Challenge anyone? HiSilicon + VxWorks

For Developers
1

I will provide a free hardware sample including shipping (in the EU), for a person who seriously wants to try. Please don't abuse this offer to get free hardware.

Huawei B593s-12 LTE Router (Telekom Speedport LTE II)
VxWorks Operatingsystem

Hisilicon Hi6920FC 100 (SoC)
SK Hynix H9DA4VH2GJAM CR4EM (RAM)
Realtek RTL8306M (Ethernet Switch)
Broadcom BCM43236BKMLG (2.4 GHz/5 GHz IEEE802.11n)
SMSC USB2514B (USB 2.0 Controller)

There's already someone who did alot of research for the sister model B593s-22.
It's the same device, but with extra telephone ports:
https://blog.hqcodeshop.fi/categories/7-Huawei-B593

Best regards

2

This would be a deal killer for me.

3

Depends on the chips revision, as far as i can see. Revision 2 isn't supported, but revision 3 is.
https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/brcm80211

4

bump‌‌‌‌‌‌

5

anyone?‌‌‌

6

You can stop bumping, no one is interested in work on this hardware

7

you speak for everyone here?

8

Is anyone else replying to you?

This broadcom based wireless, there is basically zero support for the chipset in mainline Linux.

And, even if you wanted to run it wired only, there is no HiSilicon support in Openwrt and mainline linux doesn't support this SOC - so anyone wanting add support would be writing the platform support from scratch, trying to port Linux to a device that only supported kernel 2.6.

Makes it a dead end for openwrt.

9

Out of sheer, unhealthy curiosity, I tried googling around and....there's literally zero documentation available for that SoC (or I don't know where to look?). One can probably only get the documentation from Huawei, if one is a big hardware-manufacturer and it'll all be behind NDAs and whatnot.

I certainly wouldn't have the skills to add support for a completely new CPU from scratch to begin with, let alone with zero documentation. It being a decade old and only used in Huawei-hardware, ie. not a particularly popular SoC, really doesn't make it any more appealing.

Nah, at this point I'd rather just desolder any useable parts from the device and throw the rest away.

1 Like
10

Rule #1 by the OPs TOA ~Disqualifies us. However, if you edit your post now, perhaps the power supply could be repurposed.

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11

I don't understand the intent of your comment. I wasn't asking OP to send me the hardware, I just mentioned what I'd do with such a device, if I had one -- I have a habit of desoldering flash, RAM, buck/boost converters, I2C EEPROM etc. out of broken/old devices before I send the rest to be recycled.

12

I wasn't aware that adding support for new devices/platforms requires existing support. I understand that it's easier of course, but i thought..

Ah whatever. I don't want to argue. I didn't even expect success. It was just an offer, i thought someone would like to try maybe.

13

Adding support for a device, like e.g. a router, is a completely different thing than adding support for an SoC from scratch, with zero documentation or anything. You can't just throw a couple of files together, you need to know how all the peripherals are driven at register-level, any possible memory-layout related quirks and so on and so forth -- it's a ton of work even when you have documentation.

3 Likes
14

Adding support for a new device of a well-supported target takes you a long and rainy weekend, if you know what you're doing.

Adding support for a new target will take you months or years, even if source were available - without that, chances are very slim. Take a look at ipq807x, for which source has been available since day one, now, two-and-a-half years later, merging into OpenWrt slowly becomes realistic.

2 Likes