OpenWRT: Cant install packages - memory issue

Question

I switched from default firmware to OpenWrt for my: TP-Link TL-WR1043N/ND v1 and have the problem that I am not able to install any new packages.

What I did:

• Flash OpenWrt
• Installed Luci (no problem there)

And than when I try to install anything else I get:

Collected errors:
* xsystem: wget: vfork: Out of memory.
 * opkg_download: Failed to download http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/generic/packages/luci/luci-app-wshaper_git-15.338.68695-3bae3c7-1_all.ipk, wget returned -1.
 * opkg_install_pkg: Failed to download luci-app-wshaper. Perhaps you need to run 'opkg update'?
 * opkg_install_cmd: Cannot install package luci-app-wshaper.

The important thing seems to be : * xsystem: wget: vfork: Out of memory. And yep I did try reboot and 'update' several times.

But under Luci -> Software I can see:

And here is my DF output:

root@OpenWrt:~# df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root                 2048      2048         0 100% /rom
tmpfs                    14052      1128     12924   8% /tmp
/dev/mtdblock3            4736       936      3800  20% /overlay
overlayfs:/overlay        4736       936      3800  20% /
tmpfs                      512         0       512   0% /dev
root@OpenWrt:~#

OpenWRT Router Link: https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr1043nd

Manufacturer Link: http://www.tp-link.com/en/download/TL-WR1043ND_V1.html

Please does anyone have any idea what could cause the issue? I know the solution could be using an external USB but I want to aviod this at all costs + I cannot imagine that this router would have space just for luci :)

Answer 1

Go into /etc/opkg/distfeeds.conf and comment out everything but base and luci, the first two.

No idea why, but opkg started using tons of RAM with all of those enabled, which they are by default.