[sf-lug] 2018-04-16 SF-LUG meeting notes + my additions-1

Wed Apr 18 16:57:14 PDT 2018

Just rcvd some bizarre and unexpected "user activation" narishkeit
(= bullshit!) from some bubkis "Shake Technologies" which I've already 
deleted and blocked-off; arriving after my previous post was sent :-(

Quoting Bobbie  Sellers <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com>:

> A few minutes later Aaron C. came in and had several
> items including a modem Siemens SpeedStream 4100 ADSL+
> which he has kindly loaned me. Later he bought the
> mini Dell tower from John S.

On that "mini Dell tower from John S" ...
Yep, upgraded the RAM on the Optiplex 780 I purchased from John S (see ref 
[01] on its specs) to 8GB. 64bit Slackware and 64bit Mint perform quite 
well with the BIOS flash I performed on this unit. It stands to reason 
that Optiplex 780 as currently configured performs _much_ better than the 
Optiplex 745 I previously purchased from John S several years ago. Can now 
use the latest systemd-free Devuan in a Mint-hosted virtualbox just like I 
did ~2yrs ago (see ref [02]).

Would also mention that at Monday night's mtg, Bobbie S graciously 
provided me a bootable optical disk of ArchLabs Linux, which is 64bit 
_only_ (see ref [03]). Note that while there are still 32bit community 
variants of Arch Linux still in active development (see ref [04]), the 
vast majority or maybe even all of these 32bit Arch versions are 
systemd-based -- this somewhat goes back to a discussion of systemd-free 
versions of Arch from awhile back (see ref [05]).

Quoting Bobbie  Sellers <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com>:

> Jim S. came in about 6:30 PM,  far earlier than we had hoped.
>
> A discussion ensued of which routers could use Open-Wrt or
> DD-Wrt software or other efforts to replace the firmware of
> the routers with a more secure version of Linux.
> How such replacement could be accomplished was a matter
> of some discussion as well.  These efforts are based on
> Linksys WRT54G model router which used Open Source
> software thus making it accessible to developers originally
> but they are trying to get more routers supported.
> The hardware requirement of more than 32 megabytes of
> ram is eliminating a lot of older cheaper devices.
> Read more about the effort at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DD-WRT>.

Just a reminder very much related to this that Daniel G and Rick M had a 
recent discussion of OpenWrt router firmware (see ref [06], [07], and the 
end of [08]).  At the beginning of this year, the OpenWrt project made the 
announcement that OpenWrt is merging with LEDE (see ref [09]). Directly 
related to Bobbie S's warning of "32 megabytes of ram is eliminating a lot 
of older cheaper devices" plus Daniel G's and Rick M's posts on routers' 
16MB RAM and use of 2.4 kernels (see refs [10] thru [14]), the new 
OpenWrt/LEDE firmware are now supporting much fewer devices. Of special 
note are OpenWrt/LEDE's "4/32" warnings (see refs [15] and [16]) for 
devices with 4MB or less flash and 32MB or less RAM.

While there are many routers -- 1068 at last count -- still supported by 
fairly-recent versions of pre-LEDE OpenWrt and OpenWrt/LEDE itself (see 
ref [17]), even more routers are _still_ supported by DD-DRT (see ref 
[18]). Even considering Daniel G's and Rick M's security warnings about 
2.4 and 2.6 kernels in refs [10] thru [14], sometimes the few firmware 
options available for routers of <4MB flash and having 16MB RAM are DD-WRT 
firmware with these unsatisfactory limitations.

At Monday night's meeting, I brought in the working Linksys(Cisco) 
E1000v2.1 WiFi router I mentioned I would try to bring in my last post 
(see refs [19] and [20]). John S brought in his working Linksys WRT54Gv2.0 
and Linksys WRT54GLv1.1 (see respective refs [21] and [22]).

(((
Sidenote question....
Can anyone guess WITHOUT looking what the identity of the manufacturer 
is/was for the chips on all three of these above
routers??

Giveaway answer: Heaps of condemnation were put on this particular chip 
manufacturer and its policies within refs [23],[24], the end of ref [25], 
and refs [26],[27], [28] previously submitted by Todd H, maestro, Rick M, 
and Akkana P. )))

In any case, all three of the low-end WiFi routers John S and I brought in 
Monday night are supported by DD-WRT (see ref [18] to verify). The 
E1000v2.1 is supported by the current OpenWrt/LEDE v17.01.x (see ref [17] 
to verify), however both Linksys WRT54Gx routers John S brought in are 
_only_ supported by the older OpenWrt 10.0.x version, specifically because 
of the reasons Daniel G already mentioned within ref [10].

All mentioned above (i.e., Daniel G, Rick M, Bobbie S, John S, Todd H, 
maestro, and Akkana P.) are very much welcome and invited to step-in and 
provide your corrections/clarifications, your illuminating comments, and 
your excellent advice on the above. Of course Michael P and others are 
welcome to chip-in as well :-)

Quoting Bobbie  Sellers <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com>:

> Anyone attending the meeting is free to correct
> my omissions or incomprehension of the
> activities and asked to do so asap so that the
> membership not in attendance will not be
> mis-informed any longer than necessary.

Besides the longer above narrative, the only other additions I've got 
right now are that I demo'd the DD-WRT-build desktop's GUI management 
console on the E1000v2.1 and explained to jim the various ways using 
software and hardware to flash the firmware on WiFi routers.

Best
-A

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References:
===================

[01]https://www.cnet.com/products/dell-optiplex-780-sff-desktop-computer-intel-core-2-duo-e8400-250gb-2gb/specs/

[02]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2016q1/011720.html

[03]https://archlabslinux.com/

[04]https://archlinux32.org/

[05]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2017q4/012897.html

[06]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013135.html

[07]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013139.html

[08]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013145.html

[09]https://openwrt.org/

[10]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013146.html

[11]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013147.html

[12]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013148.html

[13]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013152.html

[14]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013153.html

[15]https://openwrt.org/supported_devices

[16]https://openwrt.org/supported_devices/432_warning

[17]https://openwrt.org/toh/start

[18]https://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices

[19]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013133.html

[20]https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Linksys_E1000_v2.1

[21]https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_v2.0

[22]https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Linksys_WRT54GL_v1.1

[23]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2017q4/012942.html

[24]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2017q4/012943.html

[25]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2017q4/012948.html

[26]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2017q4/012950.html

[27]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2017q4/012951.html

[28]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2017q4/012952.html

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aaronco36 at sdf.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.org