3.4.103-2 for Cubietruck breaks wifi

[ElwoodG]

Hi,

after quite some time I wanted to use the CT as an Access Point only to find out the the wlan0 interface was missing.
Digging through dmesg I found 'failed to power up wifi chip' messages even after a reboot. The script.bin contains the relevant standard settings.

Anybody know how to get this working again?

Regards,

Konstantin

P.S.: It would be nice, if the dist kernel would contain 2 UARTs so one can use Bluetooth with it.

[pepedog]

What about 3.4.103-3, is that the same?

[ElwoodG]

How do I upgrade? Is there a way to include non-stable packages?

[pepedog]

Upgrade pacman -Syu
Non stable pacman -U urlorpathnametopkg

[ElwoodG]

OK -3 was fresh
Updated, same problem.

[ElwoodG]

Booted -4 today, still no luck

[krabat]

My guess is like so:
As of linux-sunxi kernel 3.4 Module bcmdhd which is actually covering WLAN chip BCM43362 doesn't work on Cubietruck due to the special way the SIP AMPAK AP6210 comprising both the WLAN and Bluetooth chips is switched, see linux-sunxi.org/Cubietruck/AP6210.
Arch Linux ARM used to mitigate this by using a patch working-bcmdhd-driver.patch which was dropped as of 3.4.103-1 (commit). I don't know the reasons to do so, but the patch as is can't be applied any more without tweaking. Maybe the devs just weren't up for this (which I'd comprehend well).
The only possible solution seem to be two different patches mentioned on the said linux-sunxi.org page. These can be applied flawlessly to a recent checkout from github.com/linux-sunxi/linux-sunxi (and modify about 125 files). I for one didn't go any further so far as this kernel isn't fitting my needs anyway due to numerous other problems and I was actually trying to trace this out of curiosity only (and have been spending way to much time on it).

For the record, things I've been trying without any success:
* U-Boot: abandoned fork u-boot-sunxi from github.com/linux-sunxi/u-boot-sunxi or mainline from denx.de
* script.{fex,bin}: github.com/linux-sunxi/sunxi-boards, github.com/cubieboard/cubie_configs, Arch Linux ARM package uboot-cubietruck
* kernel: vanilla kernel from github.com/linux-sunxi/linux-sunxi, Arch Linux ARM package linux-sun7i
Except some minor ones such as loading but failing silently vs. error message you stated ("vanilla" vs. Arch kernel) no differences at all.

Side note:
In my opinion using the Cubietruck as an AP on Arch Linux ARM isn't possible at all right now, at least if reliability matters and you intend to use the internal WLAN (which is actual a reason to buy this device, imo). In a nutshell kernel linux-sunxi is unusable as it conflicts with recent versions of essential components like systemd or dhcpcd on a regular basis. Mainline kernel is actually working quite well but brcmfmac, the WLAN driver in use, is utterly unreliable, see mailing list on googlegroups.com.
(Actually I think the Cubietruck isn't usable for anything productive at all as of now due to its lots of flaws. But that's a different story.)

[kmihelich]

Yes, the old patch was dropped because I was not about to fix it.

Did you see if the other driver works? Patching in working stuff is really easy.

[krabat]

So I've been testing all kinds of protocols in station mode since yesterday and have to say WLAN is pretty stable and quick.
The module is also said to support Bluetooth. Couldn't get this running, though. Exactly speaking I got stuck trying to upload the firmware as described on linux-sunxi.org/Cubietruck/Bluetooth (brcm_patchram_plus ended up repeating the first "writing" line endlessly).

In case you want to include the module in linux-sun7i I'd like to submit the PR if you don't mind - I'm trying to get into that Git{,Hub} thing atm...

[kmihelich]

I have the package already ready to go, but if you want to go through the exercise you can.