Is Everything On Track For Early April Production?

[gruso]

And there is no such thing as "Linux SDIO problem".

True. People are just blaming SDIO here for no reason, where it has been supported in Linux since somewhere around 2.6.22 (2007).

That misconception has come through official channels I believe, even if it wasn't explicitly blaming SDIO. Certainly I have had the impression that using SDIO rather than USB for the wifi has been a contributing factor. I'll try to dig up the sources and we'll see where we've all gone wrong.

Following on from that, here are some sources that might help explain why everyone thinks SDIO is broken. Not one of these posts say that "there is a problem with SDIO in Linux", but between these posts and dozens of other mentions of the issue, it's not hard to see how a picture of "SDIO = bad" has been painted in our collective subconscious.

The earliest reference I found was drom DJWillis, June 2009: http://pandorapress....lis-talks-wifi/

As of now I have the WL2151 firmware loading on the Pandora with the new driver and lots of nice signs of life but the work is a little way away from passing traffic (the Linux SDIO stack is causing me pain).

Anyway, got the driver side of things happy and playing nicely. The only real snag is on the SDIO communication side of things (timing issues I think) but I have been getting some helpful advice on that front so the plan is to sink a few hours into that over the weekend. Started to push a few simple patches upstream for things like chip ID's so with any luck by the time the driver hits mainline the Pandora should 'just work' if I can nail all the SDIO bits.

Once I get things settled (hopefully) I want to have a play with trying to get hostapd going as I have some funky uses for a mobile access point in mind

If anyone wants patches (or is familiar with the kernels SDIO stack) drop me a bell.

Fast forward to EvilDragon on Feb 24 2010: http://pandorapress....hats-to-expect/

The biggest issue: WiFi is still work in progress. The driver works, without using SDIO it was slow (about 1200kbps), DJWillis is working on it, but it's time consuming. It MIGHT be ready when the Pandora ships, but it might be WiFi will still take a bit longer.

18th March 2010, a post from Notaz gives the casual observer the impression that there are SDIO problems - because he is submitting fixes.

There is some recent activity here (wl1251 gmane linux kernel updates) concerning the wl1251 wifi chipset (SDIO fixes as well) that pandora is using.

Guess where that came from

I could find heaps more but there's no need. Just to reiterate, I'm not blaming any devs for leading us astray here - it's just a case of lots of people misinterpreting the information - and all in the same way.

 

[mali]

^ Another one

(Wifi)

The speed is about 50KB/s (400kb/s) which is slow but the real problem is that the driver loses packets constantly which means even loading a simple page like Google can be a chore. I've loaded the GP32X page successfully but then trying to click into a topic would stall forever and I'd just give up.

My understanding is that the kernel needs to move to a newer version where a better SDIO driver exists and access to an IRQ driver so that data won't get lost. DJWillis also tells me he is trying to backpedal that code into the kernel we have now in order to get it working better. He's also the guy building in new GL drivers and bug fixes and PND fixes and all this other stuff so it's a lengthy process.

SDIO doesn't work on latest OMAP kernels too. There are some patches being posted for that but there are reports of basic SD card functionality breaking because of them. It's all still under heavy development..

 

[(naw)mcx]

I just want to chip in and say that WiFi is a big of my plan, and need it pretty speedy too. So this is kinda annoying.

 

[notaz]

18th March 2010, a post from Notaz gives the casual observer the impression that there are SDIO problems - because he is submitting fixes.

There is some recent activity here (wl1251 gmane linux kernel updates) concerning the wl1251 wifi chipset (SDIO fixes as well) that pandora is using.

Guess where that came from

This was not a fault of SDIO code itself, it was about how certain chip register is supposed to be accessed using SDIO (as opposed to SPI) by the wifi driver. Incorrect SDIO method used to access that certain register resulted in SDIO errors, which looked like SDIO problem to DjWillis (not suprisingly). This did also happen on G1 when using Nokia driver (if you google for logs), however it still worked much better than for us. So this is not the root cause of our problems, unfortunately.

The speed is about 50KB/s (400kb/s) which is slow but the real problem is My understanding is that the kernel needs to move to a newer version where a better SDIO driver exists and access to an IRQ driver so that data won't get lost.

That has been tested, it doesn't help.

SDIO doesn't work on latest OMAP kernels too. There are some patches being posted for that but there are reports of basic SD card functionality breaking because of them. It's all still under heavy development..

Stupid me. Forgot to stress it's SDIO interrupt support that has problems on OMAPs, not the SDIO stack itself. This has been shown to be the cause of slowness of wifi chip on Overo boards. However we have an option not to use SDIO interrupt at all as we have GPIO connected directly to wifi chip's IRQ line and can use that instead.
Unfortunately it doesn't help our case either.

So I just want to stress is that there is no need to blame Linux SDIO stack, there is no "long time problems" that some of you are claiming and that SDIO choice over SPI was not wrong.

 

[gruso]

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Dead1nside]

Thanks Notaz for the extra information, I have to say I'm still very confused.

 

[mcobit]

Thanks Notaz for the extra information, I have to say I'm still very confused.

Exactly! ;-)

Is it too early to narrow it down to a hardwareproblem?

 

[kikeminchas]

I'm sorry, I guess most of you know it but don't want to face it... for the people around here that express their opinion maybe a dongle would make it in case of a Hardware issue. To the majority (including me), Hardware issue (+delays)= Cancel order ... what happened during the last 24 hours to this project is very serious. I'm just waiting for ED's blog post...

