.ch/support.htm

Any one up for some ToH maintenance on this?
https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start?dataflt[Brand*~]=PC+Engines

Of course, it is a question of taste, but having an APU as my homeserver, running Voyage, and several smaller openwrt devices, I would never consider running openwrt on the APU, too.
Simply because of the more familar "standard" LINUX setup on the APU, AND the immediate access to up-to-date device drivers, as I also run LTE-modem on my APU, and other stuff. Which usually only needs some "./configure make make install"" to be built.

(Last edited by augustus_meyer on 18 Mar 2016, 10:11)

Thanks for the replies. I would like to get support for the LEDs to indicate the network activity and load of the device. Because the NIC LEDs are not visible from the front.

And I also considered Voyage for the APU but I like to have it configurable from a web interface so I can monitor its status from any device without and specific software.

And thanks for the Alix information. I have to admit that this APU is a replacement of my older ALIX. But the ALIX and the APU are completely different in case of hardware. And I also first need to get the class led drivers working before I can use the LED config in OpenWRT

(Last edited by Timeless on 18 Mar 2016, 10:55)

The LEDs do not work on the APU. I have an APU 1D4 running the latest trunk (compiled yesterday). Before I was running OpenWRT on it I was running Fedora 23. Fedora ran great, but lacks the necessary firewall features in firewalld to make it a proper router. I'm using the OpenWRT x86-64 target.

Yeah thats correct. Since there is no support for it yet pushed to OpenWRT. I found some patches:link and they compile succesfully on the 15.05.1 tag but the apu led package is not there.

(Last edited by Timeless on 18 Mar 2016, 13:31)

I'm now running a APU2 with a x64 image and everything except the LEDs/Button/CPU temp seems to work.

Anyone working on this platform?

I am not yet doing OpenWRT work on this platform but I would like to start doing so right away.

I have an APU1D4 and will soon be getting some APU2C4s.  My preference is to run OpenWRT on it but I have not had a chance to try yet.  The wiki is a bit vague as to what currently works and what is broken.  Running a generic x86 image might be "good enough" but I would really, really prefer to be able to run x64 and SMP.

@Timeless you mention that you are running an x64 image.... any hints on what to do to build it and get it running?  Is it buildable from Chaos Calmer or just from trunk?

I'm a bit new at this but would be quite willing to contribute to this in some way (e.g. update the wiki page once I figure out how to do this)

My first choice, by quite a wide margin, is to get OpenWRT running on the APU1/APU2.... if that doesn't work I will reluctantly use one of the other operating systems known to run on it.

Any hints, any words of encouragement...?

(Last edited by danielchisholm on 22 Mar 2016, 21:46)

There is a generic x86-x64 image / target. Works fine on the apu1d4. SMP and all.

I tried the Chaos Calmer 15.05.1 release but because the collectd package is broken for x64 I'm now running a trunk x64 snapshot. Everything is working except the LEDs and front button.

I installed the k10temp module to get a CPU temp readout and SMP is enabled by default.

Strange thing is that sensors-detect does not list my CPU as supported. But the k10temp seems to work anyway.

(Last edited by Timeless on 24 Mar 2016, 11:19)

Thanks @adam2104 and @Timeless.  Since I made my post I compiled in my local workspace (can't recall if its CC 15.05 or 15.05.1) and "openwrt-x86-64-combined-squashfs.img" seems to work fine on my APU1D4, including SMP as adam2104 says.  This is the first time I've run OpenWRT on an x86 platform, and with multi-GBs of storage so I am still feeling my way around trying to decide if I should use the ext4 or the squashfs images.

I would like to use the squashfs filesystem (because of the factory reset) but I can't find a way how to resize the overlayfs partition. Gparted and resizefs are not working.

And since I have a 32GB msata disk I would be nice to have a bigger partition.

(Last edited by Timeless on 24 Mar 2016, 15:12)

dibdot wrote:
Timeless wrote:

No one that can help me with my problem?

I'm using an apu apu1d4 with current trunk. To be honest I never take care of the three LEDs, not really a vital part of a router ... smile

Are APU.1D really powerfull as they say? Can it route 1Gbps of traffic?

Are you satisfied with stability of APU, are there any issues?

I have only tried a 100Mbit link between LAN and WAN and it causes a 0.35 load on the APU1 and a 0.2 load on the APU2. So something tels me that it should be capable of routing 1000Mbit. But it also depends on the multi core integration of OpenWRT. But for now I see a almost equal load on all the 4 cores in the APU2.

Ps. I also noticed that hwclock does not work in the current trunk. It causes a segfault and it does not change the hardware clock at all.

(Last edited by Timeless on 27 Mar 2016, 11:06)

valentt wrote:

Are you satisfied with stability of APU, are there any issues?

Using APU1d4 for years already, as home-server (ext. 1TB, int. SSD, int. LTE-modem, DSL)  and development system (also for openwrt-buildroot).
Never any problem.
However, I run voyage on the APU, as I also needed up-to-date LTE-drivers.

Timeless wrote:

Ps. I also noticed that hwclock does not work in the current trunk. It causes a segfault and it does not change the hardware clock at all.

could you please list the steps to reproduce this issue? Thanks!

Sorry dont jnow about it ....

dibdot wrote:

could you please list the steps to reproduce this issue? Thanks!

The steps are Install trunk ---> type hwclock in the CLI. And thats it.

(Last edited by Timeless on 3 Apr 2016, 00:50)

Timeless wrote:
dibdot wrote:

could you please list the steps to reproduce this issue? Thanks!

The steps are Install trunk ---> type hwclock in the CLI. And thats it.

worksforme, tested with my own trunk buildroot versions for 1d4 and 2c4:

root@blackhole:~# cat /etc/openwrt_release 
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION='OpenWrt Designated Driver r49088'
[...]

root@blackhole:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor    : 0
vendor_id    : AuthenticAMD
cpu family    : 20
model        : 2
model name    : AMD G-T40E Processor
[...]

root@blackhole:~# hwclock
Sun Apr  3 05:26:35 2016  0.000000 seconds

root@OpenWrt:~# cat /etc/openwrt_release 
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION='OpenWrt Designated Driver r49114'
[...]

root@OpenWrt:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor    : 0
vendor_id    : AuthenticAMD
cpu family    : 22
model        : 48
model name    : AMD GX-412TC SOC
[...]

root@OpenWrt:~# hwclock 
Mon Mar  7 14:38:31 2016  0.000000 seconds

check that "/dev/rtc0" and "/proc/driver/rtc" exist. Further more I'm using stock busybox hwclock utility on both devices (check with hwclock --help).

(Last edited by dibdot on 3 Apr 2016, 07:24)

Thats strange? Is there a dep missing from my installation or something. I used the imagebuilder to create a r49066 image for my apu2c4. And it gave me that segfault. Yesterday I also used a acpi x86 thin client with r49088 and it gave me that same message.

Did you install something else apart from the hwclock utility? It would be really nice to that hwclock working since my system time is 2 hours in the future so once I reboot collectd will start collecting data after 2 hours since  it gets started before NTP sets the correct time.

(Last edited by Timeless on 3 Apr 2016, 08:41)

The discussion might have continued from here.