LEDE Table of Hardware: Device cleanup

Now that I'm close to finalizing the dataentry creation, I feel like cleaning up a bit and leave ld and dusty devices behind, therefore the question:
Can any devices be deleted from the LEDE ToH (e.g. impossible to support due to low RAM/Flash)?

I am thinking of

Your comments are welcome!

Given the (apparent) high likelihood that LEDE and OpenWrt might merge, I think the new ToH should preserve all devices mentioned in OpenWrt.

That doesn't mean that we cannot retain the rules you express (< 4MB flash, < 32MB RAM) and use those criteria to mark devices as "LEDE Support not possible" (or some such phrase) and then list the 15.05.1 or 14.07 etc. as the supported firmware.

Now that I'm close to finalizing the dataentry creation, I feel like cleaning up a bit and leave ld and dusty devices behind, therefore the question:
Can any devices be deleted from the LEDE ToH (e.g. impossible to support due to low RAM/Flash)?

I am thinking of

Your comments are welcome!

I think it's better to list as many devices as possible, and if they aren't
supported, be able to list why they aren't supported.

devices with too little RAM/Flash may be an interesting category, they may be
soemthing that's not supported in that there are no pre-built images for them,
but OpenWRT can be compiled and will run on them, if the person building the
image makes it small enough.

I have a USB SD card reader that I have a tailored OpenWRT build on for example.

So I think we have the following unsupported high-level categories (with
possibly some nuances creating subcategories from this)

  1. works, but too small for default build (RAM/Flash limit, possibly listed
    separately)

  2. lack of vendor support for critical hardware (missing DSL drivers for
    example, possibly broken down by manufacturer that we need the driver from,
    possibly what feature is unsupported??)

  3. router lockdown preventing any image from being loaded

  4. new device/unknown reason (i.e. nobody has looked to see how hard it is yet,
    or just not done any porting effort)

Another tag that would be very useful is a tag to say that LEDE/OpenWRT devs
would like to have someone donate hardware so that it can be worked on.

There are probably a few other categories that people can think of.

If something isn't in the ToH, I (the consumer/developer) have no way of knowing
if it's not supported because nobody has added the correct device ID to the
build options, or because the vendor is actively hostile to Opensource
development.

Is this something that I can ask for help with, donate a couple routers to
someone and get it supported, or is it something that is a complete waste of
time?

David Lang

Just drop those devices, most are really old and there's not much sense in keeping such entries unless someone wants to spend time maintaining "useless" information.

...which are supported, rather than unsupported.

Please show me a device that is readily available for buying with <4MB flash or 16MB RAM that LEDE runs on satisfactorily. Or the other way round: Who would be interested in a device that is not commercially available any more and which is a PITA to run LEDE on?

You will know Flash MB + RAM MB, which is enough to determine if LEDE will run in the first place.
If a device is not in the ToH, then it is highly likely that it is not supported.
Or the other way round: If a device is supported, it is highly likely that it can be found in the ToH.

I fully agree with you

...which are supported, rather than unsupported.

here I disagree. there is value in enumerating the known unsupported things.
It's a database, it doesn't cost much to have entries in it, especially if they
aren't being updated

Please show me a device that is readily available for buying with <4MB flash or 16MB RAM that LEDE runs on satisfactorily. Or the other way round: Who would be interested in a device that is not commercially available any more and which is a PITA to run LEDE on?

define "satisfactorily"

I started running Linux from floppies on 2MB of ram. I wouldn't do that now, but
it all depends on exactly what you are trying to do.

If you are trying to run a router, you need multiple interfaces and a fair
amount of processing power. But LEDE can also be used in cases where you are
building an endpoint to control or monitor some device. At that point, a couple
MB of ram and flash may be enough to boot and run the scropts
monitoring/controlling GPIOs

You will know Flash MB + RAM MB, which is enough to determine if LEDE will run in the first place.

see above

If a device is not in the ToH, then it is highly likely that it is not supported.
Or the other way round: If a device is supported, it is highly likely that it can be found in the ToH.

what exactly does 'supported' and 'unsupported' mean?

'supported' is relatively easy to define, but only in a circuilar way "it's
devices that LEDE devs care about"

but 'unsupported' can mean a lot of things.

It can mean something new that hasn't been looked at but is going to be
supported

it can mean something that the vendor is hostile to LEDE and locks down the
device so LEDE can't touch it.

it can mean something that the vendor is hostile to LEDE and uses proprietary
drivers on without releaseing source

it can mean something that the vendor is abivolent to LEDE and releases source,
but using a badly hacked 2.6 kernel so a lot of work would be needed to get
running

as someone looking at what router to buy, or to try to get LEDE running on it,
the nuances of why it's not supported matter.

I'm not saying that we need to go out and actively research every device that
hits the market, but once we have the knowlege, we should not throw it away and
force people to rediscover it again and again.

database space is cheap. Don't show the unsupported devices by default so they
don't pollute the display if you are only looking for a supported device.

But don't throw away things that people have worked to learn.

David Lang

121 of 128 devices shown in https://lede-project.org/toh/views/toh_extended_all?dataflt[OWrt+Unsupported*~]=impossible are not available any more. Nobody can buy them.

