X10 Community Forum

X10 AirPad Android Tablet => AirPad General Discussions => Topic started by: linuxsociety on July 21, 2012, 11:06:09 PM

Title: CALLING ALL X10 DEVS - GPL COMPLIANCE - RELEASE AIRPAD KERNEL SOURCE CODE!!
Post by: linuxsociety on July 21, 2012, 11:06:09 PM
We need airpad kernel sources and the .config used not just the ROM images.  I personally want to work on getting ICS running on the original airpad without relying on the Chinese developers to release an updated ROM etc.   If we could maybe just get more information on the actual hardware inside the device maybe we can use the same kernel sources that other rk2918 devices are using and just adjust the .config  before compiling the kernel.  Not sure what BLOBs are needed for our device either, but it would be nice just to get a .config for the original kernel that is used on the device, and that shouldn't be too much to ask for.  With the .config we can at least see if the kernel uses any odd 3rd party kernel drivers/source code.. Really the major difference I have seen with the airpad and the other rk2918 devices is the WiFi chipset used..  We are using a Marvel 8686 based  Samsung wifi, other rk29 devices seem to use the RTL8192CU based chips in their working kernel configs.   

We also have different memory mappings of the MTD devices by stock, and a different recovery command in the parameter file than the other tablets, however this is a simple fix.  If these are the only major differences in our Airpad and the other chinese rk2918 devices(which I doubt) then it would be quiet easy to get ICS working with our original Airpads.  I have started a thread on both XDA-Developers and SlateDroid  that pertains to the development of ICS and a 3.0.8+ Kernel for our original Airpad / Lanyu 910.  Here are the links: 
http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/36007-dev-lanyu-910-airpaid-rk2918-kernel-ics-workinprogress/   
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1788158

If any X10 developers are seeing this post, then please follow the GPL guidelines and post the source code for us, we'd greatly appreciate it!! ICS is what everyone wants and our device is 100% capable of running ICS .. the only holdback of getting a community developed ICS ROM is the lack of sourcecode and information on the hardware components.   Thanks for the consideration X10 Devs 
Title: Re: CALLING ALL X10 DEVS - GPL COMPLIANCE - RELEASE AIRPAD KERNEL SOURCE CODE!!
Post by: linuxsociety on July 22, 2012, 11:42:36 PM
After debugging the boot process of the original Airpad I have gathered enough information to start working on a ICS compatible kernel.  I have ran into a few issues that I haven't been able to sort out though.  They are compile issues with mv8686 (wifi driver)  and wm8988 (SoC audio Codec)  both which are required for use on our tablet.  If anyone here is good with C/C++ just contact me and we will debug these issues together.  If anyone is interested in trying the 3.0.8+ kernel based on the GPL released code from the Pascal2 then let me know because I can always disable the wifi + audio, and get a kernel.img  to test if anyone may be interested :D

Title: Re: CALLING ALL X10 DEVS - GPL COMPLIANCE - RELEASE AIRPAD KERNEL SOURCE CODE!!
Post by: idbl_fanatic on July 23, 2012, 11:04:01 AM
**Watching this topic**
Title: Re: CALLING ALL X10 DEVS - GPL COMPLIANCE - RELEASE AIRPAD KERNEL SOURCE CODE!!
Post by: linuxsociety on July 23, 2012, 11:47:56 AM
What seems to be the kernel issue at this point is most of the 3.0.8 rk29 specific code has been merged from the 2.6.32.27 kernel sources on top of a mainline 3.0.8 kernel.  The source code we have available for 3.0.8 (vurrut and odys.de) contains code that will compile for the devices using the hardware in the default .config  it seems to me that nobody has attempted to debug the other rk29 devices code in this kernel or at least not publicized any of their work if they have. 

In short, our audio codec:  WM8988  and our WiFi driver MV8686 (SWL-2480) code from the 3.0.8 kernel is still the same as it was in 2.6.32 and won't compile against the more updated 3.0.8 source code dependencies.   So I am going to have to take and include some headers from 2.6.32 to satisfy the audio/wifi compile issue, and hope that it doesn't break anything else that depends on the same headers, if it does this job can require a LOT of dirty coding on the kernel, but I'm going to stay positive and think that it *shouldn't* break anything else, since our device only contains one audio chip and one wireless chip, and its not going to be needed to compile any other wifi/audio device drivers with it. 

I've been working on this for a few days and have put a lot of time into researching, debugging, and testing our hardware in order to build a more up to date kernel and get android 4.0 ICS to run on it,  from what I can tell so far the audio and wifi issues are the only show stoppers in getting a 3.0.8+ kernel.  If anyone else is interested in pitching in to help with this project then feel welcome to join in :D