[Mala]

Hello chumps and chumpettes

Today I have released MalaRom 1.1.0 on my website:
http://www.michel-lange.net/tcc/

Just in time for you to spend the Christmas nerding with your tablets.

The package contains an elaborate flashing guide. I strongly recommend that you follow it. It will make your life easier, even if you have flashed many times before.

Enjoy

[farazite]

Thanks for the software. I own an X5A with 2GB internal storage. Could this ROM run on it? I tried in the past M701-R images only to brick the X5A.
Again do you think that this ROM will run on X5A? Thanks.

[Mala]

I am pretty sure it wont work on X5A.
If previous M701 releases does not work, this one won't either. Sorry!

[muonic]

Hi Mala,

First of all, thanks for your great work. Location by wifi is now working. My device is M701 2G model
I test the driver pack as follows:

1) I test my usb-serial cable (pl2303) by doing "modprobe pl2303". The module is inserted ok and /dev/ttyUSB0 is created.
However, when I run serialport app to check, I receive an error saying "The serial port can not be opened for an unknown reason".
When I connect my usb gps to it, it's unable to read any data from gps.

BTW, both of the usb-serial cable and usb gps used to work in official 2.1fw #181 before.

2) I test Huawei USB 3G modem (E1750). When I plug it in, it isn't recognized. dmesg gives this message "device v12d1 p1001 is not supported". Do I need to do "modprobe" for the modem to work? In the official 2.1fw #181, I don't have to. The modem is recognized after plugged in.

3) I test bluetooth usb dongle. My device is recognized as 1131:1001 which is "Integrated System Solution ( KY-BT100 Bluetooth Adapter )"
When I do "modprobe btusb", I receive an error "modprobe: 'kernel/drivers/bluetooth/btusb.ko.gz' : unknown symbol in module of invalid parameter"

This post has been edited by muonic: 22 December 2011 - 12:02 PM

[Mala]

Nice to hear some uses the DriverPack.
I was excited to hear if they actually work. Obviously I had hoped for better results

Be aware that the 2.1 might have the drivers in the kernel. That will make them seem instant without the need for modprobe.
Unfortunately Haipad decided to remove many of them in the kernel for 2.3.1. That is one of the reasons I made the DriverPack.

1) Did you check if dmesg gives any output about serial port when loading module and when trying to access the port?

2) Did you check usb.ids file or Google the device ids?. I know almost nothing about the 3G modems. If you care to flash 2.1 back you could check dmesg to see how the device is recognized there.

3) I loaded the btusb module the other day just for fun. It was without any devices inserted and with the usb in slave mode (adb connected).
The driver totally crapped out in dmesg with many warnings. When I unloaded it the tablet rebooted
Did this bt dongle work in 2.1? Have you tried it in linux on a normal pc? How about dmesg?

Between Christmas and New year I will have some time to nerd with the same stuff. I have a bt adapter, an external gps (pl2303 based) and maybe two or more different usb 3G modems. I will be alone in a different country (no family) with nothing else to do.
So I will try and see how it goes.

Maybe the drivers are simply broken on this platform. I hope not. The fact that most things can work on 2.1 (2.6.29 kernel) gives some hope that it should work here too.

[Mala]

A Google search on your first problem reveals that this seems to be a general problem with the serial port api in gingerbread.
I do not fully understand the problem yet, but maybe I will be able to fix it in the rom, by exchanging some files.

About the 3. problem it sounds like there are some other modules needed for btusb to work. modprobe is supposed to find this automaically (I tested it, it works) but maybe something is wrong in the dependance list. dmesg should tell you something useful.

Do you know about the command "adb logcat" ? It gives big load of log output usually related to the higher level of the Android system.
Try it and see what is says when loading modules. Maybe it will give a hint (though I doubt it).

Have fun.
As mentioned I will look at it in a few days.

[muonic]

@Mala

1) I figure out how to solve the first problem. After I install the lastest version of serialport app (v1.1), both usb-serial cable and usb gps are now working fine.

2) Regarding 3G modem, I couldn't seem to find any 3G modem driver listed in IncludedeDrivers.txt.

