Factory Firmware
All new Bifferboards now ship with a compilation of the OpenWrt Bifferboard fork.
Features
- DHCP requests hostname 'biffer', no static IP address fall-back.
- Time synchronisation
- RTAI kernel + lxrt modules
- Samba serving /tmp directory.
- LuCI Web interface
Board compatibility
This firmware works for any 8MB devices, assuming that you have Biffboot v2.7 or later, i.e. Biffboot supporting the kernelmax parameter.
Biffboot settings
Most Biffboot versions have a 'restore defaults'' function. However this *may* not restore the bootloader settings to the correct values to boot OpenWrt, (especially for older boards that were shipped with the slackware based distro) so if receiving a new board, please make a note of your Bootloader settings.
To install OpenWrt, kernelmax should be set to 0x10 and kernel command-line should be blank.
Mini-FAQ
Q: I've flashed the board and I get no boot!
A: The most likely cause is that you have a kernel command-line specifying 'console='. OpenWrt already embeds a command-line option specifying the console, and it's configured to 'inherit' from the Biffboot command-line, so you end up with two console specifications, so Linux decides to not give you any console at all. You may see an OpenWrt login prompt much later, since that uses a different mechanism.
Q. How do I restore the factory firmware?
A: See the instructions
GPL requirements
The git tree for the current build can be found at https://github.com/bifferos/openwrt/tree/2f4a93496f786f168dda622eb92b1fa68b3ac832. Packages are imported with 'make package/symlinks'. I've backed up all downloaded sources associated with this release, but I'm not going to upload them anywhere. If you want them on DVD please contact me, I can supply them for £20 + postage (contact sales@bifferos.com), however there is little point unless someone shuts down half the internet because this is all online anyway!
If you want build your own image, or test on qemu, go on : git repository (It's combines the OpenWrt build with the emulator).