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Topic: sam's firmware collections for TP-Link WR703N

The content of this topic has been archived between 6 Feb 2018 and 1 May 2018. Unfortunately there are posts – most likely complete pages – missing.

@s7mx1:
I also try your PulseAudio firmware,my NB OS is ubuntu 11.04,and i follow your guide have change the /etc/pulse/client.conf.and can't get voice from the PulseAudio server.I install the "paprefs" and then check on the "Make discoverable PulseAudio network sound devices available locally",but i still can't find the server sound devices on the “Output” list inside “gnome-volume-control” on my NB.
I check the PulseAudio status page,it's like this:
http://www.mepopo.com/img/1/33280-4.png

Hi,

I read your earlier message about the MR-3020, which appears to be the same hardware but with different switches and LEDs. Would it be possible to create a build for this hardware? I wasn't able to locate the WR703n in stores and so got the 3020 instead. I appreciate all the work you've done and I'm looking forward to using this wonderful platform instead of my current array of old x86 thin client PCs which are currently running pulseaudio streams.

If the instructions for integrating pulse are straightforward I am happy to integrate it into the firmware myself but I am not sure how the package management is handled at present.

many thanks

twinclouds wrote:

If you don't have any flash space left, the best way is to use extroot.  I don't believe any release will be help you to put too many packages in it, if you don't use a larger flash rom chip.  I have verified that you can use the trunk version to do extroot by first install luci (not required by extroot but a nice thing to have) then a few USB and extroot related packages.  After that, you will be able to enable extroot to expend the rootfs with a formated and plugged-in USB stick.  You can have as much flash space as you want.

Put in a larger flash rom chip is no easy task.  You need to solder the surface mount chip (yuk!), program it to put in the uboot and reflash it.  It will be difficult to do without special tools, at least seems to me.

Well I have tools for changing the chip, but I have no idea what chip I need to buy so if someone can give specs of that 8MB rom chip I would try it and post some results.

In that case, I think MX25L6445EM2I-10G will work.  It is an 8M chip but I don't think there are 16M 8pin chips exist.
BTW, I have asked someone to upgrade to 8M(ROM)/64M(RAM) for me.  I should receive it in a few days.  I can let you know what he used and how it works.

mips wrote:

@s7mx1:
I also try your PulseAudio firmware,my NB OS is ubuntu 11.04,and i follow your guide have change the /etc/pulse/client.conf.and can't get voice from the PulseAudio server.I install the "paprefs" and then check on the "Make discoverable PulseAudio network sound devices available locally",but i still can't find the server sound devices on the “Output” list inside “gnome-volume-control” on my NB.
I check the PulseAudio status page,it's like this:
http://www.mepopo.com/img/1/33280-4.png

@mips

It looks like your pc is not connected to the WR703N's pulseaudio server. If you have made local changes to pulseaudio configuration you need to comment them out in the file ~/.pulse/client.conf (if this file does exists). Secondly from your ubuntu pc make sure you can access WR703N using name otherwise you will need to use ip address instead (in the /etc/pulse/client.conf)

You can try the following from command line on your ubuntu pc

pactl list sinks

if you can see the #0 sink name as card0 then it's working for you. All you need to do is log out and then log in or reboot your ubuntu pc.

belrik wrote:

Hi,

I read your earlier message about the MR-3020, which appears to be the same hardware but with different switches and LEDs. Would it be possible to create a build for this hardware? I wasn't able to locate the WR703n in stores and so got the 3020 instead. I appreciate all the work you've done and I'm looking forward to using this wonderful platform instead of my current array of old x86 thin client PCs which are currently running pulseaudio streams.

If the instructions for integrating pulse are straightforward I am happy to integrate it into the firmware myself but I am not sure how the package management is handled at present.

many thanks

@belrik
Unless MR-3020 is supported by openwrt there is no way I can create a firmware for you. Keep an eye on the openwrt trunk and please let me know if the situation changes.

I have made a fair bit changes to the trunk to make it a lot easier to use. Those changes are in the form of patches that can be applied straightforward. If you are familiar with building openwrt from source code then I don't see any problem of you creating pulseaudio firmwares for supported platforms. I have not verified my patches with the latest trunk. Feel free to give it a try. Patches/configuration can be found here https://xbox-remote.googlecode.com/svn/ … pulseaudio. Let me know if you need more instructions.

You can get WR703N pretty easily online and you pay less than with MR-3020.

(Last edited by s7mx1 on 6 Feb 2012, 12:28)

mips wrote:
s7mx1 wrote:
Atavius wrote:

Hi,
firstly I want to thank you for this wonderful NAS firmware. I managed to make it work with FAT32 by adding package as described. What I would also like to add is NTFS write capability to it. From what I found it should be possible by adding ntfs-3g package but for some reason I cant find link for it anywhere. Can someone point me to the right direction?