3)
Regarding the bluetooth dongle, I tried plugging into pc and it's detected by windows w/o any problem. Then I check the "logcat" while the btusb module is being loaded. The only thing info I get is "ACTION_BATTERY_CHANGED pluggedType: 0".
I also tried "modprobe bcm203x" (eventhough my device is not Broadcom device), the module is loaded w/o the previous error. However, my dongle is not detected since it does not use Broadcom chip. So, my thinking is I need to load the correct driver file, which is currently not included in the driver pack, for my dongle (Toshiba chip) instead of loading the generic "btusb.ko". Am I correct?

[Mala]

1) I found that about serialport api also. Did you have an older one installed before? I plan on using an app called UsbGPS4Droid_alpha3.apk to use the gps on this device. Is it necessary to install serialport api first?
How are you doing it?

2) 3G modem: From your dmesg output I can tell that there is no driver for the device. I could imagine that some kind of serial port driver might be correct. But I am only guessing. I Googled a bit and it seems like it is normal for the modems to be serial connected. So try that.
If this will make your 3G modem work I do not know. There are a lot more to do. This rom should have 3G support, but it works different than the 2.1.

3) I think you are using the correct driver. The fault seems to be mine. If you look in dmesg I think you will see that there are unresolved symbols.
When I made the driver pack I used the config file from the kernel supplied with the 4G HY models. It has generic Bluetooth included. So I did not make a module for that.
The problem is that the kernel supplied with 2G tablets does not have generic Bluetooth in the kernel. So I should have made that as a module in the DriverPack to support your kernel.
I will fix that by making a new DriverPack very soon. I can send you the module once I have a chance to compile it.
I doubt that you will get any BT to work though. I am pretty sure that this rom does not have any GUI for configuring it. And even though it has some BT services, I am not sure they are complete and correctly set up.
But it will be fun to try.

[muonic]

About the serialport app, I was using v1.0 before. And, yes, I use the same USBGPS4Droid app to connect to my GPS. When I was using serialport v1.0, the usbgps app was unable to connect to gps as well. After I install serialport v1.1, the usbgps app now works too. So I figure you may need to install serialport v1.1 as well in order to make usbgps work. However, I never try installing only usbgps app w/o serialport app.

I'll wait your new bluetooth driver even though it might not work as you mention. I'll give it a try. Thanks a lot.

[Mala]

Hi muonic

I cannot say that my attempts this Christmas was very successful:

1) Serial ports and GPS: I got my GPS detected as pl2303 serial port, but I never managed to get my location in Maps. However I only tried indoors and that might be the problem. I loaded driver, inserted device and choose ttyUSB0 in USBGPS4Droid. But I got the message "Your location is temporarily unavailable" in Maps.
I tried the recording feature of USBGPS4Droid and it did seem to get some nmea data.
Did I miss something?

2)3G modem: I tried with a Huawei E220 and E180. No luck. Both have 2 serial ports, detected by usbserial module. You need to tell usbserial which vendor and product to detect. Like this: modprobe usbserial vendor=0x12d1 product=0x1001. Then you should see two ttyUSB0/1 devices in /dev and some messages in dmesg. Be aware that device detection seems to be a bit slow, so give it some time after inserting device or loading driver.
Your E1750 could be supported. You can see a list of (supposedly) supported devices in /system/build.prop. I do not remember if E1750 is supported but I think so.
Please report back as I am yet unaware of anyone having 3G modem working in MalaRom.
I could add the usbserial with correct loading options to future release to make 3G dongle support for everyone. But I cannot test without a working modem myself.
The problem for me with E220 and E180 is that the "drivers" (libtcc89xx-evdo-em660-ril.so) does not seem to work for those modems. I tried making lines for it in build.prop, but so far only crashes or ignorance coming from the tablet... I will try more though.

