Build for Netgear R7800

True, but my tests showed that moving to a newer kernel has noticeably improved things further.

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Sorry if I missed this somewhere in the first post, but as someone who is interesting in moving off of the latest DD-WRT offerings (general instability and drop-outs for the most part), and hasn't touched LEDE in well over a year, what is the ideal payload (4.14 or large-flash) to be flashing to my R7800, and which branch should I pick and why (openwrt-18.06 or master)?

Thank you in advance, I had a read of the first post but couldn't easily find the answer.

OpenWrt/LEDE hasn't officially released in over a year. Supposedly something is coming soon but don't run the official build right now.

You want hnyman's latest OpenWrt 18.06 build with kernel 4.14.

I'm running Hyman's latest OpenWrt SNAPSHOT r7107-73d8a6ab76, installed by tftp. I restored my previous settings from a lede-17.0.4 backup.

When I try to update packages, I get the following error:

root@vinunet:~# opkg upgrade base-files
Upgrading base-files on root from 191-r7107-73d8a6ab76 to 191-r7115-8796680...
Downloading http://downloads.lede-project.org/snapshots/targets/ipq806x/generic/packages/base-files_191-r7115-8796680_arm_cortex-a15_neon-vfpv4.ipk
Command failed: Not found
Command failed: Not found
umount: devpts busy - remounted read-only
umount: tmpfs busy - remounted read-only
umount: can't remount tmpfs read-only
umount: proc busy - remounted read-only
Collected errors:
 * copy_file: unable to open `/etc/group-opkg.backup': Read-only file system.
 * file_copy: Failed to copy file /etc/group to /etc/group-opkg.backup.
 * backup_make_backup: Failed to copy /etc/group to /etc/group-opkg.backup
 * pkg_write_filelist: Failed to open //usr/lib/opkg/info/base-files.list: Read-only file system.
root@vinunet:~#

Any pointers on how I could fix this? Thank you in advance.

Do not try to "upgrade" base-files.

Fix for that is possibly just a reboot, but it is possible that some core files have got damaged, as base files are partially responsible also the tasks for the installation. Then you might need to wipe your changes with a reset, or at the last option, with a TFTP flash again.

There shouldn't be anything really dangerous in the 17.01 settings, but it might still be wise to re-do the config by hand. At least network, system and possibly firewall.

actually base-files package should be marked to HOLD...... it's crazy that we are leaving it upgradable.... (sorry for OFFTOPIC)

Thank you, Hyman and Anusuel for the replies. I reflashed the Hyman OpenWrt 18.06-SNAPSHOT r6995-ba204d941c build with tftp, restored settings from a previous lede-17.0.4 backup and things are back to normal.

master-r7136-987e10af07-20180607

The master uses now 70 MB larger area on flash, so installing more packages is possible. That was made the default on 7 June 2018 on the main source repo, but the feature has been on my builds since 3 June 2018. Flashing to these new builds need TFTP flashing, if you are coming from old "small flash" builds. Once you are on the large flash builds, sysupgrade works again normally.

It is possible that this feature will get officially backported to 18.06, but that has not been done, yet. I will build my own 18.06 builds with the larger flash area in any case.

EDIT: clarified the advice

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/additional-software/show_upgradable_packages_after_ssh_login could use a note about what to upgrade and what not to upgrade.

even if coming from r7107?

No. If you already as on "large flash" builds of master or 18.06, you can use normal sysupgrade.

TFTP flashing is only needed, if coming from old small 19 MB flash builds. (buildbot snapshot until today, my builds before 3 June 2018)

And one more when DSA hits...

DSA won't need tftp, just "sysupgrade -n" (don't keep configs over the sysupgrade).

I'm already on a 70mb build. Is it possible to "sysupgrade" to a old small 19mb build? Or is a tftp flash needed again?

Every time you switch between builds with a different partitioning, you need to go through the tftp procedure - so that would be a "yes" to your question.

Actually, not quite sure. Tentative answer is yes, like slh writes above.

But as the new image has smaller rootfs image than the current space allocated at mtd (partition "ubi"), sysupgrading to a smaller 19mb build might succeed.

Thank you. I think I'll give it a try.
In the worst case, I have to TFTP flash again, right? Or could I damage the router with it?

I want to go back to 17.01 as I have lost significant speed over the LAN.

master-r6744-751746c736-20180422 ~950mbit/s (old master build)
master-r7136-987e10af07-20180607-large-flash ~500mbit/s

Measured with iperf3.

I moved to master-r7136-987e10af07-20180607-large-flash and it is working pretty okay minus the fact that I had to reboot nlbwmon service and that during a speedtest, udhcpc seems to use up both cores to 100% and I'm getting relatively slower speeds then usual.

Hmm. You changed the topic completely...

While it might be possible to downgrade via sysupgrade from a kernel 4.14 based large-flash build (of master or 18.06) to a kernel 4.14 based small-flash build (of master or 18.06), you definitely need TFTP to downgrade to 17.01 with kernel 4.4 (both smaller kernel partition and smaller total flash)

The worst that can (and will) happen, is that you need to use TFTP. None of the builds tries to flash the other areas like bootloader, so TFTP will be always available.

the "large flash" should have no impact on anything else than disk space. But there are constant changes in the Linux version plus in the main Openwrt code, so it is quite possible that something has gone wrong for you. The same error condition (with udhcpc) remains that way also after a reboot?