 

[mali]

[...] that some of you are claiming and that SDIO choice over SPI was not wrong.

The N900 uses the same chip, afaik, connected via SPI and it just works.

 

[juniorm33]

So I just want to stress is that there is no need to blame Linux SDIO stack, there is no "long time problems" that some of you are claiming and that SDIO choice over SPI was not wrong.

Thanks for coming and giving us some more info on all this, it's appreciated.

 

[EvilDragon]

Thanks Notaz for the extra information, I have to say I'm still very confused.

We are too, that's why we want to make you this offer.
It could take months to find out what's exactly wrong, it could be found out in a week.

But I doubt you all want to wait another few months until you get your Pandora, that's why we want to ship it and make sure you can surf the net in fullspeed by including a WiFi dongle.

 

[mcobit]

Did mweston review all of the circuits that belong to the wifi?
And will there be a blogpost today?

Personally I would like to take the offer with the dongle.

 

[scottm]

I don't think I'm in the 1st 1000 - so it probably won't affect me. But when is this decision to be made? Have the cases been shipped yet? or are the Chinese still trying out their new machine? When are the other 3000 likely to be made? So many questions, so little time!

Really though you couldn't make up this stuff - so many things have gone wrong. I really feel sorry for the team. When we all eventually get our Pandoras (and I'm really hoping we eventually do) someone should write a book about the Pandora's birth, and then turn it into a film ;-) credit card/paypal debacle, various production problems and now the wireless problem.

 

[mcobit]

When we all eventually get our Pandoras (and I'm really hoping we eventually do) someone should write a book about the Pandora's birth, and then turn it into a film ;-) credit card/paypal debacle, various production problems and now the wireless problem.

Well, do you know how much can go wrong in the production of a movie??? We will have to wait a century for the movie to appear...

 

[peca]

I'll take my Pandora even without wifi dongle. I'll want to serf net on Pandora, but if I have it in my hands, I can play with it instead of browsing and patiently wait for solution. I don't like elevate OP team coasts.

 

[Vlynndar]

I accept that offer. Wifi capability is one of the greater selling points for me.

 

[Lafazar]

Just wanted to show my support and state that I will accept whatever decision the Pandora team makes (and yes, I am among the first 1000). I will take Pandora as it is, wifi or not, dongle or not.

Of course I still sincerely hope this problem turns out to be solvable in software. Built-in wifi is a very important feature.

 

[CapcomSuicide]

Thanks for the update. I have been a long term reader of the boards, and have enjoyed my GP32, F200, Wiz, Dingoo and hopefully this summer a Pandora. You will forgive me for not posting before.

If given the option, I believe many of us would pass on the dongle, or even pay for it. I don't know how many pre-orders you have, be that hundreds or thousands, but at the end of the day Pandora was a cheap proposition by an enthusiastic bunch of this community to build a gaming retro computer with "Perfect controls." I don't need another internet/SSH/terminal device, and I am sure that I am not alone in that position.

WiFi is a bonus, & I can understand that much work may have been put into your marketplace, and thus you really want internet connection to be integral to the device, but at the very least people should have the option to do a donation for the WiFi dongle, if is critical to the OpenPandora team that we have this.

I sincerely believe many of us will not use the wifi/dongle at all, & I'd rather you didn't spend your money on my order, & absolutely support the concept of getting the device out, warts & all for the community without functioning wifi. If emulators are working, then get it out & let the community assist you with the problems. This is Open Pandora, not Sony Pandora. Folk must understand that this is a brave project and that some functionality may never work.

It's been a long road for your team & no-one wants to be in development hell facing project exhaustion before you have even received the parts. It can be a hard call, but sometimes it's better to reduce the scope of the project to get "Phase 1" out of the door, so that you can recuperate, gain trust from the people concerned that they may never get a unit, and of course open up the "Development team" to hundreds of us Linux/retro nerds who will sit happily in the evenings with the units in our hands, trying to assist you.

If I wanted a finished project with no soul & working wifi I would have brought a PSP Go. Get the pandoras' out & spend all energy/focus now on the hardware assembly side of things, so that you don't end up breaking ribbon cables of having faulty keyboards. Software problems we can use the coming years to tweak. Pandoras with faulty controls will be harder to fix for the end users.

Thank you to the whole team & good luck with the project moving forwards. You have achieved so much already, don't let WiFi cloud your judgement from the bigger picture. Get those little black boxes out the door.

Thanks Notaz for the extra information, I have to say I'm still very confused.

We are too, that's why we want to make you this offer.
It could take months to find out what's exactly wrong, it could be found out in a week.

But I doubt you all want to wait another few months until you get your Pandora, that's why we want to ship it and make sure you can surf the net in fullspeed by including a WiFi dongle.

 

[Polossatik]

Mweston said a while back that (at that point) it was not really usable due lost packets, causing sites not to load properly.
Is this in it current state still an issue or is it from "user perspective" simply (much) slower than it should be, but it's as such usable?

 

[WoD]

Probably going to have to throw in something like this with the first ~1000:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41HdtFh-oZL._SS500_.jpg

Because the driver for the internal chip is only working at ~30kbps. We don't mind people wanting to switch to the 3000 batch if they are not happy with that. We won't ship the 3000 until we have it working faster.

I, for one, would gladly accept the Pandora of anyone from the first 1000 insane enough to pass up such an offer, and I wouldn't care for a dongle either. I'm not holding onto any hope, though,