3) Usb Bluetooth: I tried the btusb module with an adapter and get a warning in dmesg and tablet crash when I unload module. It seems there is a bug in the linux kernel. So even if I compile the usbcore module for you, you will get the bug too. We can still try one of these days. I found a patch for the kernel to fix the issue, but I am unsure if it changes the module, or if the fix goes deeper in the kernel.
4GB HY owners will not be able to go pass this bug, as the kernel for these devices have the bug compiled in the kernel

[Mala]

Forgot to say this:

If you want the usbserial to load automatically with the vendor and product id, you can just put the line:
usbserial vendor=0x12d1 product=0x1001
in the DriversToAutoLoad file. It works with the parameters.

[iodak]

Mala thanks for the great rom it is the best there is.

Did you noticed that wifi speed drops from 3-4mb/s to only 0.4mb/s after 1-2 hours of use, then if you reboot it is back to normal. I have that issue with all gingerbread roms.
Did you see in kernel sources that there is high speed option to overclock to 1GHz. And freqtable I see that you are very good with building modules. Maybe you could build some module like this http://code.google.c...tone-overclock/ please take look at the source.

Thanks again and sorry for bad English.

[Mala]

Hi iodiak

I have not noticed such a drop in WiFi speed. I never use the tablet for so long.
Some people complain about WiFi speed. Maybe this is the reason I do not see the same.
Thanks for the info. If it really drops, it can almost only be a power save problem.

I have seen the option for overclock and I have looked at the kernel code to see if there is any way to do it from a module.
Unfortunately it seems quite difficult.

I have thought about searching the memory for the table of clock speeds/voltage and exchanging the table in memory while running.
But it is a dream and a big project.

I will look at your link. It seems like they do something like my idea, so it is a good resource.

[Mala]

Update on 3G modem:
I found a bug in my configuration lines in build.prop. Fixing that makes my E220 and E180 work. It now asks for PIN, and unlocks the card, but I can not seem to configure any APN or choose any of those in /system/etc/apns-conf.xml.
I searched through all files in the rom for the string "apns-conf.xml" and it does not appear anywhere. That does not look good...

To be continued.

[iodak]

I was looking in to power save wifi problem. With adb shell iwconfig i can see that power management is ON. I tried to set it to all but I cant. (adb shell iwconfig wlan0 power all) I found on google that it has to be set to: "All" like: All packets received.
Only thing that a can change via iwconfig tool is tx-power (transmiting power). Please help Mala.

This post has been edited by iodak: 04 January 2012 - 07:17 AM

[Mala]

you should set it to off.
Mine is off by default, even if it runs on battery.

Maybe it has to do with battery level or something like that.

What model do you have?

[iodak]

OFF doesnt help, even if its off I get slow speed. Only reboot helps for a short time. I do not know what to do. How to make this changes permanent? Maybe we need other wpa_supplicant file or something. I also tried to change ar6000.ko with module from Funs CM7, it is the same thing (maybe worse). I have M701 4gb non HY.

[muonic]

Mala, on 03 January 2012 - 09:31 AM, said:

1) Serial ports and GPS: I got my GPS detected as pl2303 serial port, but I never managed to get my location in Maps. However I only tried indoors and that might be the problem. I loaded driver, inserted device and choose ttyUSB0 in USBGPS4Droid. But I got the message "Your location is temporarily unavailable" in Maps.
I tried the recording feature of USBGPS4Droid and it did seem to get some nmea data.
Did I miss something?

First, make sure "Allow mock location" (under setting-->Applications-->Development) is turned on.
Did you ever test your usbgps using "serialport" app and "GPS Test" app? In serialport app, you should be able to see GPS NMEA data in console.
In GPS Test app, you should see your GPS location. Once these two apps are detecting the location correctly, I have no problem w/ my location in Maps.


About 3G modem, I'll try the modprobe command w/ vendor parameter as you mentioned tonight.

[Mala]

Update on 3G modem.
It is still not working. But I have found out what seems to be the problem.
The country code and network code is not read correctly from the sim card, and is both presented as 0.

I have read some about it and it seems to be a problem in Android, and has to do with timing.
So it can depend on the sim card used. I hava an other one that I will try with later.

[Mala]

You can use the app Phone Explorer to find the codes.
Also logcat -b radio gives a lot of info.