Slate AX based on Chaos Calmer?!

sirmuzz · 2022-07-26T21:42:39.795Z

Been trying to build my custom packages against Slate AX using the sdk. Noticed boost is v1.58 ?! Started looking at the packages used by slate and it seems you guys are using the QSDK11? It explains why i see old package versions older than even 18.06. Another post talks about you are patching 15.05 to make the CPU work. Is this all correct? If not can you please explain which kernel/openwrt version is being used for the Slate AX?

ipq_ipq60xx-qsdk11  # ax1800

OpenWrt Forum – 27 Feb 22

GL-iNet AX1800 new router - OpenWrt support?

Works as advertised, although it seems max TX power running OpenWrt is a bit less than with original firmware, according to my client-side measurements. Still plenty of range, though. Moreover, there are NO WPA3 options available on the WiFi...

xize11 · 2022-07-26T22:43:32.386Z

you need wlan-ap as profile if you want to build openwrt to 22.2

I believe there are two wlan-ap profiles now I believe the most upstream one is wlan-ap5.4 but I could be wrong, though if you gonna build for axt1800 make sure there is a profile for this one because even though the hardware smilliarities may be the same, small things differ like having a fan, memory size or flash sizes, leds and maybe more otherwise you may end bricking your device.

Tl;tr:
anyhow officially the soc for ax1800 and axt1800 are not supported ‘yet’ by the original openwrt, however there was a time that flint was on chaos calmer because of the QSDK, which is a very old openwrt fork optimized with qualcomm network drivers which is closed source and hard to implement on newer kernels, qsdk is typical used for router manufacturers like xiaomi, and other brands but completely closed source and maintenand by qualcomm and very dated, however the wlan-ap project has working open source drivers from what I understood and in such way its possible to run higher openwrt builds with higher kernels.

it runs very smooth

though I’m not sure about the package boost on wlan-ap.

Exile1975 · 2022-07-27T02:51:37.478Z

The slate ax (axt1800) and the ax1800 are different machines with different versions of openwrt. The article you linked is for a different router. Are you sure you’re building for the right router?

sirmuzz · 2022-07-27T12:30:29.061Z

I have both. They have are exactly the same minus shape as per GL.inet specificiations. The (t) means travel size i.e. form factor and minus the extra MIMO and 2 extra LAN ports. Could you explain the difference to me, i would love to be wrong? This also holds water looking inside both devices, same stuff different shape. They only offer one download from the sdk for both and it is the ax1800 (ipq_ipq60xx-qsdk11).

The boost 1.58 was brought up to show they are using a version of OpenWRT older than 18.06 (which uses boost versions 1.61 and 1.62) and was added as further proof of the age of the openwrt build and the packages for this router. The age matters when it comes to security. Additionally if this is based of Chaos Calmer and is heavily patched then one can argue this is not an openwrt ready device as advertised and is really running something openwrt-ish.

I understand when it comes to making the image that there can be differences that will effect the image creation like flash sizes etc, but i am not even to that part yet, we are still trying to get the SDK (package builder) to build the base linux image in the cross-compiler that builds the custom packages. The SDK cannot build the base linux image without errors. AKA the toplevel.mk file is broken. Specifically trying to build bzip2 for the base linux (my guess is a package conflict because they are using such an old codebase and package repository.

Exile1975 · 2022-07-27T17:18:57.286Z

The version of openwrt on the axt1800 is OpenWrt 21.02-SNAPSHOT r16273+114-378769b555 / LuCI openwrt-22.03 branch git-21.284.67084-e4d24f0 using kennel 4.4.60. the version of boost included with the factory firmware is 1.75.0-1. is it possible they haven’t released the newest build environment to the public? Or am I missing something? Maybe @alzhao could come in on this?

Johnex · 2022-07-27T17:42:49.693Z

Slate AX (axT1800) is the first router to natively have 21.02.

Flint (ax1800) is based on QSDK. It is currently being updated to 21.02 with the v4.x firmware.

Even though they have basically the same hardware, there are small changes between the devices that require the firmware to be reworked and tested properly before release. Currently Flint is not as updated as Slate AX, since Slate AX is newer but will be with time.

alzhao · 2022-07-28T01:35:07.163Z

Firmware 4.x for AX routers are based on openwrt 21.02 with kernel 4.6.60.

It will upgrade to Kernel 5.4 once everything is stable.

This is build on top of openwifi which is also open source project. You can check openwifi project on GitHub and see the maintainers so that you will have confidence in that.

I hope everything can be migrated to openwrt vanilla firmware directly.