Thnx

The NTFS write is enabled by default. You don't need ntfs-3g.

@s7mx1:
Thanks you for your NAS firmware.
I have a WD hardisk(1TB,NTFS format),connect to WR703N(use your NAS firmware),and on my NB(11g,wireless link as 54M) see some 720P movie from NAS.but it's not smooth.I want to change the format to ext3 and have a try,but i don't find any tools convert from NTFS to ext3 without lose data.what's the bottleneck?is the filesystem format or my wireless link speed?

@mips
It all depends on the bit rate of the 720P video you are watching. 54M network will likely give you 2MB/s max data transfer rate which means around 16Mbits of bit rate and this may not enough for high bit rate 720p movies. You can try wired setup to see if this improves. NTFS read throughput will likely be around 5MB/s which should be sufficient for a lot 720P videos but your mileage will vary.

(Last edited by s7mx1 on 6 Feb 2012, 12:35)

twinclouds wrote:

In that case, I think MX25L6445EM2I-10G will work.  It is an 8M chip but I don't think there are 16M 8pin chips exist.
BTW, I have asked someone to upgrade to 8M(ROM)/64M(RAM) for me.  I should receive it in a few days.  I can let you know what he used and how it works.

Sounds great I am looking forward for your post.

s7mx1 wrote:
belrik wrote:

Hi,

I read your earlier message about the MR-3020, which appears to be the same hardware but with different switches and LEDs. Would it be possible to create a build for this hardware? I wasn't able to locate the WR703n in stores and so got the 3020 instead. I appreciate all the work you've done and I'm looking forward to using this wonderful platform instead of my current array of old x86 thin client PCs which are currently running pulseaudio streams.

If the instructions for integrating pulse are straightforward I am happy to integrate it into the firmware myself but I am not sure how the package management is handled at present.

many thanks

@belrik
Unless MR-3020 is supported by openwrt there is no way I can create a firmware for you. Keep an eye on the openwrt trunk and please let me know if the situation changes.

MR3020 is supported in latest version: http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3020

I found the MR3020 for cheap in  HK, couldn't locate703n with UK power adapter.Price difference was only about £3.

thanks

The power connector on the 703 is a standard micro USB, so you can use anything you like to power it, like a phone charger. Got mine delivered from HK to the UK for £17.

As an aside, the power supply that comes with it is rated for 100v to 250v so you can use it pretty much anywhere, if you have the right adaptor.

JamesA wrote:

The power connector on the 703 is a standard micro USB, so you can use anything you like to power it, like a phone charger. Got mine delivered from HK to the UK for £17.

As an aside, the power supply that comes with it is rated for 100v to 250v so you can use it pretty much anywhere, if you have the right adaptor.

Yup but I bought mine for £16 including the power adapter, Golden Computer Arcade FTW ;-). In retrospect I should have haggled but then they can see me coming and I have zero cantonese. Next time I'll try to rope in a guy from the office to help me bargain smile

I'm looking at the wiki page for MR3020 and it looks like the latest snapshots support it, so I guess that means this firmware could be used with it? I'm really kicking myself now but I found 10+ places selling the MR3020 and only one selling the 703n and the box wasn't sealed which worried me too. Just my luck I could probably have mail ordered from the UK now it's more popular. Anyhow, I'll get on the case and fire up a dev VM with the build env when I can. Looking enviously at all these people talking about flash/RAM upgrading but I'll probably just get a raspberry pi for that. I'm totally happy running a fully distro but lack experience in embedded.

s7mx1 wrote:
mips wrote:
s7mx1 wrote:

The NTFS write is enabled by default. You don't need ntfs-3g.

@s7mx1:
Thanks you for your NAS firmware.
I have a WD hardisk(1TB,NTFS format),connect to WR703N(use your NAS firmware),and on my NB(11g,wireless link as 54M) see some 720P movie from NAS.but it's not smooth.I want to change the format to ext3 and have a try,but i don't find any tools convert from NTFS to ext3 without lose data.what's the bottleneck?is the filesystem format or my wireless link speed?

@mips
It all depends on the bit rate of the 720P video you are watching. 54M network will likely give you 2MB/s max data transfer rate which means around 16Mbits of bit rate and this may not enough for high bit rate 720p movies. You can try wired setup to see if this improves. NTFS read throughput will likely be around 5MB/s which should be sufficient for a lot 720P videos but your mileage will vary.

