status of libertas_tf + sdio?

[Steve deRosier]

On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 2:41 PM, Dan Williams <dcbw at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 2013-12-12 at 00:21 +0300, Vasily Khoruzhick wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 11:55 PM, James Cameron <quozl at laptop.org> wrote:
> > > On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 11:10:50AM +0300, Vasily Khoruzhick wrote:
> > >> On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 5:27 AM, James Cameron <quozl at laptop.org> wrote:
> > >> > On Mon, Dec 09, 2013 at 12:38:28PM +0300, Vasily Khoruzhick wrote:
> > >> >> On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 7:18 AM, James Cameron <quozl at laptop.org> wrote:
> > >> >> > On Fri, Dec 06, 2013 at 01:40:00PM +0300, Vasily Khoruzhick wrote:
> > >> >> >> Out of curiosity,
> > >> >> >>
> > >> >> >> Does anyone know if it's possible to get thin firmware for 8686 with
> > >> >> >> SPI interface?
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> > What happens when you try?
> > >> >>
> > >> >> How? There's no tf available for 8686 with SPI interface.
> > >> >
> > >> > How do you know that?  Are you saying that SPI support was removed
> > >> > from firmware during the conversion from fat to thin?
> > >>
> > >> Err, there's no lbtf_spi.bin file.
> > >
> > > Basing decisions on the names of files rather than the code they
> > > may contain seems rather limiting.
> > >
> > > In the absence of evidence, there's a possibility that SPI support
> > > remained.
> >
> > But fat firmware differs for SPI and SDIO
>
> Correct.  AFAIK (and I could be wrong, I haven't been involved for a few
> years) CozyBit only did the thin firmware for OLPC-specific deployments
> of the usb8388 and sd868x parts which were included in OLPC devices, to
> support the mesh networking protocols used by OLPC.  None of those parts
> used SPI; and thus I would not expect there to be a thin firmware for
> any SPI parts.  I'd love to be proved wrong though.
>
> Each bus type uses different firmware, so yes, you'd need both a helper
> firmware and a main firmware that contains code specific to the bus
> type.
>
> Dan
>

Hi guys,

Sorry for not noticing this earlier.  I'm the guy (formerly) at
Cozybit who wrote the driver and did the thinfirmware for OLPC.  I
never got a chance to get the driver cleaned up so it could be
accepted into the kernel mainline; ended up shifted off to a different
project right away and then, well, you know how it goes.

In case you weren't aware, the git repo for the driver is at:
http://dev.laptop.org/git/users/derosier/wireless-testing/

There's also an old compat-wireless for it:
http://dev.laptop.org/git/users/derosier/compat-wireless/

The driver of course requires the thinfirm firmware.  You should be
able to find it somewhere on OLPC's site, or in various posts or
emails from me.  If you really can't find it, let me know and I'll see
if I can find the binary by digging through my archives.

As for SPI support... The SDIO spec requires SPI support.  I don't
recall any specific support or no support for SPI (either way) in the
SD8686 firmware.  If I were you I'd give it a try (assuming you're not
having to do hardware spins to try it).  It may work.  Then again, I
haven't looked at that code in over three years (and no longer have it
to check) and my recollections may be fuzzy.

If it doesn't work, contact Cozybit, they can fairly easily make a
thinfirm change to the SPI version of the firmware if that indeed
exists as a separate project.  Frankly the hard part is not in making
the thinfirm change, its is in fitting it into the chip and doing all
the testing to be sure you didn't break anything else.

Useful links:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Thinfirm_1.5
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Thin_firmware_spec
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO_as_AP

- Steve

PS sorry for the resend... Darn google HTMLified it on me and I hadn't noticed.