Release Transmitting More News

[banjeed]

New blog post...you know the drill
http://www.openpandora.org/blog.php

 

[PhonicUK]

Certainly sounds promising!

All we need now is an open-source driver for the SGX that supports OGLES/OGL

 

[DJWillis]

Evening All,

To answer a comment on the unofficial blog post.

QUOTE (ashdjones)
I don’t see why they couldn’t have just included the closed source WIFI drier in the firmware until the open source one was ready; add it the first update.


I’ll elaborate sometime on that but lets just say that is not a viable option for many reasons.

—

Anyway, we actually have 2 open source options so I’ll give people a little background.

One is the TI WiLink 4 based ‘partial’ driver that was opened as part of the Google Android G1 release.

This driver is unfortunately a mess and really has no place in a modern system (ancient design architecture, lots of semi-bespoke shims, some really nasty bugs etc.).

We can use this driver if you don’t mind setting it up from one clunky user space app that crashes a lot and lacks solid support for things like WEP/WPA etc. – Really this driver is only of use for hardware validation not real use from users. Even after I hacked in Wireless Extensions support (yep, the driver is THAT old) it’s still not a driver I would want to use (sorry but I hate lots of nasty random mem leaks and errors).

—

The next open option is the WL12xx driver written by Kalle Valo of Nokia. This is a nice modern driver (MAC80211) and is already in Wireless-Testing (as of a few days ago) and on its way to mainline.

This driver was SPI only but a gent by the name of Bob Copeland added the start of SDIO support and we are working off that base to bring the driver up on the Pandora so we have a nice solid mainline driver to use that is actively developed, supports the Pandora out of the gate, and is easy to maintain.

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).

Not sure if that counts as an update .

 

[gaterooze]

.

It's appreciated anyway, thanks DJWillis.

 

[Vorporeal]

It might not be an "update", but elaborations are always welcome.

 

[offbow]

Evening All,

Not sure if that counts as an update

Evening
Anything is an update in my book and to know that a man in the know is on the drivers is a good thing

BTW Good to know that i am not the only one in Avon getting a Pandora(you have but you know what i mean) , there around 8 of ous

 

[Loonie]

.

Oh for sure that meets all the criteria for an update in my book. Thanks.

 

[WizardStan]

But what flavour of spread did he have on his toast? And does he call it "jelly" or "jam"? These are important facts, and it's not a true update until we know!

 

[DJWillis]

But what flavour of spread did he have on his toast? And does he call it "jelly" or "jam"? These are important facts, and it's not a true update until we know!

Jam, I am British . Well thick layers of Marmite most of the time actually.

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.

John

 

[axenzoku]

For me, I'd say jelly is that clear stuff with no actual fruit matter in it, while jam is actual fruit. (sorry btw awesome update, I had a lot of issues getting my wifi working in Ubuntu as well, but I ended up getting it to work with real open source drivers in the end. Instead of NDIS Wrapper )

 

[Monk]

But what flavour of spread did he have on his toast? And does he call it "jelly" or "jam"? These are important facts, and it's not a true update until we know!

Jam, I am British ;"] . Well thick layers of Marmite most of the time actually.[/quote]

Great updates, thanks for putting us in the know

 

[hedwards]

Indeed.

As for the driver, I don't personally care closed source would be fine with me while it gets fixed, but if the open source driver is close to completion, I'll just wait. I hate having to wait for things like decent nVidia drivers, while two separate groups work on things.

 

[myzter]

maybe someone can offer some insight into :

"USB WiFi antenna"

Im reading about these affordable small touchscreen devices, but the first device which can be used with:
802.11b/g USB Wireless WiFi LAN Adapter
will get my order/s

 

[Squidge]

Why would you want to use a USB Wireless WiFi LAN Adapter when the Pandora comes with one built in?

 

[MarkoeZ]

Why would you want to use a USB Wireless WiFi LAN Adapter when the Pandora comes with one built in?

i THINK he is referring to a DIY antenna for long range WiFi communication in combination with a usb adapter like in this project. But i might be completely off, in that case his post is not making sense to me either

Cheers!

 

[michaeljustman]

But what flavour of spread did he have on his toast? And does he call it "jelly" or "jam"? These are important facts, and it's not a true update until we know!

Didn't we already have this discussion?