About U-Boot bootloader
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So what you're saying is that yet again, you've published "sources" for a wifi board, which actually have no wifi support, making them effectively useless.
This by extension makes it impossible to use the 2S in a commercial product, as the user would be unable to satisfy their obligations to provide source until you satisfy yours.
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i see it as what has been released to date do not provide for wifi but that they expect the wifi driver to be complete in at most 40 days. i would not consider the S module useless in that it gives dev/manufacturers ~40 days to physically work with the module ahead of the wifi release. i view the news and actions a positive, as long as the driver code is ready as stated. the developments, if sincere, are a step in the right direction
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The Omega2 and Omega2S WiFi works 100% if used loaded with the latest official firmware published by Onion.
If you need wifi support in your own custom firmware now, try using the open source
mt76driver. We're working on the updated WiFi driver and, as Douglas Kryder mentioned, it will be released in, at most, 40 days.
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@Lazar-Demin said in About U-Boot bootloader:
The Omega2 and Omega2S WiFi works 100% if used loaded with the latest official firmware published by Onion.
Your only available license to distribute the "latest official firmware published by Onion" requires that you make source for that version available - not an incomplete version, not a promise of some future version, but the actual sources matching the binary you distribute.
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@Chris-Stratton no need to bash Onion for the WiFi driver. The root of the problem is Mediatek. They provide proprietary driver, with no source code. If you are lucky and sign a stack of NDAs Mediatek may let you peek at the source, but the NDA strictly forbids distributing the source of the driver.
Strictly speaking the LEDE license does not prohibit a vendor from distributing binary drivers, so that is that. Sad as it is.
It is exactly the same story with the LinkIt-Smart module - based on the same SOC. Binary wifi driver and that is it. Don't like it - don't use Mediatek hardware.
The u-boot source code is another matter. @Lazar-Demin there is no much excuse for not providing updated u-boot repo. Please nudge the corresponding individuals.
@Luz, the Omega 2S looks awfully similar to the HLK-7688A module (http://www.hlktech.net/product_detail.php?ProId=70). @Lazar-Demin for the 2S+ did you use the same SPI FLASH chip which had the 4b/3b addressing problem?
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@Ghent - Mediatek's driver situation isn't exemplary, but at least for the linkit, if you follow their directions (and revert a few small things upstream repos subsequently broke), and type "make" you get a build with working WiFi, exactly the same as the build that ships on it, or optionally including your own customizations and bugfixes.
If Onion would do that, people might not be pleased, but would be far more understanding, as then they'd be able to fix the problems in all the other areas of the system and still end up with a useful build - that's a huge practical difference.
And yes, if the boot hang caused by the fatal flash chip selection mistake in the Omega 2+ got repeated in the 2S+ or fixed is indeed a very interesting question. This was unfixable in software - the only solution would be to a pick a more suitable flash chip.
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@Lazar-Demin Thanks for the effort that led to finally open sourcing your LEDE tree!
Rearding WiFi: why are you developing yet another WiFi driver? Why don't you put the efforts into improving mt76? mt76 has made a lot of progress lately, and is really usable now. For me mt76 is already stable enough to prefer it to any of the closed drivers, because - it is open!. Also, it seems to me, the config is more consistent. And the AP can be turned off.
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@Lazar-Demin what about also publishing the modified u-boot?
(because, according to Murphy's law, it turns out that one of the issues I wanted to fix for a long time - incorrect initialisation of GPIO18/19 as AGPIO - is probably in the bootloader…)
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@Lazar-Demin still nothing new?
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Onion have just released the Uboot source code: https://github.com/OnionIoT/omega2-bootloader.git
