Found serial port!

[jhujhujhujhu]

serial header

I'm not quite sure Ground is correct. When I tested with my multimeter, it seemed to be right, but then I put a pin header on, and it didn't register as ground anymore, so I just put the ground pin header somewhere else. However, TX and RX are definitely correct. With that in mind, here's what my serial setup looks like

Serial settings: 38400 8N1, hardware and software flow control off

Output from console:

Booting...�
========== SPI =============
SDRAM CLOCK:181MHZ
------------------------- Force into Single IO Mode ------------------------
|No chipID Sft chipSize blkSize secSize pageSize sdCk opCk chipName |
| 0 c22018h 0h 1000000h 10000h 1000h 100h 86 30 MX25L12805D/45E|

Reboot Result from Watchdog Timeout!

---RealTek(RTL8198)at 2015.09.05-23:04-0700 version v1.2.2.4 16bit
bootbank is 1, bankmark 80000047
no sys signature at 00010000!
no sys signature at 00020000!
no sys signature at 00030000!
no rootfs signature at 000E0000!
no rootfs signature at 000F0000!
no rootfs signature at 00130000!
Jump to image start=0x80500000...
return_addr = 05050000 ,boot bank=1, bank_mark=0x80000047...
decompressing kernel:
Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.
done decompressing kernel.
start address: 0x80003640
CPU revision is: 0000dc02
Determined physical RAM map:
memory: 04000000 @ 00000000 (usable)
Zone PFN ranges:
Normal 0x00000000 -> 0x00004000
Movable zone start PFN for each node
early_node_map[1] active PFN ranges
0: 0x00000000 -> 0x00004000
Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on. Total pages: 16256
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,38400 root=/dev/mtdblock1
icache: 16kB/32B, dcache: 8kB/32B, scache: 0kB/0B
NR_IRQS:48
PID hash table entries: 256 (order: 8, 1024 bytes)
console handover: boot [early0] -> real [ttyS0]
Dentry cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
Memory: 53892k/65536k available (2617k kernel code, 11572k reserved, 772k data, 112k init, 0k highm)
Calibrating delay loop... 619.31 BogoMIPS (lpj=3096576)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
net_namespace: 960 bytes
NET: Registered protocol family 16
bio: create slab at 0
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 2048 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 2048 bind 2048)
TCP reno registered
NET: Registered protocol family 1
squashfs: version 4.0 (2009/01/31) Phillip Lougher
JFFS2 version 2.2. (NAND) �é 2001-2006 Red Hat, Inc.
msgmni has been set to 105
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler cfq registered (default)
Serial: 8250/16550 driver, 1 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
serial8250: ttyS0 at MMIO 0x18002000 (irq = 8) is a 16550A
PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
MPPE/MPPC encryption/compression module registered
NET: Registered protocol family 24
RTL8192C/RTL8188C driver version 3.2 (2012-05-04)
=====>>INSIDE rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
PCIE reset (0)
Do MDIO_RESET
98 - 40MHz Clock Source
Find Port=1 Device:Vender ID=819310ec
vendor_deivce_id=819310ec
=====>>EXIT rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>INSIDE rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>EXIT rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>INSIDE rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>EXIT rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>INSIDE rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>EXIT rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>INSIDE rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>EXIT rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>INSIDE rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>EXIT rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>INSIDE rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
PCIE reset (0)
Do MDIO_RESET
98 - 40MHz Clock Source
Find Port=0 Device:Vender ID=819110ec
vendor_deivce_id=819110ec
=====>>EXIT rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>INSIDE rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>EXIT rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>INSIDE rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>EXIT rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>INSIDE rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>EXIT rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>INSIDE rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>EXIT rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>INSIDE rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
=====>>EXIT rtl8192cd_init_one <<=====
Reset EN2510 Chip...OK

Probing RTL8186 10/100 NIC-kenel stack size order[3]...
chip name: 8196C, chip revid: 0
==Set GPHY Parameter OK
NOT YET
Set threshould idx 0
net_port_unplug_netlink_init enter
SPI INIT
------------------------- Force into Single IO Mode ------------------------
|No chipID Sft chipSize blkSize secSize pageSize sdCk opCk chipName |
| 0 c22018h 0h 1000000h 10000h 1000h 100h 50 0 MX25L12805D/45E|

SPI flash(MX25L12805D/45E) was found at CS0, size 0x1000000
Creating 6 MTD partitions on "flash_bank_1":
0x000000000000-0x0000001b0000 : "boot+cfg+linux(bank1)"
0x0000001b0000-0x0000007e0000 : "root fs(bank1)"
0x000000800000-0x0000009b0000 : "linux(bank2)"
0x0000009b0000-0x000000fe0000 : "root fs(bank2)"
0x000000fe0000-0x000001000000 : "act_conf"
0x0000007e0000-0x000000800000 : "reserved_conf"
nf_conntrack version 0.5.0 (1024 buckets, 4096 max)
GRE over IPv4 tunneling driver
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
TCP cubic registered
IPv6: Loaded, but administratively disabled, reboot required to enable
IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling driver
NET: Registered protocol family 17
NET: Registered protocol family 15
802.1Q VLAN Support v1.8 Ben Greear greearb@candelatech.com
All bugs added by David S. Miller davem@redhat.com
VFS: Mounted root (squashfs filesystem) readonly on device 31:1.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 112k freed
init started: BusyBox v1.13.4 (2020-08-27 21:52:28 PDT)
DEF_WLAN_WSC_PIN: '53362810'
Default WSC PIN already there.
/etc/init.d/rcS: line 126: tr69: not found
data_center not running.
killall: udhcpc: no process killed
killall: nmbd: no process killed
killall: mDNSResponderPosix: no process killed
killall: zconf.sh: no process killed
killall: zero_conf_vz: no process killed
killall: zero_conf_telus: no process killed
killall: wget: no process killed
killall: clinkd: no process killed
killall: cli: no process killed
boa: server version Boa/0.94.14rc21
boa: server built Aug 27 2020 at 21:55:53.
boa: starting server pid=149, port 80

rlx-linux login:

[saormart]

Good job !
I didn't open up mine to dig deep like that, may I'll buy another unit to explore like you're doing !

[jhujhujhujhu]

I bought two to connect two of my rooms via the existing coax. Then I bought a third to mess around with. I would eventually like to get a more modern Linux kernel up and running. But first we need to figure out if there's a way to load and run an image without having written it to flash first.

[jhujhujhujhu]

I suspect getting a modern Linux kernel running on this thing will be beyond my skills if even the OpenWRT folks have given up. The rtl8198 chip is also not entirely MIPS compliant from what it looks like.

One other snag to further porting a newer kernel to this device is that the bootloader doesn't have tftp functionality. So there's no way to just load a new kernel without writing to flash first.