[Commotion-dev] RPi & Commotion

[Ben West]

A possibly important caveat about using the ath9k_htc-based USB wifi
dongles under Debian derivatives is to make sure you have the latest
compat-wireless drivers.  OpenWRT surprisingly far ahead of the larger
distros in terms of adopting the latest and greatest from
wireless.kernel.org.

I've done this in VMware-based Ubuntu nodes just by installing the package *
linux-backports-modules-cw-3.**6-quantal-generic*.  For Debian, it looks
like the relevant package from backports is *firmware-atheros*.  You would
probably need to compile that package for relevant kernel version and rPI
target within your toolchain.

As for USB, besides using a separate hub, I think one could readily hack
into the 5V / GND wires on the cable between the rPI and the wifi dongle to
insert a separate 5V supply capable of supplying up to 1A.  Just be mindful
not to tear open the shield around the diff pairs in the USB cable (or not
too badly).  Enclosing all such hackery in shrink-wrap could even make it
look presentable. ;)

On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 1:05 PM, The Doctor <drwho at virtadpt.net> wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On 04/22/2013 09:47 AM, Dan Staples wrote:
>
> > OLSR to allow them to mesh multi-hop. I also had them running from
> > battery packs I got from Radio Shack :)
>
> What kind of battery packs were you using for them?  What's their
> discharge profile look like?
>
> > a custom Commotion Raspbian image that you can put on an SD card
> > and boot your RPi from.
>
> A few things about building on top of Raspbian:
>
> Raspbian/Wheezy is remarkably stable at this point in time.  Keep in
> mind that even if you have the experimental repository turned on,
> everything available will still be a couple of releases behind.  If
> something goes wonky, you might want to look into a custom compile of
> the package with a newer checkout.
>
> Make Debian packages for your code and build a repository for them.
> You won't be sorry.
>
> AIDE and Blueprint are good for keeping track of the Debian-level
> config files that you'll have to modify to make everything work
> smoothly.  You'll have to reconfigure more than it seems at first scratch.
>
> For what it's worth, we used the packaged version of olsrd in the
> Wheezy repository (0.6.2-2.1) with the version we built for Byzantium
> v0.3a (v0.6.4) and encountered no compatibility problems.  Your
> olsrd.conf file Just Worked(tm) with it. :)
>
> To free up compute cycles, turn off the X desktop.  You won't be sorry.
>
> > As for wifi cards, I recommend any USB cards that use the
> > ath9k_htc driver. My top choices for cards are:
>
> These are what we got to work when we ported Byzantium to the RasPi:
>
>
> https://github.com/Byzantium/ByzPi/wiki/ByzPi---Byzantium-on-Raspberry-Pi-Network-Hardware-Information
>
> > I have only tested #1 with the RPi. I am worried about #4 working
> > with the RPi, in terms of its power consumption. But in general,
> > the
>
> If the power consumption of a wireless interface gives you problems,
> plug it into a powered USB hub.  We have a couple of setups in which
> the RasPi and wireless device are plugged into (and thus powered by)
> such a thing, and it makes for a neat development package.
>
> - --
> The Doctor [412/724/301/703] [ZS]
> Developer, Project Byzantium: http://project-byzantium.org/
>
> PGP: 0x807B17C1 / 7960 1CDC 85C9 0B63 8D9F  DD89 3BD8 FF2B 807B 17C1
> WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/
>
> Disclaimer: I am not Rache Bartmoss.
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/
>
> iEYEARECAAYFAlF1e9wACgkQO9j/K4B7F8HiIACg7yZJ70QPif84KrNXCgNhcZNQ
> SlcAoNGavSjRxGuVroQhy5DIYl2bPLDq
> =cO/Q
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> Commotion-dev mailing list
> Commotion-dev at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-dev
>



-- 
Ben West
http://gowasabi.net
ben at gowasabi.net
314-246-9434
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/commotion-dev/attachments/20130422/1815b2cd/attachment-0001.html>