OpenWRT on the Omega 2(+)

WereCatf

@Kit-Bishop said in OpenWRT on the Omega 2(+):

I am seriously considering switching to using a Raspberry Pi Zero (with Red Bear IoT pHAT for Wifi an BLE access) - physically bigger than the Omega but way more powerful.

If you don't need a CSI-camera, might I suggest taking a look at C.H.I.P., too? It's already got WiFi and Bluetooth on-board and a free, full-size USB-port for any possible additions you might want. Personally, I find the built-in lipo-charger an exceedingly handy feature, too.

Kit Bishop

@WereCatf Thanks - C.H.I.P. looks interesting. The more one digs, the more viable alternatives to the Omega one finds - and at good prices with a good range of functionality

WereCatf

@Kit-Bishop Feel free to ask me if there's something you'd like to know about the C.H.I.P. before purchase, or go troll around on the forums at https://bbs.nextthing.co/ The one caveat I'd like to point out when compared to the Omega2 is the lack of option for an external antenna -- I don't know if it is an issue for you or not, but if the range ever becomes a problem you could always use a USB WiFi-stick with a proper antenna instead.

Kit Bishop

@WereCatf Cool, thanks Have already found quite a bit about C.H.I.P. and it looks really interesting. WiFi range probably won't be an issue for me but will bear it in mind.

fossette

@Kit-Bishop said in OpenWRT on the Omega 2(+):

While my Omega2 still hasn't arrived, I am getting quite concerned about the number and type of issues that are getting reported in these forums.

Same here! Perhaps by the time we receive our order, all the bugs will be flushed out of the system!

C.H.I.P. is interesting! ARM instead of MIPS, variety is good. What I don't like, they are backordered for 3 months, and counting. SoC is a small market with lots of competition. We can't assess any company's longevity so the grass is not necessarily greener at the neighboring competitor.

Kit Bishop

@fossette Generally agree.

My Omega2+ (and expansion dock and arduino dock) finally just arrived today.

My initial experience has been OK - can access via WiFi and do basic operations.
Though a few things don't seem to quite work as I expected.
Also on initial investigation, there are clearly differences in the way the system software works.

My main concern is how to extend disk space using a USB drive - the instructions for the Omega1 (as in https://wiki.onion.io/Tutorials/Using-USB-Storage-as-Rootfs) clearly don't apply to the Omega2. Hopefully someone (the Omega devs?) will provide info on how to do it for the Omega2 (if I don't get it figured out first).

Fortunately, there are instructions for the different method of setting up swap space for the Omega2 - see https://docs.onion.io/omega2-docs/extending-omega-memory.html

WereCatf

I set up a new branch on my Github-repo for the LEDE for the Omega2(+). The new branch already includes a basic configuration and some extra files, including a firstrun-script, to produce a more fully-fledged image, ie. rsync, wget and all the expected buddies are included, repos for both LEDE-packages and Onion-packages are enabled and all you need to do to use them is connect to the Internet and run opkg update. I cannot promise that all the Onion-packages will work and I certainly can't be arsed to test every single one of them.

The differences between my version and the official ones are: I use the F/OSS WiFi-driver, so WiFi-performance isn't as good, with my images rebooting works, but shutdown doesn't, there aren't any Onion-packages by default and you'll have to install any you want yourself, and I have included Luci-SSL -- I find that Luci is very useful, especially for configuring network-settings, and it provides a graphical way of installing apps and stuff, too. You can install the Onion Console by deleting /www/index.html and installing the packages base-www and onion-console-base (though, when I tried it, it seemed that the onion-console-base in the repos was broken and didn't work right) -- Luci can still be accessed via http://omega-ABCD.local/luci.html

The firstrun-script included in this branch sets up an AP, similar to the official images, with a similar name and password.

Precompiled images and the corresponding kmods are available at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11811685/omega2_images.tar.gz , if you just want a quick test, or you can build your own more-custom images quite simply:

git clone -b image https://github.com/WereCatf/source.git omega-sources
cd omega-sources
scripts/feeds update -a && scripts/feeds install -a
#Make any changes you wish to the image and any extra packages here
make menuconfig
make

If you rather want working shutdown, but broken reboot, delete omega-sources/target/linux/ramips/patches-4.4/101-spi-reset-to-3-byte-mode.patch

This branch is only meant for playing around with and it is as such only temporary -- I will most likely delete it one day when I deem it no longer necessary. Also, I take no responsibility for anything, whatsoever, in any way or form, and I have no interest in playing tech-support -- don't even attempt to try this stuff, unless you accept that things may not work how you'd like them to work. It's also not intended for total newbies.

Jeremy Fee

@WereCatf : +1 for open source

Jeremy Fee

@Kit-Bishop : try this for usb storage https://community.onion.io/topic/592/daft-question-re-usb-storage-as-rootfs/12

Paul Miller

@Kit-Bishop said in OpenWRT on the Omega 2(+):

@luz Quite agree with all this.

It is a repeat of the situation with the Omega1 - despite frequent multiple requests for a copy of their repository for OpenWrt to enable us to deal with issues with that (probably most notably the recurrent kernel version mismatch issues for many packages) there never was any response - and probably now never will be

That's actionable … has anyone contacted FSF or EFF?

I think the omega2+ I got is pretty slick, and all these expansion boards are neat, but if I knew they were reluctant to publish their GPL code, I never would have bought in.

OTOH, I never looked, maybe openwrt isn't GPL, in which case, this is what you get.

Armstead Smith

@WereCatf This needs to be fixed. A private build of the libopenssl package is unacceptable. Hopefully, Onion will rectify this in a future update.