Hi Guys, 

  I am following the firmware installation instruction guide. I bought the router on Ebay 

 WRT54G v3.1 . When I access the web interface using 192.168.1.1, it would show 

OpenWrt Firmware

Kamikaze (r18961)

Load 0.28 0.13 0.05

Host Name  OpenWrt

Can I still load the HSMM-MESH firmware? 

Thanks!

Lot / k6irf

Hi Brian, 

  When I clicked on upload image, it gave me this error message. "The uploaded image file does not contain a supported format. Make sure that you choose the generic image format for your platform. "

  I was using firmware bin file hsmm-mesh-0.4.3-wrt54g.bin. 

  Thanks!

  Lot / k6irf

Reviving an old thread.

I found a 54WRTG V2 that should work with BBHN 1.0.  It currently has OpenWRT Backfire 10.03.1 on it.

What would be the install path, to go with restoring to original linksys configuration then load bbhn-1.0.0-wrt54g.bin, or would the bbhn-1.0.0-brcm.trx update work?  I don't want to brick this thing.

Mark K5LXP

Albuquerque, NM

This is not a BBHN question, but rather an OpenWRT question that would be better suited for OpenWRT's wiki and forum.

In short, do a google search for "openwrt restore linksys firmware" and click on the first link (titled, Back to original firmware - OpenWrt Wiki).

Do not have fear about bricking the device. The only two ways you can brick the device is either by purposely pulling the plug in the middle of the flash or loading firmware that is not compatible with the router.

You most certainly can find help with installing BBHN on the forums. But I have yet to find information on the forums on using a router with OpenWRT already installed. That's why I redirected you elsewhere. In my experience, Backfire 10.03.1 utilizes a lot of the memory on the chip making it impossible to navigate through the web interface without it failing. I pointed you to the OpenWRT Wiki because this is one of the only ways I have found to flash a device back to either factory default and then to BBHN (the way I would do it) or directly to BBHN (using one of the bin files).

It's all good, and I do not want to cause any hard feelings between mesh users. If you run into problems, send me an e-mail and I'll be happy to help you out.

> I have yet to find information on the forums on using a

> router with OpenWRT already installed.

I did search and find this thread I revived here from before version 1.0, but I wasn't sure if that advice still applied or not.

> Backfire 10.03.1 utilizes a lot of the memory on the chip

> making it impossible to navigate through the web interface

> without it failing.

Sounds like you have some helpful expertise here. That's the kind of info you don't find just googling around. I blithely assumed that OpenWRT would be like the stock linksys admin page and it'd be a simple matter to return to stock or load BBHN by pointing to a .bin file. I'm guessing by your statement that once you install OpenWRT (and by extension BBHN too) there's no longer enough memory to do that.

> I pointed you to the OpenWRT Wiki because this is one

> of the only ways I have found to flash a device back

> to either factory default

I did look around there before but saw numerous references to "damaging hardware" and "bricking" when reverting OpenWRT back to OEM firmware, so hence my aversion to doing that if I can avoid it by just using the bbhn-1.0.0-brcm.trx. Problem with most of the wiki's and forums is there's an expected level of competency that I don't have. Plus there's the time involved. I could spend hours googling and poking at this and may still not get there from here (due to my ignorance).

> I do not want to cause any hard feelings between mesh users.

Yes, sorry about the curt response, I was kind of put off by that reply. Thanks for your offer of help.

I am not a programmer, linux geek or particularly interested in routers beyond their perfunctory level so for me navigating through the OpenWRT info is not intuitive. I know for sure they're not going to have anything about BBHN there, so I figure the expertise is here. The mesh stuff intrigues me and I do pretty well following clear instructions. I've flashed a number of routers so far, have nodes in my shack and up on the tower and have put on a few demo's at hamfests with IRC and streaming video. Part of me says to set the router aside, they're $20 and easy to find. But the ham in me sees a perfectly working router that *should* be able to be turned into another mesh node, so that's why I've gone even this far with it.

So I guess the direct question I have is whether or not I can point to bbhn-1.0.0-brcm.trx from the OpenWRT admin page and that will get me to BBHN 1.0, or if the revert to stock then load BBHN is the only (or best) method.

I'm guessing by your statement that once you install OpenWRT (and by extension BBHN too) there's no longer enough memory to do that.
That is partially correct. Once you install OpenWRT Backfire, the webGUI (from personal experience) fails to be navigable due to the memory requirements. I actually found other people talking about this too a couple months ago by googling around too.

The "numerous references to 'damaging hardware' and 'bricking' when reverting OpenWRT back to OEM firmware" claim found elsewhere is wrong. I see that as their method of a CYA should you fail to install the wrong firmware package (54G3G onto a 54G). I have purposely bricked routers only to unbrick them during the flashing of OEM firmware.  No hardware I have done this on have been damaged in the process.  Obtaining the correct firmware from the manufacturer is guaranteed to not brick your router (unless you do what I mentioned in an above post).

Keep in mind that there are a lot of devices for sale that have damaged hardware and won't work correctly on OEM firmware.  Out of the 20-30+ routers I have purposely bricked or fixed only one could not take the factory firmware as the BIOS flash chip only could use half of it's available memory.

So I guess the direct question I have is whether or not I can point to bbhn-1.0.0-brcm.trx from the OpenWRT admin page and that will get me to BBHN 1.0, or if the revert to stock then load BBHN is the only (or best) method.

Yes. You can do that. Reason: OpenWRT generates two files with their compiler *.bin and *.trx. By design, you can flash any *.trx or *.bin file to any device currently running OpenWRT. To clear out settings that might stay between flashes, I'd go the OpenWRT to OEM to BBHN route.