[LEDE-DEV] [PATCH] ramips: Add support for the Unielec U7621-6

[Mathias Kresin]

05.11.2017 22:24, Piotr Dymacz:
> Hello Kristian,
> 
> On 04.11.2017 21:53, Kristian Evensen wrote:
>> The Unielec U7621-6
>> (http://www.unielecinc.com/q/news/cn/p/product/detail.html?qd_guid=pyrEjfTmYf) 
>>
>> is an MT7621-based router with the following specifications:
> 
> I got the same board last week and had some initial support ready 
> locally. I pushed it now to my staging tree, please have a look:
> 
> https://git.lede-project.org/?p=lede/pepe2k/staging.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/ramips_unielec-u7621-06 
> 
> 
> Maybe we can combine our patches and work out a common version.
> Please, find also my comments below.
> 
> -- 
> Cheers,
> Piotr
> 
> [snip]
> 
>> Notes:
>> * According to the specifications on the Unielec website, two LEDs
>> should be controllable via GPIO. I was not able to find the pins.
> 
> GPIOs 10, 11 and 12 control LEDs 3, 4 and 5 in top row. At least on my 
> board, some of these LEDs were rotated (wrong polarization).
> 
>> * The device can be delivered with different amounts of RAM and
>> storage. I have only added support for devices with 256MB RAM and 16MB
>> storage, as that is the configuration of my device. However, I have
>> added all the required infrastructure for making adding support for the
>> other configurations easy.
> 
> AFAIK, board with 256/16 MB is the default one (mass production?). Any 
> change means MOQ and customized version. The default one can be easily 
> purchased from Ali..., directly from the vendor.

It is the same as with some of the ZBT boards. They're advertised with 
different RAM sizes, but so far all known boards have the same amount of 
ram.

Not sure about the flash size. Especially for the ZBT boards it is known 
that they are shipped with different sized flash chips.

But since you pepe have a way better insight what the OEMs/ODMs tend to 
do, it would be the best to follow your advice.

> 
>> * I have assumed that the placement of wifi cards will be as on the 
>> image on
>> the Unielec website linked to above.
> 
> I have problem with this and I don't know how we should proceed here 
> (Mathias, what do you think?).
> 
> Actually, the board by default comes without any Wi-Fi card installed 
> and they need to be ordered separately (if someone needs them at all).

Oh, I missed that detail.

> 
> Personally, I don't think we should force any type of card and/or order 
> in slots. The board comes with two miniPCIe slots which can be used for 
> almost anything. I've been testing it with ath9k and mt7603 based cards, 
> a different configuration than yours :)

I totally agree. If the board isn't ship with a particular set of 
wireless cards, we shouldn't enforce anything.

> 
>> * The factory firmware reads the MAC address from offset e000 on the
>> factory partition. On my device, this offset contains 0xffs, but I have
>> chosen to keep the offset in the dts to ensure we are consistent with
>> the factory firmware.
> 
> AFAIK, the firmware vendor provides board with doesn't come from them. 
> They installed some version dedicated for PandoraBox PBR-M1.
> 
> There is also some dedicated Padavan version but I have no idea where it 
> can be downloaded from.
> 
>>
>> Installation:
>>
>> See Recovery below. The router comes pre-installed with OpenWRT (Pandora
>> Box), but sysupgrade fails due to board name mismatch.
> 
> sysupgrade -F ...
> 
>>
>> Recovery:
>> The U7621-6 supports web recovery. If you keep the reset-button pressed
>> for ~5 seconds during boot, a webserver is started.Your machine will be
>> assigned an IP through DHCP, and the router has address 192.168.1.1. The
>> recovery website is in Chinese, but is easy to use. Click on the second
>> item in the list to access the recovery page, then the second item on
>> the next page is where you select the firmware. In order to start the
>> recovery, you click the button at the bottom.
> 
> At least on my board, button just stops autobooting process. Web server 
> seems to be enabled in the bootloader all the time - with a static IP on 
> my PC I can access it even during autobooting countdown.

Pepe, are you fine if I handle this patch over to you? Doesn't make much 
sense to me if I do the review, while you are having the hardware.

Mathias