Marcin Juszkiewicz

Year ago I signed contract with my current ISP (UPC Poland) and got 10Mbps download with 1Mbps upload via cable modem. Few months ago they bumped download speed to 15Mbps but I would have to pay half of month price to get that speed so I refused to upgrade.

Then were vacations… During which they started with new offer — up to 120Mbps… But as this speed is available only in few cities in Poland I got 25Mbps download with 1.5Mbps upload rate. So far I got 19Mbps during my real time tests (fetching from few servers at one time).

So after 10 years I have faster network connection then when my Amiga 1200 got connected to Internet (it was 10Base-T Ethernet). Upload is still slower but I do not have big files to upload for clients so can live with that 1.5Mbps.

Now it is official — Bug Labs has a new version of BUGbase. This version has many hardware changes — I will only list the most important ones:

• WiFi and Bluetooth are integrated now — Marvell 8686 on SDIO
• Handylink connector was replaced by more popular iPod connector and some signals were added there
• RoHS and CE certified

Last thing allows to sell device in Europe so it is no longer USA only — great news for us, Europeans. Replacing handylink connector with iPod one opened ways to interesting addons as there is serial port, USB host, Ethernet and few other signals (I do not remember is there audio there or not) available.

First such addon is BugDock used internally in Bug Labs company. I have one of them on my desk and it simplify development for me as I have Ethernet, serial, USB Host, reset button and power plug all connected properly without all those problems which were when handylink was in use (and popular Y-cable gave only Ethernet + serial). Will it be available in store is not decided yet — I hope that it will be produced.

Those who use previous versions of BUGbase are not left alone — there is BUGwifi module which adds WiFi + Bluetooth and will be available soon. It uses the same chipset but on SPI bus so it is a bit slower.

And one important thing — from software point of view they are same — no need to change anything in your code if you migrate from older hardware revision.

As I already wrote I will attend Embedded Linux Conference Europe in Grenoble, France. But before it there will be ST-Ericsson Community Workshop 2009 — an event limited to only 25 seats. There is 200EUR registration fee but each participant gets NHK-15 development board which is worth about 1000EUR so it can be worth to be there.

During day there will be presentations and workshops about ST-Ericsson Nomadik SoC platform (ARM926 core based). I will talk about building Poky Linux for NHK-15 and using resulting images.

I played with few Nomadik based development boards in past and think that it is good move from ST-Ericsson to make support for their platform available in mainline versions of Linux kernel, U-Boot and userspace applications.

In the morning I got text message from DHL courier with request to contact about package. This was total surprise as I did not had idea what it can be…

Few minutes ago package arrived and I now I finally know what it is and who sent it. It is brand new BeagleBoard C3 (so newest version) from German division of Texas Instruments. Why I got it? It is not written anywhere in package… I know that I am not the only one — Nils also got such package.

What will I do with it? For start I will replace B7 version which I got from Bug Labs with C3 to get USB EHCI port working instead of my hacked OTG cable. In next week I will get some extra hardware for it so it will be more in use that B7 is now.

I think that I will try to stack B7 with C3 with BeagleBUG module — but this will make my current case for BB obsolete ;(

It was looking like board is broken:

Texas Instruments X-Loader 1.4.2 (Feb 19 2009 - 12:01:24)
Reading boot sector
Loading u-boot.bin from mmc

U-Boot 2009.01-dirty (Feb 19 2009 - 12:23:21)

I2C:   ready
OMAP3530-GP rev 2, CPU-OPP2 L3-165MHz
OMAP3 Beagle board + LPDDR/NAND
DRAM:  256 MB
NAND:  256 MiB
Using default environment

MUSB: using high speed
In:    serial usbtty
Out:   serial usbtty
Err:   serial usbtty

Texas Instruments X-Loader 1.4.2 (Feb 19 2009 - 12:01:24)

Never mind did I load U-Boot from SD card or from NAND the situation was the same — reset loop…

The solution? Throw away usb cable, connect BB to direct port instead of hub or use external AC to provide power. Now board boots and works fine.

Few days ago we noticed that our kitchen sink is leaking. After investigation it was water line which needs replacing.

On Saturday I disassembled whole kitchen sink and checked which else parts would be nice to replace (washers, pipes etc). Wife decided that we will also change tap (kitchen retractable spout mixer type). Visit in local store gave me needed components and then fight started.

Took me 3 hours to finally mount everything in place without any leaks (but I had to disassemble it few times to fix mounts) but final result is nice — no water under sink and new shinny tap.

Yesterday I received package with old device: T-Com Speedport W500V. It is ADSL modem with router, WiFi accesspoint and VoIP bridge functionality. Internally it is just standard set for such equipment: MIPS SoC from Broadcom, 16MB of RAM, 4MB of Flash storage.

After connecting it to my laptop I disabled most of functions (DSL, AP, DHCP/DNS/HTTP Proxy daemons etc) and tested VoIP calls (with Tlenofon as provider). It worked without any extra configuring — I think that this is due to BitSwitcher firmware which was installed instead of original one.

Today I disabled LAN port, configured WiFi to work as a client and moved W500V with analog wireless phone to shelf in corridor. What people see is just base for phone — rest is hidden in wall cupboard and operate over WiFi.

And this is how yet another Linux box got added to my collection… But this one got something to do on first day ;)

This year OEDEM will take place in Cambridge, UK during second weekend of November (7-8th). People who wants to arrive there are requested to inform Phil Blundell by mail.

We did not decided on agenda yet but we are at gathering ideas now.

And if you want to join me I will fly from Berlin Schönefeld airport on Friday 6th November by Ryanair to London Stansted and then by train.

In October there will be Embedded Linux Conference Europe in Grenoble, France. And this year I will talk there.

It will be “Hacking with OpenEmbedded” presentation in which I plan to cover some non-standard uses of OpenEmbedded build system. Also I was invited to take part of ST-Ericsson workshop where I will present Poky Linux and Ångström on ST Nomadik based NHK15 developer board.

If you want to meet me there I will arrive at Thursday evening and leave on Saturday’s morning. Traveling Szczecin -> Berlin -> Amsterdam -> Lyon -> Grenoble (same way back) will take most of those days…