[OpenWrt Wiki] The OpenWrt Flash Layout
openwrt.org › docs › techrefThe OpenWrt Flash Layout The embedded devices (routers and such) OpenWrt/LEDE (Linux Embedded Development Environment) has mainly targeted since its inception, use flash memory as the form of non-volatile memory for the persistent storage of the firmware and its configuration.
[OpenWrt Wiki] Image formats
openwrt.org › docs › techrefuImage. This is an image format designed for U-Boot loader, generally consisting of a kernel with a header for information. Often a zImage with a 64 byte uImage header, which contains the load address & entry point of the zImage, so that uBoot knows what to do with it.
[OpenWrt Wiki] Filesystems
openwrt.org › docs › techrefSquashFS is a read only compressed filesystem. While gzip is available, at OpenWrt it uses LZMA for the compression. Since SquashFS is a read only filesystem, it doesn't need to align the data, allowing it to pack the files tighter thus taking up significantly less space than JFFS2 (20-30% savings over a JFFS2 filesystem)!