Routertech future

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fkdjh3tkge
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Routertech future

Post by fkdjh3tkge » Mon Dec 14, 2015 2:37 pm

Hello,

I find the idea of routertech firmware brilliant - but why there are no new releases since 2012?

The list with compatible routers is also very small. ;-)
Is there any alternative to routertech which is still in development?

Regards
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thechief
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Re: Routertech future

Post by thechief » Mon Dec 14, 2015 6:47 pm

fkdjh3tkge wrote:Hello,
Hello
fkdjh3tkge wrote:I find the idea of routertech firmware brilliant - but why there are no new releases since 2012?
Because there has been no need for a new release. AR7 routers are a dying breed - very old hardware, that has long been superseded by newer chipsets.
fkdjh3tkge wrote:The list with compatible routers is also very small. ;-)
The firmware covers a very broad range of AR7 routers.
fkdjh3tkge wrote:Is there any alternative to routertech which is still in development?
For the AR7 platform, I doubt it - but perhaps OpenWRT.
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Re: Routertech future

Post by fkdjh3tkge » Mon Dec 14, 2015 8:53 pm

Ok thx.

OpenWrt is not for ADSL/VDSL modemrouters.

But there are no cheap modemrouters available on which I could install routertech.

Is there a modemrouter like ther WRT54GL was it for OpenWrt. OpenWrt grew up with the WRT54GL - it was cheap and worldwide available.

Can you tell me a ADSL/VDSL modemrouter which is cheap and can be bought worldwide and is routertech-compatible?
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Re: Routertech future

Post by thechief » Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:04 pm

fkdjh3tkge wrote:Can you tell me a ADSL/VDSL modemrouter which is cheap and can be bought worldwide and is routertech-compatible?
I don't think anyone makes new AR7 routers anymore. Maybe you can find old used ones on eBay. You'll have to look at the list of supported routers and then do eBay searches on them ...
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Re: Routertech future

Post by fkdjh3tkge » Tue Dec 15, 2015 7:37 am

Why you do not choose one or two popular ADSL/VDSL routers and try to adapt routertech-firmware to them?

This would be a comparable success like OpenWrt was for the WRT54GL.
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Re: Routertech future

Post by thechief » Tue Dec 15, 2015 11:58 am

fkdjh3tkge wrote:Why you do not choose one or two popular ADSL/VDSL routers and try to adapt routertech-firmware to them?
Can't be done (at least, not easily). RT firmwares are too tied to the AR7 platform.
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Re: Routertech future

Post by champajuan » Mon Dec 21, 2015 4:49 pm

Is there any alternative to routertech which is still in development?
https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=19629


What are the advantages of new chipsets over the AR/?
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Re: Routertech future

Post by thechief » Mon Dec 21, 2015 8:57 pm

champajuan wrote:What are the advantages of new chipsets over the AR/?
AR7 is an obsolete platform.
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Re: Routertech future

Post by hwertz » Sat Jan 16, 2016 10:35 pm

First of, thanks to Routertech developers! I got a Paradyne DSL router a while ago that had just awful stock firmware, and Routertech runs great on it. I'm not using the wifi on it any more, but when I did it even managed to add WPA to what had been a WEP-only access point. It's still running my parent's DSL and it's very stable.
Why you do not choose one or two popular ADSL/VDSL routers and try to adapt routertech-firmware to them?
Routertech firmware is based directly on the TI AR7 firmware. It runs linux, but the DSL drivers are a "binary blob" so there's no way to look at or modify it to operate newer DSL chipsets. (This is also true for the wifi, but Linux supports most newer wifi chips on it's own anyway). Lots of TI-specific other software to manipulate the DSL state too. Basically if you started moving Routertech to another model, you'd have a web interface, scripting to care of the supplying the username, password, etc., but nothing to actually operate the DSL chip itself (just like DD-WRT etc. have.)

As for newer Routertech *for* AR7... I love running "latest and greatest" but must admit the current firmware is feature-complete and bug-free.

I do agree with the sentiment -- my parents have plain o'l ANSI DSL (1.5mbps), their Routertech modem stays up for months (it only goes down if their power goes out, or the ISP goes down... it probably totals single-digit minutes per year.) But my area's been upgraded to VDSL/VDSL2. Which sounds great, but when I looked online I found *NO* VDSL/VDSL2 modems that were inexpensive and stable. They were ALL and I mean ALL either 1) A business-oriented Cisco or the like, packed with features and stable but VERY expensive. or 2) Inexpensive but reportedly unstable as all hell. Last I looked, reviews indicated NONE of the inexpensive VDSL/VDSL2 modems can just bring up a link and do either NAT or transparent bridge (so a different router does NAT) without randomly crashing multiple times per week. Sad.
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Re: Routertech future

Post by thechief » Sun Jan 17, 2016 4:43 pm

It is sad - but there are reasonably priced VDSL* that are well supported by 3rd party firmware (e.g., those supported by Merlin firmware or Tomato).
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