From bitter experience I would not recommend wifi for streaming anything above SD and even then you will find that seeking is slow. If your application is going to peak over 10Mbit then don't rely on wifi; I see many HD streams using 20Mbit and these will absolutely not work over wifi unless you enjoy massive pre-buffering delays.
Audio @ 44.1/16/2 works out about 1.3Mbit and so will work ok for a couple of endpoints but again drop-outs are annoying so I ended up going wired anyway. It's bloody annoying when the audio stops every time you or your neighbour uses the microwave!

belrik wrote:
JamesA wrote:

The power connector on the 703 is a standard micro USB, so you can use anything you like to power it, like a phone charger. Got mine delivered from HK to the UK for £17.

As an aside, the power supply that comes with it is rated for 100v to 250v so you can use it pretty much anywhere, if you have the right adaptor.

Yup but I bought mine for £16 including the power adapter, Golden Computer Arcade FTW ;-). In retrospect I should have haggled but then they can see me coming and I have zero cantonese. Next time I'll try to rope in a guy from the office to help me bargain smile

I'm looking at the wiki page for MR3020 and it looks like the latest snapshots support it, so I guess that means this firmware could be used with it? I'm really kicking myself now but I found 10+ places selling the MR3020 and only one selling the 703n and the box wasn't sealed which worried me too. Just my luck I could probably have mail ordered from the UK now it's more popular. Anyhow, I'll get on the case and fire up a dev VM with the build env when I can. Looking enviously at all these people talking about flash/RAM upgrading but I'll probably just get a raspberry pi for that. I'm totally happy running a fully distro but lack experience in embedded.

I'd love to visit HK for a tech shopping spree smile

The router is like to get hold of of that new tplink one with its own battery. It's not on eBay yet and I'm not sure I trust some of the other web sites that are listing it like volumerates.

JamesA wrote:

....................
I'd love to visit HK for a tech shopping spree smile

The router is like to get hold of of that new tplink one with its own battery. It's not on eBay yet and I'm not sure I trust some of the other web sites that are listing it like volumerates.

I like Taobao (~Ebay of China) better, if you can find a way to ship the items over economically.

(Last edited by twinclouds on 7 Feb 2012, 22:34)

Hi all

I created a project with wr703n and a USB interface that controls 16 I/O GPIO Through a mobile web interface.
I would like to know your strange thoughts, too, after seeing the video. on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2jxzazl_Mw

I am available to provide the firmware or information compiled if anyone interested.

(Last edited by ayyari on 8 Feb 2012, 02:25)

Atavius wrote:
twinclouds wrote:

In that case, I think MX25L6445EM2I-10G will work.  It is an 8M chip but I don't think there are 16M 8pin chips exist.
BTW, I have asked someone to upgrade to 8M(ROM)/64M(RAM) for me.  I should receive it in a few days.  I can let you know what he used and how it works.

Sounds great I am looking forward for your post.

I got the modded device today.  I think the ROM is MX25L6445EM2I-10G as I stated above.  The characters are too small to read clearly.  It is basically very similar to what shown here: http://eectc.en.alibaba.com/product/468 … I_10G.html.

I loaded the 8M system.bin file that I compiled (See here: https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=149061 #22).  Output from df and free are as follows:
root@OpenWrt:~# df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs                    3392       284      3108   8% /
/dev/root                 3840      3840         0 100% /rom
tmpfs                    31016        80     30936   0% /tmp
tmpfs                      512         0       512   0% /dev
/dev/mtdblock3            3392       284      3108   8% /overlay
overlayfs:/overlay        3392       284      3108   8% /
/dev/mtdblock2            3840      3840         0 100% /mnt/mtdblock2
root@OpenWrt:~# free
             total         used         free       shared      buffers
Mem:         62028        25608        36420            0         3648
-/+ buffers:              21960        40068
Swap:            0            0            0
Looks pretty reasonable.
The asterisk18 files that are necessary for gtalk has already included but I have not test that out yet. 
According to the guy did mod, he only used the 4M u-boot but I don't know how to verify this statement.

twinclouds wrote:

I got the modded device today.  I think the ROM is MX25L6445EM2I-10G as I stated above.  The characters are too small to read clearly.  It is basically very similar to what shown here: http://eectc.en.alibaba.com/product/468 … I_10G.html.

