Lenovo x201 WWAN module in Lucid kernel?

[Stefan Bader]

On 05/21/2010 05:03 PM, Torsten Spindler wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> we have a customer that is planning to source new hardware and they are
> looking at the Lenovo x201. They need 3G connectivity and run into
> trouble with the 3G (WWAN) connection. It seems a 'special' firmware and
> loader is needed:
> http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/gobi_loader/
> There's also this kernel patch:
> http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/gobi_loader/kernel_patches/usb-wwan-2.6.32.diff
> 
> Is there any chances to get these changes into the Lucid kernel? Or
> should they continue to look for another laptop?
> 
> Regards,
> Torsten
> 
> 
> 

Hi Torsten,

I revisited your request again and from Matthews comments the following 4
commits seem to relate to the 2.6.32 patch (though the list of ids added
looks shorter, so these were likely added somewhere between or later.

I theory the option driver could remain unmodified, but still this would change
larger portions of the qcserial driver and even if it would be considered broken
at the moment we try to minimize changes to released kernel modules.
So for enablement, this would leave the LBM path. However, I think this should
then be done as an official support request as this will require a bit of
packaging effort (because the driver also requires a special firmware loader and
udev rules to be usable).
And one big drawback seems to be that the firmware, which is required, seems not
to be redestributable (otherwise I am sure Matthew would have provided direct
links). So even if we provide the modules and loader in lbm, this still would
leave the customer with no firmware (at least none that easily comes with the CD).

So in that knowledge I am not sure whether we should go forward there. Though
probably this comes a bit late to suggest the customer to think again about the
choice of hw. :(

-Stefan



commit e07896e62abbf7a741a5cd5b25ba7637bdf91ad0
Author: Anssi Hannula <anssi.hannula at gmail.com>

    USB: qcserial: Add support for Qualcomm Gobi 2000 devices

commit 3d7e59ad88fdb6bc50ae9b7e822d4bb5f68b68f9
Author: Matthew Garrett <mjg at redhat.com>

    USB: qcserial: Use generic USB wwan code

commit 8b4c6a3ab596961b784659c71dc24b341f938a1a
Author: Matthew Garrett <mjg at redhat.com>

    USB: option: Use generic USB wwan code

commit 0d4561947b8ddd5d944bdbbdc1ea1d6fd9a06041
Author: Matthew Garrett <mjg at redhat.com>

    usb serial: Add generic USB wwan support