Jonathan McDowell wrote:

I think it's unlikely you'll be able to take a standard x86 live CD and
recompile it in a manner that's going to run on your router, if that's
what you're saying you were hoping for. They're really aimed at very
different environments.

No, what I'm hoping to do is open the squashfs filesystem and look at the files in it, which means I need a PC (or VM) which can mount it. So far I've not achieved this (but I haven't purpose-built a kernel yet).

My (simplistic) reasoning is that the same reasons that my router uses a heavily compressed squashfs filesystem would apply to the smaller mini-distros (like DSL), therefore if I could find one that used squashfs+lzma itself then having booted from it I should be able to mount the router's filesystem (without having to mod the kernel), extract the files, change them, and build a new squashfs file to tranfer to the router.

All I'll probably look to change is some of the HTML files in the web GUI. I may try to take it further later when I realise I can't do what I want by hacking the HTML, but I'm some way off that yet! Mostly what I want to achieve is simplifying some of the GUI (eg replacing some form text fields with hidden fields which set the right values so that users don't have to know what VCI and VPI, etc, are), maybe re-skinning it too if I'm feeling artistic.

Solwise can't supply the source, on account of the fact that they're
still trying to get it from the manufacturer. I could perhaps persue
this a little harder.


You might want to raise that with the gpl-violation project, though they
already have plenty to be getting on with.

Indeed, and the slow release of firmware source seems to be quite common. There must be a decent way to encourage (enforce) the code release, but I guess even the mighty Microsoft's of this world have problem getting people to keep to the terms of their licences.

If I knew the manufacturer I'd start with them (maybe I'll open the case and have a look).

Why do you need a VM (virtual machine?)? All you need is a cross
compiler.

Miscommunication, sorry! I'll need a PC with a kernel I can rebuild to try and get squashfs+lzma in order to mount the squashfs image. That could be any PC but since my Linux stuff is mostly standard distro installs I don't really want to disturb them by recompiling the kernel, so a VM is simplest.

-- 
Mark Rogers
More Solutions Ltd :: 0845 45 89 555