Booted out#

Wed, 14 Mar 2018 14:12:58 +0000

This is another week of not much done, but for the record

kexec

You can't use kexec to boot into a new kernel unless the kernel you're booting from has support for it. So that cunning plan is out.

Das U-Boot

Das U-Boot is billed as "the Universal Boot Loader", but sometimes I wonder if in practice the U stands for "unique per board" or "unco-ordinated" or even "uninstallable" - simply because the actual version of u-boot that comes installed on your cheap consumer router or IoT device board is a forked and undocumented mess based on an upstream release that's probably about ten years old, and if you want to replace it with mainline U-Boot you have to either (1) be lucky enough to have your new build work perfectly first time, or (2) have access to JTAG or a serial programmer in case it doesn't.

u-boot_mod

... u-boot_mod looks really rather cool if you have a device it supports - in addition to the basic u-boot it has a web server and a network console

Unfortunately, as it doesn't support my device (it supports some varieties of TL-WR841 and a later revision of WR842 than mine) I'm disinclined to try building it given that if it doesn't work - and that it's sensitive to things like gcc version - there is again no way to resurrect the device without special hardware.

Excuses, excuses. What's the answer?

New hardware

I ordered this yesterday, so when Amazon eventually deign to deliver it, development will/may resume.