Hi,
I am very interested in routerboards and the CCR2004-1G-2XS-PCIe and would like to know whether it is possible to install an OS other than RouterOS.
My question is specific: is it “possible” in the first place, or is it “explicitly forbidden” by nature (e.g. BIOS in ROM or similar)?
Just to be clear: I am not asking whether anyone can recommend using this or that OS, I just investigate what can / cannot be done with the board.
If it is, I will buy one and try it myself, if it is physically impossible I will not buy one.
It is possible to install another OS on certain Mikkrotik devices. Use your favourite search engine and look for ddwrt and mikrotik. You’ll get an idea, probably ddwrt is not the only 3rd party software.
There is nothing really preventing you from loading different OS into it (no stupid locked bootloader or anything like that).
But building suitable linux kernel and system may be hard… at least until Mikrotik releases updated GPL code package.
(And good luck getting it… last time you had to write them a formal letter and have it delivered on CD or something… WTF)
But at least they are not completely locking you out of the hardware like some other evil companies…
Of course you need to understand that MikroTik devices come with relatively small flash storage space.
In case of the CCR2004-1G-2XS-PCIe that is 128MB which already is a lot compared to the 16MB available on many other devices.
Yes, you read that correctly, that is MB not GB!
So while it is possible to run your own OS, it will always have to be an OS optimized for space, similar to openwrt.
It will not be possible to just “install a bare version of Debian Linux” on it.
Ok, so just received a RouterBoard 711-2Hn and albeit it must have a serial port, there are no “pins” to connect it. So I welded some pins on the board in correspondence of the TX, RX, GND and 3V labels, connected a serial and… nothing.
Do you happen to know if the serial can be enabled somehow?
But whatever you want to do, first set up bootp and tftp server with OpenWRT image, then use same procedure as for doing netinstall, so board boots from it.
Then dump entire NAND contents (mtddump or dd all of the /dev/mtdblockX) so you have backup of original contents in case you screw up later.
Also note that when you have a device with an external serial port (i.e. one that has a connector for it, usually RJ45 but sometimes even DB9) this bootloader interface is enabled from the factory.