For all those eager to test WRT350N v2 support, but are not used to build OpenWRT, I wrote and enhanced some HowTos for setting up a virtual machine with Debian for building OpenWrt and for setting up the build environment and building OpenWrt on the wiki (or here and here in the old wiki) plus some additions in this post.
Thanks to Dirk, Striker, Kaloz, Lennert, Davidkra and all the others to make this possible.
Please PM me if you can provide additional information, so I can update this post.
Attention! It is NOT recommended to do this stuff without having a serial connection or JTAG connection to the router! Do flashing at your own risk!
To build OpenWRT just login with root and a normal user in parallel into the build environment, then follow the instructions of the Building OpenWrt HowTo (or here in the old wiki).
For older revisions you can add webupgrade image (before r18761 plus fix from r18794) and sysupgrade support (before r19166).
Place the patch files directly in the normal user's home directory (~).
The property changes have to be applied manually, maybe you have to apply some code changes manually too (the code is always under development).
(as root user)
aptitude install zip
(as normal user)
mkdir -p ~/orion/trunk/
cd ~/orion/trunk/
... do all the checkout stuff from the HowTo ...
... Note: repository now at svn://svn.openwrt.org/openwrt/trunk (not https)...
# sysupgrade (only necessary before revision 19166)
patch -p0 < ~/orion_sysupgrade_mtd_wnr854t.r17264.patch
patch -p0 < ~/orion_sysupgrade_mtd_wrt350nv2.r17264.patch
patch -p0 < ~/orion_sysupgrade_platform_sh.r17264.patch
# webupgrade (only necessary before revision 18761/18794)
patch -p0 < ~/orion_webupgrade.builder_v21.patch
patch -p0 < ~/orion_webupgrade.tools_makefile.r17264.patch
patch -p0 < ~/orion_webupgrade.image_makefile_wrt350nv2.r17264.patch
--> "make menuconfig" will tell if more packages have to be installed via APT by the root user (parallel login).
--> Change the target to "Marvell Orion", for temporary testing set the target image to "ramdisk".
--> Add the modules to the image (="*") that are required to access the internet, so OpenWrt can retrieve further packages.
Be careful, do not make your package too big, only the essentials are necessary, all other stuff can be added later.
--> If you don't use a 192.16.1.0/24 net, then you may change the configuration of the image to fit your network.
--> If for any reason you want to compile everything again, then run "make distclean" to compile from scratch
After compilation the build can be found in the bin folder.
Loading the build into the router via serial console and TFTP
--> Download the build from the virtual machine to the real computer (e.g. via WinSCP).
--> Setup the serial connection to the router, start the console (115200,8,N,1; e.g. via Putty) to listen on the serial port, power up the router and interrupt the boot process by pressing enter in the console.
--> Temporary change the envvars with setenv to fit your network. You can apply the changes permanently with saveenv (not recommended).
setenv ipaddr 10.0.0.99
setenv serverip 10.0.0.1
--> Start a tftp server on your computer (e.g. tftpd32 on windows) and point it to your copy of the bin folder.
In the console you can now load and start the ramdisk image with
tftpboot "openwrt-wrt350nv2-uImage"
bootm
After booting you can telnet to 192.168.1.1 (e.g via Putty).
Setup a password for root to enable SSH access. This also disables telnet.
[s]Remember the caveats mentioned by DirkNL.[/s] (Wifi/W-LAN, LAN port #4, USB is working; please do stability and performance tests before using it in a production environment).
Several people report instabilities for wireless/WLAN/Wifi after running it for several days. These can normally be avoided by a daily restart as described in post #751.
For flashing (at your own risk!) see the next two pages of this thread (especially #375 and #341) plus the instructions of this post by relghuar.
Also read the wiki page about TFTP (or here).
If there's no /jffs after flashing, then check out this post by DirkNL.
For a web interface install the package "webif", or "luci-admin-mini" plus "luci-admin-full" with "luci-theme-openwrt".
For getting back to the stock firmware check out DirkNL's posting here and here plus Pregi's posting here.
There's even a recovery method for the WRT350Nv2 without any gadgets: 'download mode'.
The update via download mode was described by drizzt81 in post #436 and DaBigMac created a HowTo for setting the router into download mode in post #524.
Hope these guides will help to get more people into testing.
Maddes
Changelog:
* 2009-02-26: webupgrade image build working, repositories, luci information
* 2009-02-28: bigger HD needed for all packages, added DirkNL's warnings
* 2009-03-01: temporary change the U-Boot config to fit the network, how to get back to stock firmware
* 2009-03-05: updated Building Kamikaze HowTo with a bell/beep/alert, when make finishes
* 2009-03-23: splitted the webupgrade patch into a general part and an often changed part (tools/Makefile)
* 2009-03-31: adjusted wiki links to server change
* 2009-07-04: corrected links, added info about kernel size issue
* 2009-08-03: kernel is now below 1MB, [s]mtd patch is just for a nicer mtd map[/s]
* 2009-08-31: updated instructions to most current sysupgrade support and webupgrade
mtd patch is necessary for sysupgrade support
* 2009-11-29: added links to 'download mode' recovery method
* 2009-12-13: webupgrade image is now in trunk (added in r18761, fixed in r18794)
* 2010-01-16: sysupgrade support is now in trunk (added in r19166)
* 2010-01-17: package "luci-theme-openwrt" was not mentioned for luci
* 2010-02-02: package "luci-admin-mini" was not mentioned for luci
* 2010-04-05: added info about wireless instabilities after several days plus link to solution
* 2010-06-13: fixed wiki links for HowTos
(Last edited by maddes.b on 13 Jun 2010, 16:52)