KiwiSDR on Beaglebone Green Wireless...

sanamonsanamon
in KiwiSDR Discussion
Hi,

wanting to eliminate signal loss in a long (100m) koax cable and to minimize the QRM/noise generated by all the stuff in my house I decided to try to use the wireless version of the beaglebone green instead. 

As he board had stuff sticking up longer, I procured extension headers to get the KiwiSDR cape 15mm higher up.  
After installing the missing software packages to get the wireless interface configured I got the board to connect to my WiFi.

However, the kiwi daemon wont start:

Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      KiwiSDR v1.2 --------------------------------------------------------------------
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      compiled: Aug 10 2016 21:09:53
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      using 97 of 128 tokens
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      reading configuration from file /root/kiwi.config/kiwi.json
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      serial number from EEPROM: 1994
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      using 7052 of 8192 tokens
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      reading configuration from file /root/kiwi.config/dx.json
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      883 dx entries
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      TASK: jmp_buf demangle key 0x0f9b2f16
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      listening on port 8073 for "openwebrx"
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      webserver for "openwebrx" on port 8073
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      DEVIO setup SPI0_SCLK 0_2 OUTPUT
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      PMUX check GPIO 0_2 P9-22 eeprom 88/0x58 has attr 0x30 <FAST, RX, PU, m0>
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      DEVIO setup SPI0_MISO 0_3 INPUT
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      PMUX check GPIO 0_3 P9-21 eeprom 90/0x5a has attr 0x30 <FAST, RX, PU, m0>
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      DEVIO setup SPI0_MOSI 0_4 OUTPUT
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      PMUX check GPIO 0_4 P9-18 eeprom 92/0x5c has attr 0x10 <FAST, PU, m0>
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      DEVIO setup SPI0_CS0 0_5 OUTPUT
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      PMUX check GPIO 0_5 P9-17 eeprom 94/0x5e has attr 0x10 <FAST, PU, m0>
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      GPIO setup SPI0_CS1 1_19 OUTPUT initial=1
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      PMUX check GPIO 1_19 P9-16 eeprom 158/0x9e has attr 0x27 <FAST, RX, OE, PD, m7>
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      GPIO setup GPIO0_30 0_30 BIDIR initial=Z
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      PMUX 0_30 got 0x37 != want 0x2f
Sun Jan  7 14:18:31 2018 0:00:00 ....      PANIC: "check_pmux" (platform/beaglebone_black/peri.cpp, line 101)


Any Ideas how to get past this Y/ fix this?  

Regards,
Jonas - SM4VEY

Comments

  • sanamonsanamon
    Thinking back, I *might* have executed "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade"... 
    Any way to restore pmux overlay files etc to like it was shipped?
  • jksjks
    edited January 2018
    The Kiwi has never been validated to work on the BBG-wireless or BBB-wireless and nowhere do we claim that it should work (same for WiFi USB dongles). In addition the code in several places depends on finding the Ethernet interface (en0). It would have to be extended for the on-board WiFi interfaces of these BB variants (wlan0 etc.)

    The pmux panic you're getting was relaxed with later versions of the software. But the v1.2 you're using, which is the default version placed on the boards by Seeed at manufacturing time, will have problems. Better to reinstall the Kiwi board on the BBG and let it update over Ethernet to the current version. But you'll still probably have trouble with the first issue.

    A lot of people have used their Kiwis with an Ethernet-to-WiFi adapter to get a wireless link.

    Note: do not re-flash your BBGW from the Kiwi backup sd card. Only the most recent versions of BB Debian support all devices including the BBGW in a single Debian image. The Debian image shipped with the Kiwi was set long before the BBGW was even released and will brick your BBGW if used.

  • sanamonsanamon
    OK, thanks for clarifications.

    I can do a search for "en0" and replace with "wlan0" in the sources and recompile.  However I guess that means I have to stop the kiwid from updating itself as that would overwrite my hacked version? 
    So I should put the kiwi back on the BBG and let that update itself to the latest version (automatically?), and then copy the updated files (entire kiwi directory I guess) to the BBGW via a USB key or SCP over the net ?

    Best Regards,
    Jonas - SM4VEY
  • jksjks
    Well, it's unfortunately not that simple. If you look at the code there is already support for "wlan0" in a few places. But also some places where there is a comment saying "// FIXME: support wlan0". And then there are validation issues because of the difference Debian distribution needed by the BBGW. And then there are possible the RFI issues. When I first bought my BBGW I placed it next to a regular Kiwi and noted an increase in the noise floor. That's when I stopped any further BBGW development. I don't know if it's a definite problem. But my TODO list is so long and this doesn't seem like a very high priority item (see kiwisdr.com/bugs). Some people have been waiting over a year for me to add certain features..

  • rrobinetrrobinet
    I bought a little $30 Netgear AP/router and configured it as a client and attached its ethernet port to the Kiwi. That dramatically increases the system power consumption, but allows one to move the Wifi some distance from the Kiwi.
  • rrobinetrrobinet
    Which dongle did you use?
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