I recently got a BPI-R3 mini and a Quectel RM520N-GL module. I installed OpenWrt 24.10-rc.5 on the device using this guide.
Everything seems to work fine except that the RM520-GL is not detected (can't see it in lsusb or dmesg). I feel that I probably need some kernel modules for this, so far I have installed:
You don't need special drivers to make your USB modem show up in cat /sys/kernel/debug/usb/devices output.
You don't need all the drivers you mentioned.
Check the modem in the external adapter if you have one.
There is a possibility that the modem (i.e. NGFF slot) is not powered on.
It does not show up in /sys/kernel/debug/usb/devices. I'm not sure if I explicitly have to turn on power on the modem slot (BPI R3 docs don't say anything about that). That being said, it also did not show up in the factory OpenWrt firmware.
Since you bought it "for Lenovo" there is a risk that it's PCI only.
See if you can find another modem in the same form factor and test the slot or simply test the power pins on this slot with multimeter.
Hey, thanks for getting back to me. Here's the output:
root@OpenWrt:~# cat /sys/kernel/debug/gpio
gpiochip0: GPIOs 512-612, parent: platform/1001f000.pinctrl, pinctrl_moore:
gpio-513 ( |blue:wlan-1 ) out hi
gpio-514 ( |blue:wlan-2 ) out lo
gpio-519 ( |reset ) in hi IRQ ACTIVE LOW
gpio-531 ( |green:status ) out hi
gpio-532 ( |regulator-usb-vbus ) out lo ACTIVE LOW
gpio-559 ( |PHY reset ) out hi ACTIVE LOW
gpio-561 ( |PHY reset ) out hi ACTIVE LOW
I'm sorry but I am getting the feeling that you might be right and this card does not have a USB interface as I can't discern whether it's an AA or an AP version.
Apologies for my oversight. I'll report back as soon as I have found out more. Thank you so far for your help, I really appreciate it.
Hey, a quick update. I now got the actual AA version. Sadly it's only detected sometimes. I couldn't figure out a pattern or anything but is there anything that could lead to this behavior? I was able to establish a connection using QMI but after a reboot the modem was not detected anymore
and the modem is consistently detected. Sadly these old versions don't get updates anymore and I can't install any software.
So I'm kind of stuck in between versions and it seems I have to wait until support for the modem is back in 24.10...
I also tried with Arch Linux from here: https://github.com/ericwoud/buildR64arch, which sadly also didn't work. It seems it only works with the official images, which are pretty much unusable at this point. Maybe it's a regression in the kernel?
Just tested again just to make sure on the stock 21.02.3 version using Kernel 5.4.188 it is properly detected:
[ 13.802012] usbcore: registered new interface driver btusb
[ 53.801010] usb 2-1: new SuperSpeed Gen 1x2 USB device number 2 using xhci-mtk
[ 53.825268] usb 2-1: LPM exit latency is zeroed, disabling LPM.
[ 53.858528] usb 2-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[ 53.871955] usb 2-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB1
[ 53.879951] qmi_wwan_q 2-1:1.4: cdc-wdm0: USB WDM device
[ 53.885424] qmi_wwan_q 2-1:1.4: Quectel RM520N-GL work on RawIP mode
[ 53.891855] qmi_wwan_q 2-1:1.4: rx_urb_size = 31744
[ 53.897226] qmi_wwan_q 2-1:1.4 wwan0: register 'qmi_wwan_q' at usb-11200000.xhci-1, RMNET/USB device, 0a:ed:2d:08:f4:4b
Boot any "good" image you have then read and post gpio information like you did this before. Compare it with what you had with recent official OpenWrt.
These are the GPIOs in the working version (custom 21.02):
root@OpenWrt:~# cat /sys/kernel/debug/gpio
gpiochip0: GPIOs 411-511, parent: platform/1001f000.pinctrl, pinctrl_moore:
gpio-422 ( |gnss_off ) in hi
gpio-431 ( |sysfs ) out lo
gpio-443 ( |sysfs ) in lo
gpio-458 ( |PHY reset ) out hi ACTIVE LOW
gpio-460 ( |PHY reset ) out hi ACTIVE LOW
And these are the GPIOs in the non-working version (24.10-rc.5):
root@OpenWrt:~# cat /sys/kernel/debug/gpio
gpiochip0: GPIOs 512-612, parent: platform/1001f000.pinctrl, pinctrl_moore:
gpio-513 ( |blue:wlan-1 ) out lo
gpio-514 ( |blue:wlan-2 ) out hi
gpio-519 ( |reset ) in hi IRQ ACTIVE LOW
gpio-531 ( |green:status ) out hi
gpio-532 ( |regulator-usb-vbus ) out lo ACTIVE LOW
gpio-559 ( |PHY reset ) out hi ACTIVE LOW
gpio-561 ( |PHY reset ) out hi ACTIVE LOW
