Converting a surplus x86 into an OpenWrt router

Okay... Sounds good.

Just downloaded snapshot and packages.gz to the same thumb drive. We'll give this a go. I did order that other usb-nic though.... For the fun of it.

Snapshot is installed. Used wget to download packages directory and have them on a thumb drive. Of to work for now. Update tomorrow. Thanks.

Amazonbasics usb3 adapter came so I went back and installed stable version of Owrt. Also since I am working on this downstairs, I wired up a line from Asus router upstairs down to Owrt router and switch so I would have wired connection.
Well I was hoping I could do updates and install USB adapter drivers this way. I have modem>Asus router>switch>Owrt router. I have laptop connected to switch as well for Luci/ssh. I have no connection from laptop to Owrt router to do anything. So I started Ubuntu live usb on Owrt router and I do have a wired connection through the switch. I'm not sure what is going on again.

Blockquote

The AmazonBasics USB 3.0 to Ethernet adapter is compatible with Windows 10/8.1/8/7, Mac OSX 10.6/10.7/10.8/10.9/10.10/10.11/10.12, and Chrome OS with latest system updates (does not support Windows RT or Android).

Linux is notably lacking from that list, and failure to support Android additionally suggests lack of Linux support.

Edit: With apologies to @dlakelan as I did not read the Amazon comments, only the description.

I'm sorry....I wasn't clear. Owrt router is connected to switch from built in lan port in back of Owrt(eth0). I don't have a usb nic connected as yet. I bought the Amazonbasics adapter as it was mentioned above by dlakelan as something that might work.

@goblinX: Did you set up the LAN interface for joining your existing network?

The amazonbasics adapter had many comments from people saying they had it working in Linux, some even mentioned the driver by name, which is why I mentioned it. Will still require a USB module. You can grab appropriate stable kmod-usb-* packages and copy over to new router for install to get USB ether up and running, then you can set up wan and system should drop in as new router.

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@jeff no need to apologise. But here's what I found in the online answer on the amazonbasics page

Byvacuoon March 6, 2017
Verified Purchase
I have used many USB 3.0 gigabit ethernet dongles and this one is much more solidly built than most. It uses an ASIX AX88179 chipset which has been supported in mainline Linux since kernel version 3.9. It works perfectly on my Debian system under USB 3.0.

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reload config command not found. uci commands you listed above worked until I typed reload config.

An underscore is missing, the command should be

reload_config

@goblinX: As a quick check which Linux driver is needed for the USB network adapter, you can boot Ubuntu live on your router or any other PC. Type sudo -- dmesg -w , plug in the USB dongle, and look for the module name among the new lines of output that appear. This should give a hint to the kmod-usb-net-* package name in LEDE/OpenWrt.

Holy cow the uci thing worked! So dlakelan, I am back on the snapshot cause I thought the new usb-nic wouldn't work with stable.... No matter. For now I have the Brix connected to internet and I'm ssh into Brix also. I have to be driving you guys nuts. Doing opkg update at the moment.

Did "opkg install --force-depends kmod-usb-net-rtl8152" workout the quotes. Could not satisfy a number of dependencies about the kernel.

This is typical behavior of snapshot I think. the kernel and the modules have to be exactly the same build, and after a few days the build-bot causes drift between what's available in packages, and what the image you installed has.

Did you download the snapshot image this afternoon? or are you installing one from a few days ago, last time you tried? Download a brand new snapshot from this afternoon, do the same uci stuff, and see if you can opkg update; opkg install ...

if you are using a snapshot image from this afternoon and still can't do the kmod install, then drop back to stable and try to get the appropriate driver for your amazonbasics device using the uci magic for connecting to internet.

I just finished reading about that.... everything you just said. I'm trying to figure out things on my own too. It is the snapshot from yesterday or so. I'll do what you said. Thanks.

Yep, this is why @mpa recommended to download every package in the whole packages/ subdirectory and store it somewhere, because with that archive in place you can add in kmods without having to do a complete reinstall of the whole system, just either have the archive on the router somewhere or copy them over from the archive using scp and opkg install...

I do have the packages for that snapshot on the usb but couldn't figure out how to use them.
I just "sudo --dmesg -c" (-w was not found in Kali terminal), on a Kali Linux box and have found that the Amazonbasics USB adapter uses ax88179 chipset. Off to work for now. Thanks

to use a package, copy it to the router with scp and then on the router run "opkg install path/to/package"

Once you have usb storage driver installed, you can just plug the usb flash into the router and mount it, and run opkg install on the package straight off the flash.

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Better avoid --force-depends with opkg. Any dependency problems reported by opkg should be investigated and solved properly. In this case here, comment out the openwrt_core entry in /etc/opkg/distfeeds.conf to disable it, or replace its URI with a pointer to your local copy of the core package repository. The latter option is very convenient to use, but needs further preparations.