Socket Bt Cf Card (rev G) & Cacko 3k (beta1)

[euroclie]

Hi all,

I've just purchased (on eBay) a Socket Bluetooth CompactFlash card (rev G), and I'm trying to make it work on my SL-C3000 (with a Cacko 3000 beta 1 ROM).

First attempt didn't cause any major trouble (i.e. no crash), but although the card is recognized correctly as a "Socket Bluetooth Card v2.5" by the cardmon applet, I can't seem to make it work. I couldn't even get it to detect other bluetooth devices (like my BT phone), much less pair with one...

I've got zero experience with bluetooth in Linux (though I used it a lot with various other OSes and devices), so I don't know exactly how to get started... From the Cacko 3kb1 readme file, it seems that the Cacko 3kb1 ROM includes "Bluez Scripts from Cacko ROM & Bluez Dialup and PAN applets from Cacko ROM", whatever that means.  So instead of jumping on ELSI or Killefiz and installing the whole lot of bluez-related ipks, I investigated this forum first. I've found a very interesting thread about this particular card and the Cacko ROM (1.22 at the time the thread was written, more than one year ago), but before starting to hack myself and break everything, I thought I would ask here first:

iamasmith, did you include in 3kb1 all the fixes and hacks involved to make the Rev G version of this card work with the Cacko ROM on the 3000? Does anyone else here use this card with the Cacko 3kb1 ROM?

I tried to create a new "Bluetooth - PPP" entry, but I'm not quite sure about what I need to do to create a working entry: in the first (Account) tab, what is the "Phone" field meant to do?

Likewise, in the second tab (Modem), I tried various BT devices values (/dev/rfcomm0, /dev/ttyS3 or /dev/ttyS03, since the Rev G card appear to be handled as a serial card), but whenever I expand the "BT DUN" popup list, it's always empty, and the "Search" button on the bottom right returns immediately a "No devices with DUN profile found" dialog box, without even waiting for the 5 seconds default timeout.

I've checked that the card is correctly recognized by "cardctl ident", and "cardctl status" does report the card to be ready (i.e. not suspended) when I insert it, but this doesn't bring me much farther... (note that the card is suspended when I switch the 3000 off, and it remains suspended (until manually resumed) when I switch the 3000 on.

Does anyone have a suggestion about what I should try next? Any pointer (except the Bluez OESF howto (which states "This howto describes how to setup the BlueZ Bluetooth drivers on a Sharp 3.x ROM (or a ROM based on this), which has the 2.4.18 Linux Kernel.", which may not be applied "as is" to the 2.4.20 kernel used by the 3000...).

Thanks in advance for any help!

[tumnus]

You can check if the card is working by running the command 'hciconfig'. If this doesn't output anything then it isn't working.

If you do get some output and it states the device is 'UP', then you can run the command 'sdptool browse' to search for other devices.

[euroclie]

Thanks for answering my post, tumnus!

You can check if the card is working by running the command 'hciconfig'. If this doesn't output anything then it isn't working.

Well, it doesn't output anything.

It's kind of strange, because the card seems to be at least partly working (it gets correctly identified), but I can't get Bluez to get anything out of it. <sigh>

cardctl status reports:

Socket 0:
  3.3V 16-bits PC Card
  function 0: [ready]

 
and cardctl ident gives:

Socket 0:
  product info: "Socket", "CF+ Personal Network Card Rev 2.5"
  manfid: 0x0104, 0x0096
  function: 2 (serial)

 
hcitool dev gives an empty "Devices:" line and hciconfig doesn't return anything.

lsmod reports that the following bluetooth-related modules are loaded:

Module       Size    Used by
rfcomm      33680    0
l2cap       16432    2  [rfcomm]
hci_uart    12688    0  (unused)
bluez       33216    1  (autoclean) [rfcomm l2cap hci_uart]

manually entering "hciattach /dev/ttyS3 bcsp 230400" (i.e. calling hciattach with the parameters included in the /etc/bluetooth/uart file, i.e. "Socket", "CF+ Personal Network Card Rev 2.5":/dev/ttyS3 bcsp 230400) returns only "BCSP initialization timed out".

I'll try to investigate this last error message, for now it's the best I have...

Thanks anyway for your help, tumnus!

(PS: I've started manually editing various conf files to see if I can get more results, but got no positive result yet...)

[euroclie]

FWIW, I tried to insert a USB Bluetooth dongle (Billionton) into the USB host port of the SL-C3000, and it worked like a charm (well, at least it got automagically recognized by bluez, and I was able to detect my BT phone. I didn't go any further, as I'm first trying to reach the same point with the CF card...). So at least I know that the Cacko3k Bluez install should work OK in the end.

Now one question is: does the kernel I'm running have any influence on this Socket CF stuff? I've installed the latest tetsu's modified kernel (v0.18a, I think), instead of the original kernel from the Cacko 3kb1 image. Any chance this can be the cause of my problems?

