Connect to wifi

bucknalla · September 27, 2019, 6:02pm

@Jgilbert great news! Glad this is sorted now!

Yes; I’ll update when the new image is out

Alex

bucknalla · October 7, 2019, 8:22am

Hi @Jgilbert,

The image for the WLAN fixes is available now - https://github.com/balena-os/pi-gen/releases/tag/v0.1.0.

Thanks for your patience on this!

Jgilbert · October 10, 2019, 5:46pm

@bucknalla Thanks! I have downloaded the image, and was able to update it without issues. For future reference, upgrading the OS loses the driver again.

Thank you again!

mvargasevans · October 31, 2019, 10:12am

Hello Everyone,

I have been following these details in an attempt to get a baked Yocto image with the fin running. Most of it works, except wlan.

I was wondering if there is (?) a detail explanation on the steps mentioned here:

Thanks for the great work!

majorz · October 31, 2019, 11:17am

Hi, we do not have any docs on how to integrate the proprietary WiFi driver, but I can point you to the corresponding recipes and patches we use:

Including the driver:

And those are the two patches that we include in our OS on top of the raspberrypi kernel:

github.com

balena-os/balena-raspberrypi/blob/master/layers/meta-balena-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi/0004-mmc-pwrseq-Repurpose-for-Marvell-SD8777.patch

From ae3314ccf309e25b0b6617655da43ae23757d761 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Zahari Petkov <zahari@balena.io>
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2019 12:19:02 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] mmc: pwrseq: Repurpose for Marvell SD8777

Repurposes the mmc-pwrseq-sd8787 driver to be compatible with SD8777 instead.

The original version has a reset pin, which does not exist for this chipset. The
related dts property is purged from the source code.

A `post_power_on` hook is now used instead of `pre_power_on`. Specifications
for all Marvel chips require the PDn pin to be asserted AFTER the chip is powered
on. The original implementation using `pre_power_on` was incorrect.

The balenaFin device tree overlay is adjusted to be using the patched driver.

Upstream-Status: Pending

Signed-off-by: Zahari Petkov <zahari@balena.io>

This file has been truncated. show original

github.com

balena-os/balena-raspberrypi/blob/master/layers/meta-balena-raspberrypi/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-raspberrypi/0005-balena-fin-wifi-sta-uap-mode.patch

From 070ad28495cfe0269a1400e4ee5b3a2639aa12b8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Zahari Petkov <zahari@balena.io>
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2019 15:40:53 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] Switch balenaFin WiFi to STA+uAP mode and add DTS overrides

In addition to enabling the uap0 interface, two parameters are exposed for
overriding through config.txt.

`wifi_dbg` could be used for tuning the verbosity of the WiFi driver.

`wifi_mode` could be used for activating/deactivating WiFi interfaces. For
example `dtparam=wifi_mode=1` will only expose the `wlan0` interface.

For more information refer to the user manual:
https://github.com/balena-io/sd8887-mrvl/tree/master/wlan_src

Upstream-Status: Pending

Signed-off-by: Zahari Petkov <zahari@balena.io>

This file has been truncated. show original

Please check those and let us know if you have any questions regarding them.

Thanks,
Zahari

vince.lona · September 29, 2020, 10:50pm

I appreciate the commentary and support in this thread and was able to get this fixed. However I skipped the “disable opensource wifi/bt driver” because I wasn’t sure how to do that.

Here are some more in depth steps to accomplish this.

My Situation

I have an image developed on RPI3/Raspbian that I’d like to flash on to the MMC and deploy on a BalenaFin v1.1.1. The BalenaFin flavored Raspbian is still on Debian Stretch and I need Python 3.7 among other systemd tweaks I’ve made to this image. I should note that my image started from a Raspbian Stretch image and then dist-upgraded to Buster.

Update the device tree stuff

On the boot partition change /config.txt to have

dt-overlay=balena-fin

Then copy the balena-fin.dtbo from their repository to /overlays/balena-fin.dtbo and overwrite the one that exists.

Notes

In the BalenaFin flavored Raspbian I noticed that it actually has /overlays/balena-fin-updated.dtbo and dt-overlay=balena-fin-updated in the /config.txt. I did not do this. Perhaps the -updated is because the Original Raspbian Stretch image seems to have shipped with a balena-fin.dtbo because there was already one there!

I did remove my other dt-overlays which activated a RTC and it does seem like this image boots and sets the right clock value. Nice! However it was hanging for 90 seconds on waiting for /dev/serial1 and wlan0 was not to be found once I hit the console.

Get the WiFi to work

Download the deb file from their debian repo

wget https://dl.bintray.com/balenaos/raspbian/pool/main/s/sd8887-mrvl/sd8887-mrvl_0.0.4-1_all.deb

Install needed dependencies

sudo apt-get install dkms bc raspberrypi-kernel-headers

Install proprietary wireless driver

sudo dpkg -i sd8887-mrvl_0.0.4-1_all.deb

…and it will recompile the modules against the wifi. I rebooted for good measure and wlan0 shows up!

Notes

I did not add the repository to sources.list because I know Buster is not officially supported and did not want to deal with that complexity at this time. This device is to be deployed in a remote location with no internet so updates do not need to be automatic or anything like that.

During boot, it does take about 10 more seconds waiting for /dev/serial1 before networking is established. Good enough for now.

Topic		Replies	Views
sd8887-mrvl repo gone balenaFin	24	2889	October 20, 2020
Unsupported USB wifi adapter balenaOS network , raspberrypi4	28	2728	July 7, 2021
Upgrade Fin kernel balenaFin	18	739	April 5, 2021
Driver not loading for the WPET-236ACN(BT) by Sparklan balenaOS support	20	4056	January 8, 2020
ov9281 dtbo with balena fin balenaFin	26	1425	January 24, 2022

Connect to wifi

My Situation

Update the device tree stuff

Notes

Get the WiFi to work

Notes

Related topics