A few issues encountered with this fork

[SoftwareGuy]

Hi there,

I've been able to compile a copy of OpenWRT from this repository for my GL-AX1800 (Flint) without major drama. There is a few bits that I'll detail briefly.

Firstly, it seems that when flashing the device with the firmware freshly compiled, it gets stuck booting with the following:

[1.901582] Waiting for root device /dev/ubiblock0_1...

It'll remain on this forever until I power cycle. For whatever reason, the serial pins on the device won't let me send things to the console, so I can't interrupt uBoot and get a print of the environment variables. It doesn't matter if I flash the image through uBoot's WebUI or force it through LuCI that's included with the official OEM image (it complains that glinet-ax1800 isn't the same as the running device or something), same result happens with the custom vanilla firmware. It does say something about mtdsplit: no squashfs found in rootfs though, and ubi0 is attached to mtd9.

Secondly, compiling without V=s set will cause the kernel to fail to compile. This is because it asks a question about a kernel feature/module:

  HOSTLD  scripts/kconfig/conf
*
* Restart config...
*
*
* Core Netfilter Configuration
*
Netfilter ingress support (NETFILTER_INGRESS) [Y/n/?] y
Netfilter egress support (NETFILTER_EGRESS) [N/y/?] n
Netfilter NFNETLINK interface (NETFILTER_NETLINK) [M/y/?] m
Netfilter base hook dump support (NETFILTER_NETLINK_HOOK) [N/m/?] n
Netfilter NFACCT over NFNETLINK interface (NETFILTER_NETLINK_ACCT) [N/m/y/?] n
Netfilter NFQUEUE over NFNETLINK interface (NETFILTER_NETLINK_QUEUE) [N/m/y/?] n
Netfilter LOG over NFNETLINK interface (NETFILTER_NETLINK_LOG) [N/m/y/?] n
Netfilter OSF over NFNETLINK interface (NETFILTER_NETLINK_OSF) [N/m/y/?] n
Netfilter connection tracking support (NF_CONNTRACK) [M/n/y/?] m
Syslog packet logging (NF_LOG_SYSLOG) [M/y/?] m
Connection mark tracking support (NF_CONNTRACK_MARK) [Y/n/?] y
Connection tracking zones (NF_CONNTRACK_ZONES) [Y/n/?] y
Supply CT list in procfs (OBSOLETE) (NF_CONNTRACK_PROCFS) [Y/n/?] y
Connection tracking events (NF_CONNTRACK_EVENTS) [Y/n/?] y
Connection tracking timeout (NF_CONNTRACK_TIMEOUT) [N/y/?] n
Connection tracking extension for dscp remark target (NF_CONNTRACK_DSCPREMARK_EXT) [N/y/?] (NEW)

Hitting enter, or saying Y or N and then pressing enter will continue the build happily (unless file conflicts occur).

Thirdly, permissions are all screwed up. Some files need their executable bits set in the tools directory for example, as well as files in package/base-files/files/*bin. Otherwise when booting the device says "permission denied" when the system tries to initialize.

Other than that, it seems to be a very good modification to be able to get rid of OEM GL.iNet firmware and use a vanilla version of OpenWRT.

Please let me know if you have any solutions or you need additional information.

[SoftwareGuy]

Addendum for first dot point - uBoot was out of date. I went to the Flint/IPQ60xx uBoot repo, grabbed the BIN file, put the device in its recovery mode via holding reset switch when powering up and then went to http://192.168.1.1/uboot.html and flashed it there. After that it started booting.

[SoftwareGuy]

Alright, another issue - seems that the Ethernet ports don't get recognized on a startup of OpenWRT. I wonder if some modules are omitted from the configuration that are related to the built-in switch or ethernet hub?