[Freedombox-discuss] FreedomBox Unstable Image 2012.0819 Available

[bnewbold at robocracy.org]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012, Nick M. Daly wrote:

> Freedom Maker: https://github.com/nickdaly/freedom-maker
>
>  - The weekly image has wireless again!

Does wireless work "out of the box" for anybody?

I booted with this week's image, and the Marvell .bin firmware files seem 
to have been fetched and put in /lib/firmware/mrvl correctly, but I get 
libertas_sdio firmware errors on boot and uap0 never shows up. I'm also a 
little confused if the libertas-firmware package should be installed (as 
it is via multistrap-configs/fbx-base.conf) if the marvell files are used 
instead... I tried removing that package and got similar (but slightly 
different) errors.

I have an "old" DreamPlug (serial number DS2-113...), which I believe 
means it uses the SD8688 SDIO wifi chip (not the SD8787).

I've poked around online and the only people who seem to have been able to 
successfully run the SD8688 chip in access point mode (without 
re-compiling kernel modules) used the Marvell firmware in combination with 
specific kernels and modules supplied by GlobalScale 
(dreamplug.google.com) or spinfex.com.au. What changed to allow 
inter-operation between the Marvell .bin firmware, the libertas drivers, 
and the generic 3.2-ish debian kernels?

Nick Hardiman, has there been a change since the excellent document you 
wrote back in late June? I'm going to try the .img you host (once it 
downloads), though my guess is that it includes a non-debian kernel and 
modules.

Another option (which would only work for the 8688 chips) might be to 
recompile the old uap8xxx.ko kernel module by hand using patches gleaned 
from the 'net, but this doesn't seem to work for the 8787 chips.

I did a quick search through this mailing list thread and freedom-maker's 
git history, sorry if i've missed something.

--bryan