DebWRT

15 January 2009
by Amain
modified 3 July 2009
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[ 3 July 2010 ] Please let me know if there is need for DebWrt for other devices. Currently I have a stable DebWrt for the Ubiquity Router Station and Router Station Pro. Just sent me an email.

[ 3 July 2010 ] Still some major stability problems with bcmx47xx and b43. When system load increases on the system the wireless connections is lost. That is, the wireless connection is still available, but no IP packets are transmitted any more. When using a USB disk/stick as root device this problem occurs very quickly. When using stock OpentWrt, it is a little harder to reproduce. But it will happen. See the following ticket on OpenWrt: 7552 I hope that the OpenWrt people will be able to fix this problem. Until then, no new release for bcm47xx / b43 based devices.

[ 25 June 2010 ] Pre-2.0 release is available. See www.debwrt.net/downloads/testing/pre-2.0 for README and downloads. Unfortunately I still experience problems with b43 stability.

[ 22 June 2010 ] A new DebWrt release is coming soon! The b43 is now supposed to be stable for kernel 2.6, so no reason anymore to hold back DebWrt releases. This week a testing version will appear in the testing section of this site. A new release will be created after sufficient testing. Note: no 2.4 kernel based release anymore!!!

This site is about how to get Debian GNU/Linux (Etch) running on wireless routers / embedded devices which are supported by OpenWrt. An Debian Etch distribution image with 2.4 or 2.6 OpenWrt kernel flash image can be download and installed directly on bcm47xx based devices. The Debian Etch distribution has been configured with the same out-of-the-box functionality as OpenWrt’s base image: wireless, lan-wlan bridging, DHCP server for LAN, firewall, LAN clients to Internet masquarading. (features)

The binaries and  information supplied on this website were primarily created and tested for the Asus WL-500G Deluxe wireless router.

If you have other hardware, this website should give enough information on how to get a OpenWrt kernel compiled and how to install Debian on an embedded device.

There are a couple of minimal requirements to get Debian running on a router:

  • There should be a GNU/Linux kernel available which supports the router/embedded device  (OpenWrt)
  • The device should have at least 200M(or more) of storage available for the Debian root filesystem (external USB-stick or USB-disk)
  • The device should have a reasonable amount of internal Memory (32M) as well as an reasonable CPU  (200MHz)
  • Debian should have an port availabe for the target platform (Mipsel for Asus WL-500G DeLuxe)

For the the impatient :-)   with an Asus WL-500G Deluxe (or compatible) there is a Quick-Start and there are binaries in the download latest section:  pre-compiled OpenWRT 2.6.28 or 2.4.35.4 kernel/flash-image with USB-storage support and the Debian Etch mispel base root filesystem image including OpenWRT 2.6.28 and 2.4.35.4 kernel modules. See the usage page for instructions on how to this Debian distribution on your router.

Wireless with 2.4 kernel is 100% working – but unfortunately with wireless for the 2.6 kernel there are performance issues when using WEP/WPA, so only unsecure Open Acces point mode  is working without problems for kernel 2.6.  MAC address based authentication is possible though. See the b43 driver page in this site for more information on this subject.

This is how it looks like when Debian boots on the router:

Enjoy Debian on your router!!!