Ok, so the serial port is indeed the one next to the encoder for the buttons and it's 3.3V. I did have a 3.3V voltage converter lying around, so I took some traces.
Attached is a minicom capture of 2 boots: one normal and one
with console enabled via the "hidden" page mentioned earlier in the thread. As you can see, this setting makes us get into a busybox shell prompt on the serial port. I typed a couple of commands for the show.
Now, unless I'm mistaken, the kernel source provided by Belkin -is- missing a bunch of stuff (it's a blatant GPL violation along with attempts to hide it I'd say), so we may have to reverse engineer a bit more than I would have hoped to get things working unless we can get Belkin to release the missing bits (or probably whoever they outsourced the developement to). I'll work on that separately but I don't have any formal contact at Belkin, so if somebody here does, please let me know.
BTW. As it is, I don't have any way to reflash the thing if I bust it so I won't try experimental kernels, until I figure one out. Any suggestion in that area is welcome, even if that involve soldering something on what looks like a JTAG header.
Played a bit with redboot, you can bring up ports and tftp files. I've checked I see the tftp request packets coming on another machine. So I should be able to play with kernels without crapping all over my flash and I should be able to reflash from redboot too hopefully.
Little time this week (kernel merge window is open and I'm maintaining the powerpc arch while paulus is on vacation) but I'll toy around next week.
Good, thanks. Feel free to also give me source & build instructions, I should be able to do at least some amount of fixups if things don't work out of the box.
I'll try to avoid flashing things for now, and due to the small amount of RAM, I doubt I can get a huge initrd/ramfs in there, so I may just nfs root it if I can get the network working (ie, the PHY/switch chip is supported).
BTW. I have little experience with these things (switch chips). They are connected via RGMII to the ar7100 like any PHY with MDIO for config ? Or it's fancier ? (ie. do we get some MDIO ID's to identify them like a normal PHY ?). Hrm, I should dbl check on the PCB when at work too, I suppose there will be a normal PHY on the "WAN" link, I can always use that to netboot if the 4 ports one isn't working.
If possible, I would like to see the WRT for N1 Vision will enhance DHCP can support MAC-to-IP. I have contacted Belkin Support who said that all the Belkin SOHO class routers will not have MAC-to-IP in DHCP.
Also, better to add authentication in order open the status page. It is so stupid that no need any password but you can read all the router information. It impacts that I will not enable Remote Management for access my N1 Vision via Internet. I have contacted Belkin Support too but they refused to change the step of login.
Yup, lack of fixed addresses seem to be a common complaint about these routers. It's the main reason why I started investigating alternative firmwares, yours too I suppose, seems to show up in many forums and the local belkin tech support here seemed to imply I'm not the first one to ask.
It's sad for a device priced clearly among the high end to lack such a fundamental feature.
I find it funny that clearly belkin doesn't seem to care what their customers want ..
Heh no, haven't had much time this week. I'm not even sure there's vi on the thing :-)
Figuring out how the LCD works is low priority for me for now. Once I had a chance to get things booting with a custom kernel and wireless & switch working, then we can start toying with the front panel as far as I'm concerned.
BTW. Sash, any news about these litestationX bits ? Any place I can find the patches / sources and catch up with you guys on IRC ? I'd like to start toying with the kernel next week.
Joined: 06 Jun 2006 Posts: 7492 Location: Dresden, Germany
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 10:11 Post subject:
looks like a ar7100 board. this can be supported by dd-wrt if i get such a board. the ubiquiti lsx firmware i posted, is a ar7100 board _________________ "So you tried to use the computer and it started smoking? Sounds like a Mac to me.." - Louis Rossmann https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL_5YDRWqGE&t=60s
I'm happy to work on it, will give me a break from the powerpc patch moneying I'm a bit new to dd-wrt tho, so if you guys can point me to the bits you already have for ar7100 based platforms (ie, at this stage, I really only care about kernel source, the rest can follow) I can start having a good look.
It looks like the platform code that they stripped from the source package is in part some of the GPIO handling. That's typically the stuff that's wired differently on every board under the sun... On the other hand, it -might- not be a big blob to disassemble. I'm not a MIPS expert, but it's a fairly simple architecture, so if it comes to disassembling the belkin bits I should be able to manage... hopefully :-)
For that sort of reverse-engineering/bringup work, it might be good if we could catch up on IRC while I do it.
Now, of course, if you happen to be in Canberra, then we can just get together and do it live :-)