On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 6:52 PM, Dan Williams <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Thu, 2011-08-04 at 13:36 -0400, ttuttle wrote:
> > Hey folks,
> >
> > I'm working on 3G for Chromium OS, and I'm about to try to put
> > together a patch to add the firmware selection interface to
> > ModemManager.  I've got a few questions:
>
> Sorry for the lag, I was in Berlin for Desktop Summit for a week + right
> after you sent this mail...
>
> > 1. Should the interface definition go in introspection (presumably in
> > the ModemManager namespace) or new (presumably in the ModemManager1
> > namespace)?  I'm under the impression that new/ is not yet in use, but
> > we would hope to use the firmware interface fairly soon, so would
> > putting it in new/ delay that?
>
> I'd first put it into introspection/ and then fix up the versioning and
> add a different copy to new/.  That way we can cherry-pick/backport the
> original one to 0.5 too.
>
> > 2. I'd like to get rid of the distinction between installed and
> > available firmwares.  The only hitch is that, if we're using a device
> > like the gobi3k (which stores up to 6 firmware images on the device),
> > selecting a firmware on disk may cause one of the firmwares on the
> > modem to be removed to make room, and we might not have a copy of that
> > firmware to reinstall if we need it again.  Personally, I am okay with
> > the idea that either all firmwares need to fit on the modem, or we
> > need to have backup copies of all firmwares the user might want to
> > reinstall, but I realize that might not actually apply to all use
> > cases.  Do people have an opinion on this?
>
> I'm not opposed to doing it like you suggest here and killing the
> distinction, but perhaps we could create the API in a way that allows us
> to add the distinction back later?
>
Despite the complexity, I think we should keep the distinction.  We can
allow clients to collapse the "installed" and "available" firmware before
presenting to the user, or have a single call to retrieve both, as long as a
'bit' somewhere indicates the distinction.


>
> > (My gut instinct on this is that we will want to keep the distinction,
> > even though it makes things much more complicated.)
>
> If you think it might be necessary in the future, then perhaps we do
> just have to suck up the distinction.  It's your call.
>
> > 3. I'm not sure how much detail should go in the metadata of the
> > firmware image -- are we expecting to provide just enough information
> > that the user can pick one from a list, or enough information that a
> > smart client of ModemManager might be able to switch firmware
> > automatically to connect to a particular network?
>
> Ideally we'd get MCC/MNC of the operator, an operator name, and the
> capabilities bitfield (GSM, CDMA, LTE, etc) out of the firmware.  A
> bonus would be firmware version information for diagnostics.  But yes,
> we do want enough to be able to pick a specific operator's firmware if
> we need to, based on user input or other data.
>
Agreed.



>
> Thanks!
> Dan
>
> > (My gut instinct on this is that we will want enough information to
> > pick a particular network.)
> >
> > Feedback greatly appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > ttuttle
>
>
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