1072522 - Ensure wifi bringup on fxpi

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Wifi, defect)

Description

[Chris Jones [:cjones] inactive; ni?/f?/r? if you need me]

Wifi is trickier on RPi than on normal phone-class devices, because RPi doesn't have integrated wifi.  RPi users instead use wifi dongles.  In theory these dongles can have any old wifi chip, but the most common one seems to be the Realtek 8172.  If we have to "standardize" around that for now, I wouldn't lose any sleep.  (They're super super cheap.)

The driver for that chip is definitely in the RPi kernel tree, but I'm not sure whether it's built as a module or integrated.  I also don't know if the chip needs firmware loaded, or where that firmware may be.  FFOS also makes no attempt to define a wpa_supplicant.conf at the moment.

This isn't blocked on graphics.

Comment 1

[Chris Jones [:cjones] inactive; ni?/f?/r? if you need me]

The first commit that enables some required kernel flags is

https://github.com/cgjones/linux/commit/fbb8355ae43537f74d2e4c6d4a3a12f863ee51af

Comment 2

[Chris Jones [:cjones] inactive; ni?/f?/r? if you need me]

This should be the last of the kernel-side changes required, I think the remaining issues are in userspace

https://github.com/cgjones/linux/commit/9fe13f1bd5e638387f58967b68e76876b69ffd8b

Comment 3

[Chris Jones [:cjones] inactive; ni?/f?/r? if you need me]

One more kernel patch that may have been needed

https://github.com/cgjones/linux/commit/03e8db35471eb61dabdfcfac1d097442cb952705

Comment 4

[Chris Jones [:cjones] inactive; ni?/f?/r? if you need me]

And all the userspace bits

https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/platform_hardware_realtek/commit/e9dcc3303fd17c459053a7b586eb7c1aadffa667
https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/platform_hardware_libhardware_legacy/commit/7909cf489dc3d67b9f4e41af742a83119bb0bdd4
https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/platform_system_netd/commit/dfec066a36ca859f951f90f8cd6e7b837ff3346a
https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/device-rpi/commit/b48e19dcd65cfc91b8d12435e5d9a342160f63de
https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/b2g-manifest/commit/bc2b748fb13cf21abef369cf1b06fd6ab0112881

Comment 5

[Chris Jones [:cjones] inactive; ni?/f?/r? if you need me]

Two notes for the record

> I also don't know if the chip needs firmware loaded, or where that firmware may be.

Turns out that firmware is compiled into the driver, which is quite convenient.

Also, I didn't test putting the chip into AP mode, and it's fairly likely that that doesn't work.  gal and I tried to set that up in Raspbian and it was a huge PITA.  But maybe we'll be lucky going through the android back door.