History of ZRouter from Aleksandr Rybalko view point¶

Pre-History¶

<Stone Age>
From my first day in D-Link Ukraine I was dig into Linux kernel code to
make "something working on something". Formerly it's about 3G support
for D-Link SOHO routers. First one DI-604UP/DI-524UP - both 5Eth + USB
for printer connection, only difference DI-524UP have 802.11g Wireless.
One day when we already know nearest EOL of both models, me
and my chief select new target for 3G support, DIR-320 was selected for
it. DIR-320 based on Broadcom BCM5354 SoC(System-on-Chip).
</Stone Age>

History¶

Since I already learned many things related to embedded systems
I begin more deeper view of ARM code in source tree of my favorite OS
(you know about which I say), because want bringup FreeBSD on my old
"Palm Tungsten C". And some query to Google points me to gonzo's
(Oleksandr Tymoshenko) FreeBSD home page with bcm47xx.log
[[http://people.freebsd.org/~gonzo/bcm47xx.log]].

At that point I start my first port of FreeBSD. Someday in Feb'10 if I
remember correct(IIRC) I show results of that port to my chief and he
said something like this: "Wow, so we be able to put Fresh FreeBSD
kernel into device instead of very old Linux kernel!"(DIR-320 shipped
with 2.4.xx linux kernel). Then my hobby and my job are joined.

Mon Mar 22 12:29:33 2010 - Mercurial repository crated, filled with
FreeBSD HEAD + my changes, and tag 9.0.1 created.
After week or so, first public release stored on dlink.ua web server.

... skip ...

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:34:18 +0200 (CEST) I receive mail From:
Nicolai Petri with Subject: FreeBSD MIPS

Hi, 

I'm starting initial work on a FreeBSD based mips router firmware. It
is apparently same chipset as the one in the D-Link 320. Do you have a
kernel config and/or other information you would like to share ? My
first plan is to select FreeNAS as the base for the distribution as it
has both a usable gui and package support.

I hope you will help.

Best regards,
Nicolai Petri

then contacts exchange and IRC link setup :)

2010-11-02 first IRC contact and Nicolai said that phrase
"Internal working title is ZRouter for now :)"

So here is ZRouter or ZRouter.org story begin.

ZRouter birthday "2010-11-02 15:50:23 +200"