If someone wants to buy a new device, he can select one out of these: https://lede-project.org/toh/views/toh_available_864

I completely agree that LEDE has no obligation to support (in any way) devices that are too old. And I always wonder why people are willing to spend days or weeks trying to add support for older devices when US$25-40 will buy a modern, powerful router that's fully supported.

Nonetheless, I am continually astonished by the number of requests to the OpenWrt forums by people who apparently found a router in their neighbor's garage, and they ask about running OpenWrt.

My proposal: The LEDE ToH may/will become a repository of all things LEDE/OpenWrt. I ask whether we should retain the Current LEDE and Current OpenWrt info. Old devices that cannot run LEDE can simply be labeled "NO SUPPORT", possibly with a link to a "Reasons" page.

I would still keep those on 16 MiB ram, as afaik they can still run LEDE even if opkg won't run due to low ram (heck, opkg has issues running on 32MiB ram, but that's fixable), but that's what Image Builder is for.
If they have enough flash, that is. (Feel free to correct me on this)

I'd also keep an eye on devices that may have low flash but have USB/Sata/IDE/CF whatever so they can use (or are using) the flash space for the kernel and the external drive for the root filesystem, but I doubt most obsolete devices fall into this category.

what exactly does 'supported' and 'unsupported' mean?

My definitions:

supported = it boots LEDE, some secondary hardware might not work (wifi ac or 5Ghz, modem, lights, dumb switch instead of smart switch)

unsupported = it cannot boot LEDE or crucial hardware does not work so it is useless (ethernet on a router, wifi on an access point, whatever)

database space is cheap. Don't show the unsupported devices by default so they
don't pollute the display if you are only looking for a supported device.
But don't throw away things that people have worked to learn.

Yeah, I agree with this, simply dropping information is always bad.
Just tag the unsupported/obsolete/broken ones with a "unsupported" and filter them out.
You will show them in a dedicated table and warn that the text in device descriptions and so on is probably obsolete and not maintained.

what exactly does 'supported' and 'unsupported' mean?

My definitions:

supported = it boots LEDE, some secondary hardware might not work (wifi ac or 5Ghz, modem, lights, dumb switch instead of smart switch)

unsupported = it cannot boot LEDE or crucial hardware does not work so it is useless (ethernet on a router, wifi on an access point, whatever)

cannot boot LEDE in what configuration?

That's part of my point.

LEDE/OpenWRT like to have a minimum feature set in the build, and that may be
the definition of what is needed to be supported. But your comment about opkg
running/not running is a perfect example of a case where there is a difference
between LEDE running with the full feature set and LEDE being a usable system
without the full feature set.

That's why I'm saying that there are various levels/reasons of being
"unsupported" and purging all unsupported devices from the database is wrong.

David Lang

[quote="dlang, post:11, topic:565, full:true"]cannot boot LEDE in what configuration?
[/quote]default.
The table should show all devices that can be flashed and boot default LEDE images, everything else (also the devices with crucial hardware not supported by LEDE, as said above) gets the "unsupported" tag and is not shown in the main table, but on a secondary one about unsupported/poorly-supported devices.

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[quote="dlang, post:11, topic:565, full:true"]cannot boot LEDE in what configuration?
[/quote]default.

The table should show all devices that can be flashed and boot default LEDE
images, everything else (also the devices with crucial hardware not supported
by LEDE, as said above) gets the "unsupported" tag and is not shown in the
main table, but on a secondary one about unsupported/poorly-supported devices.

That's fine. I was objecting to removing the devices entirely.

As I said, it would be nice to know why something is unsupported, but the
biggest thing was to not loose existing knowledge.

David Lang

@tmomas - today's the day! Are you still on track for the final dataentry import? If so, Good Luck!

Ha! There's someone actually interested in the status of the LEDE ToH! Nice! :slight_smile:

Import is running, should be done within 1h.

It seems that the core count multipliers have been separated from the CPU speed column. The separate core counts should be added to the Ideal for LEDE table.

Done.

10 character filler.

@tmomas, not sure what the issue is here, but I am trying to test the "Standard Flashing Instructions" and for my TM-02. The "Firmware LEDE install and Upgrade URL's" are not correct. They appear to have been updated for 17.01 but these in particular are not valid.
https://downloads.lede-project.org/releases/17.01.0-rc1/targets/openwrt-15.05.1-ramips-rt305x-m2m-initramfs-uImage.bin//
https://downloads.lede-project.org/releases/17.01.0-rc1/targets/openwrt-15.05.1-ramips-rt305x-ht-tm02-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin//

These are the correct ones.
https://downloads.lede-project.org/releases/17.01.0-rc1/targets/ramips/rt305x/lede-17.01.0-rc1-r3042-ec095b5-ramips-rt305x-ht-tm02-initramfs-kernel.bin
https://downloads.lede-project.org/releases/17.01.0-rc1/targets/ramips/rt305x/lede-17.01.0-rc1-r3042-ec095b5-ramips-rt305x-ht-tm02-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

I tried some other random, but common products, and it is the only one I can find. It may have been a data entry issue, but wanted to check to see if it's more systemic regarding the (I assume) mass change of data related to the release.

Hi RangerZ,

thanks for noticing, I corrected this mistake now. Seemed to be the only leftover from the openwrt -> LEDE conversion.

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Super, thanks. Glad it was not a more systemic issue!