On Tuesday, 5 February 2019 02:27:10 CET Mychaela Falconia wrote: > Hello what's left of Openmoko community, > > If there is anyone still using their FreeRunner (or GTA01) as a phone > with working GSM (perhaps on a private island whose owner likes GSM > and is committed to keeping it forever), there is a modem firmware > update which you might find interesting: > > ftp://ftp.freecalypso.org/pub/GSM/GTA02/gsm-fw/moko-new-fw-20190128.tar.bz2 > > The primary diff from previous versions consists of a couple of sleep > mode improvements, i.e., improved ability to go into sleep modes which > draw less power from the battery: > > * During those time windows in which the modem is disallowed from going > into deep sleep by the UART activity timer (10 s after each transmission > from the AP host to the modem on the AT command UART), previous fw > versions needlessly suppressed big sleep in addition to deep sleep, > allowing only small sleep. The present version goes into big sleep > during these time windows, saving more power. > > * Some Openmoko devices suffer from a hardware defect that requires > disabling deep sleep - the infamous bug #1024. Previous fw versions > did not provide a sleep mode configuration that allows big and small > sleep, but not deep sleep, forcing the user to choose between small > sleep only or big sleep only on no-deep-sleep hardware. OM AP software > distros have been using the big sleep only AT%SLEEP=2 config in these > circumstances. Our new fw offers a new AT%SLEEP=5 option that allows > big and small sleep, but not deep sleep, which should be ideal for > deep-sleep-deprived OM hardware. The default is still AT%SLEEP=4 > allowing all 3 sleep modes (small, big and deep sleep), just like > before. > > * Most of the Calypso chip's GPIO and multifunction pins are unused > and unconnected on Openmoko devices. All fw versions for this modem > released prior to 2017, including all legacy mokoN versions produced > by the now-defunct original manufacturer of the hw, contain a bug in > this regard: they configure many of these unused and unconnected GPIO > and multifunction pins as inputs, causing them to float. The general > dictum in digital hw design is that CMOS floating inputs are bad, and > they can sometimes cause increased power draw as a result of current > flowing through both transistors of the CMOS input structure when they > are partially open. This bug has been fixed in the newer FreeCalypso > fw releases since 2017: the correct way to handle unused and unconnected > GPIO and multifunction pins is to configure them as dummy outputs with > a constant value, which is what our current fw does. > > This new firmware release is brought to you by Falconia Partners LLC, > a manufacturer of new cellular modems under the FreeCalypso brand, > currently for GSM/2G but perhaps some day for UMTS/3G as well. At the > present time we don't do any work specifically for legacy Openmoko > devices (there is no business case for it), but our own modem product > is very similar to OM's, thus whenever we make significant improvements > to the firmware for our own modem hw, it costs us nothing to compile > and put out a new fw image for Openmoko's old modem as well. > > Please note, however, that even though our new FreeCalypso modem hw is > very similar to OM's old modem, it is not identical, and the firmware > images built for the two respective targets are NOT interchangeable! > We build all of them from the same source tree, thus functional > improvements made for one target automatically benefit the others as > well, but a few hardware configuration and external interface bits are > conditionally compiled. If you take a firmware image built for our > FCDEV3B and flash it into an Openmoko device, it may corrupt your FFS, > so don't do it - please be sure to only flash fw images which were > built specifically for whichever hardware you have. > > Happy 2019, and enjoy improved power management in the modem if you > still have a free-running Openmoko device. > > M~ > > P.S. In case anyone is concerned about the legality and safety of > using new GSM products from Falconia Partners LLC, whether our new hw > or our new fw for legacy hw from OM, please note that the products in > question (both hw and fw) have been extensively used on public > commercial GSM networks in several countries (at least USA, Canada, > Austria, France and South Africa to my knowledge, plus maybe others I > don't know about) over the course of many years now, without a single > problematic incident anywhere ever. Getting an official stamp of > regulatory approval is definitely in the plans, but no one has paid > for it yet. In the meantime, despite having no official rubber stamp > that says so, we already know with almost 100% certainty that our > products (both hw and fw) function 100% correctly on the air, fully > compliant with all of the relevant technical standards. > > _______________________________________________ > Openmoko community mailing list > community@lists.openmoko.org > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Reviewed and considered 100% plausible and without any obvious issues. Not tested on real hardware though by me. Many thanks for providing this fine bugfix / improvement firmware cheers jOERG (OM senior EE, hw & synergy) _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community