I loaded the 8M system.bin file that I compiled (See here: https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=149061 #22).  Output from df and free are as follows:
root@OpenWrt:~# df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs                    3392       284      3108   8% /
/dev/root                 3840      3840         0 100% /rom
tmpfs                    31016        80     30936   0% /tmp
tmpfs                      512         0       512   0% /dev
/dev/mtdblock3            3392       284      3108   8% /overlay
overlayfs:/overlay        3392       284      3108   8% /
/dev/mtdblock2            3840      3840         0 100% /mnt/mtdblock2
root@OpenWrt:~# free
             total         used         free       shared      buffers
Mem:         62028        25608        36420            0         3648
-/+ buffers:              21960        40068
Swap:            0            0            0
Looks pretty reasonable.
The asterisk18 files that are necessary for gtalk has already included but I have not test that out yet. 
According to the guy did mod, he only used the 4M u-boot but I don't know how to verify this statement.

Looks good. Could you point me where you bought this moded Tplink? If its posiible I would like to buy one rather than tinkering with chips.

@Atavius:
I bought it from China (Taobao) paid for ~$28 and asked someone to bring to the US.  Buy is relatively easy but bring over is more difficult.  One possibility is to use taobaonow.com or other similar services.  They charge for 10% fee (that's not bad) but shipping will be about 0.5kg for about $14 USD to US.  I don't know where you are and if they provide shipping to your country.  If you buy more than one and other items, e.g., 8M/16M flash for 1/1.5 USD, USB SPI FLASH for $5, then it will probably be worth it.
Taobao is in Chinese.  I guess you need to find some Chinese friends to help you.  I never used taobaonow so I don't know if they can provide any help.
If you don't know, Taoboa is similar to Ebay but mostly like Buy-It-Now (no bidding).  I think they are at least as reliable, or better than Ebay.

(Last edited by twinclouds on 12 Feb 2012, 01:52)

s7mx1 wrote:

@belrik
Unless MR-3020 is supported by openwrt there is no way I can create a firmware for you. Keep an eye on the openwrt trunk and please let me know if the situation changes.

I have made a fair bit changes to the trunk to make it a lot easier to use. Those changes are in the form of patches that can be applied straightforward. If you are familiar with building openwrt from source code then I don't see any problem of you creating pulseaudio firmwares for supported platforms. I have not verified my patches with the latest trunk. Feel free to give it a try. Patches/configuration can be found here https://xbox-remote.googlecode.com/svn/ … pulseaudio. Let me know if you need more instructions.

You can get WR703N pretty easily online and you pay less than with MR-3020.

Hi there,

I've got OpenWRT up and running on the MR3020 now, could you please post build instructions for your pulseaudio image? Thanks.

Yup, I tried to clear out a few packages and there's no space to fit pulse in on a regular build. I guess you're trimming a lot of fat here and possibly using a different approach to image layout/compression. A couple of tips would be cool.

(Last edited by belrik on 14 Feb 2012, 09:28)

twinclouds wrote:

@Atavius:
I bought it from China (Taobao) paid for ~$28 and asked someone to bring to the US.  Buy is relatively easy but bring over is more difficult.  One possibility is to use taobaonow.com or other similar services.  They charge for 10% fee (that's not bad) but shipping will be about 0.5kg for about $14 USD to US.  I don't know where you are and if they provide shipping to your country.  If you buy more than one and other items, e.g., 8M/16M flash for 1/1.5 USD, USB SPI FLASH for $5, then it will probably be worth it.
Taobao is in Chinese.  I guess you need to find some Chinese friends to help you.  I never used taobaonow so I don't know if they can provide any help.
If you don't know, Taoboa is similar to Ebay but mostly like Buy-It-Now (no bidding).  I think they are at least as reliable, or better than Ebay.

Thnx for info. I am looking into it. In mean time could post instructions on how to setup exroot you mentioned?

Anyone have build instructions to create an image for the very-similar MR3020? The OpenWRT wiki isn't very clear on builds and this image appears to be non-standard as pulseaudio doesn't look like it will fit in 1.4MB together with the wifi toolset.

When I use windows 7 nfs client to mount the Driver that it‘s notice me “you need the privilege to operate”(My OS is chinese?)?I need your help?thanks?

hi,
any progress on the extra-root thing? i would like to use mpd installed on a usb stick attached to a hub on a 703n, with the pulseaudio firmware. I have managed to compile libfaad with fixed point so now i can listen to some radio broadcasts in AAC (320kbps).
Also, do you have some patches of your own i would have to use if i wanted to build pulseaudio as a package? i have a 1043n already and i have seen some failed attempts to build it.
Great Work! Thanks.

s7mx1 wrote:
maurer wrote:

@sam or anyone else:

R/W performance on NFS ? MB/s ?

The nfs kernel server inside the new nas firmware can do 9MB/s read and 6.5MB/s write. The write speed is likely limited by the weak cpu inside WR703N.

@sam
why my windows 7 use nfs client to mount the nfs server that isn't write file into? the message is dosen't authority. what is happen?

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