I don't think that this is the case, though. I just tried the Socket card on my laptop (running a Fedora Core 3 Linux distro), and I get the same result: bluez doesn't "see" the card, even though the system (cardctl) does, and if I manually type "hciattach /dev/ttyS3 bcsp 230400", I get the same time-out reply.

So either the card is damaged/dead (most likely), or there are some sub-versions with different behaviors amongst the Socket Rev G cards. Tough luck...

I'll have to find someone with a PocketPC (or maybe another Zaurus model/ROM) to be able to find out, I'm afraid.

[mk500]

Did you ever get your Socket BT working? I'm trying to get the same card working on a 760 with cacko, and am at the same place you are.

[euroclie]

No, I've given the card to a friend who has a PocketPC so that he may test it on an officially supported platform, so that I can find out if the card works OK or not. I'd hate to spend countless hours hacking to find out that the card was broken to begin with...

As soon as I have news from him, I'll get the card back and will test it with guylhem's help. And I'll post updates to this thread, of course!

[zmiq2]

Hi,

this cards works for me out-of-the-box with cacko, on my c750. It also fits nicely inside the cf socket, which makes it very useful.

mk500, at what point do you find yourself?

[mk500]

mk500, at what point do you find yourself?
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I'm basically THOUGHT I was at the same point as Euroclie. I had run "hciconfig" and gotten nothing, and all the other stuff he tried was working the same for me (same output from cardctl status/ident). Today, in writing this posting, I tried it again, and I got data out from "hciconfig"! So I tried going into Network --> Bluetooth PPP and setting up a connection. And it connected!

So now I'm happily browsing with Sprint Vision via my Sony-Erickson T608 phone. I've had some minor problems (the little network connection icon sometimes disappears from the bottom, and I have to go into Network app to connect), but overall it's working GREAT!

One note: My new socket card says the following at the top of the rear:

8510-00159H

So maybe this is a rev H? Anyway, thanks for suggesting that it should work. It turns out I just needed to try a second time. I really love using this card, as I just leave my phone in my jacket, and the card doesn't even stick out of the Zaurus at all :-) Great stealth Internet connection.

[zmiq2]

hi mk500,

glad you have it working; I'm also a great fun of this card, even it is a little more complex to have it working than others.

[clofland]

mk500, at what point do you find yourself?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=85303\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

So now I'm happily browsing with Sprint Vision via my Sony-Erickson T608 phone. I've had some minor problems (the little network connection icon sometimes disappears from the bottom, and I have to go into Network app to connect), but overall it's working GREAT!

[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=85729\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

I have a Socket Rev H BT card also. Also works great.

I ALSO loose the network connection icon from the bottom constantly. I have to run the network utility to get it.

Is this just "the way it is," or is there some fix for this?

Thanks.

[euroclie]

Hi all,

I've reinstalled the original Sharp ROM (instead of the Cacko beta), and the Bluez packages (bluez_zaurus_2.13_2.4.18_alpha3_arm.ipk, bluez-csr-serial_0.1_arm.ipk, qtopia-bluetoothnetworkapplet_1.0.1_arm.ipk, susp_resume_bluez_0.9.3_arm.ipk and sudo_0.1_arm.ipk), and after a few attempts, I was able to connect to the net through my Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone!

I'll post a more detailed description of my setup as soon as I have more time to iron out the remaining glitches (right now the suspend/resume issue seems not to be working quite right despite the susp_resume_bluez package I installed). But at least I know that my Socket Rev G card works fine!

[blinkblob]

I have an sl5500 and c3100 and the process is the same to get my socket card to work, I have all the proper bluez files and sudo file etc...:

I first have to shut down bluetooth:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/bluetooth stop

Then I eject the card using:

cardctl eject

Then I re-initiate the card with:

cardctl insert

Then I restart bluetooth:


/etc/rc.d/init.d/bluetooth restart

Then I bring up the network program from the settings menu.

Click on the "globe" in the taskbar, tap connect and it works 100% of the time using the 3100 with standard sharp rom and the 5500 with the cacko rom.

I wish there were an easier way to connect, but it's relatively quick to go through the process above everytime. I'm just happy that it works.

[euroclie]

Then I restart bluetooth:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/bluetooth restart

I have pretty much the same "manual" method for now, except that I stop bluetooth, wake-up the card (with a simple "cardctl resume 0"), then restart bluetooth using "/etc/rc.d/init.d/bluetooth start" (since "restart" first stops then starts the bluetooth stuff, and I have manually stopped it a few seconds before...)

As you write, I'm just happy that it works reliably, even if that suspend/resume stuff is a bit cumbersome to handle. On the other hand, I don't connect that much, and doing it manually is something I can live with until that issue is resolved!