view fluid-mnf/README @ 359:83aed2355592

fluid-mnf/README: update for the present state
author Mychaela Falconia <falcon@freecalypso.org>
date Fri, 13 Mar 2020 21:38:12 +0000
parents 9cecc930d78f
children 1f13f0e43e43
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In the summer of 2019 we (FreeCalypso) had recovered a copy of TI's original
FLUID package including source, but this TI original FLUID source targets only
Windows, no Unix or Linux support included.  Back in 2007 or earlier Openmoko
had made their own port of FLUID to Linux and we have their Linux/ARM binary,
but the source for that Linux port appears to have been lost.

The present work is an independent (non-Openmoko) port of TI's FLUID to Linux
made by Mother Mychaela N. Falconia of FreeCalypso, named fluid-mnf in order to
distinguish it from any other Unix/Linux ports of FLUID that may have been made
by unknown other parties.  The present port uses Linux-specific tty ioctl calls
instead of generic termios for serial port control, thus it won't compile or
run under any other Unixes without further porting.  It was done this way
because of non-standard baud rates: FLUID supports Calypso high baud rates of
203125, 406250 and 812500 bps, as well as D-Sample XXO (eXternal Xtal
Oscillator) baud rates of 230400, 460800 and 921600 bps, and because of POSIX
stupidity, supporting all of these baud rates in a Unix application requires
non-portable hacks.

The present fluid-mnf port has been put together in less than 24 h, but it has
not been tested on any hardware yet - another few hours till I get home where
the hardware is.  Stay tuned!

Please note that the target-side binaries in the target-bin directory are
unchanged from TI's original delivery, just like Openmoko left them unchanged
in their version.  I am not even bothering with setting up an environment to
recompile them from source with TI's TMS470 toolchain: I am going to do the
same thing Openmoko did, just use them unchanged.

Please also note that the present fluid-mnf port is being made as an act of
restorative justice, righting the wrong of Closedmoko not releasing theirs when
they made it in 2007 or earlier.  The present fluid-mnf port is NOT intended to
replace fc-loadtool, thus a strict limit is being put on the extent of work
that will be done on fluid-mnf: just enough to right Moko's wrong and maybe a
little extra to allow for satisfaction of some natural curiosities, but no more.
As a result of these strict limits on the scope of the work, neither this
fluid-mnf nor any other known version of FLUID will work on FCDEV3B boards with
Spansion S71PL129N flash - instead our boards with this flash are supported only
by our own fc-loadtool, not FLUID.  The ONLY Calypso targets that are expected
to be supported by fluid-mnf (same as TI's original FLUID for Windows) are:

* TI's own D-Sample and Leonardo boards;
* A certain non-TI development board nicknamed Caramel which has a Leonardo
  clone as its core but has a D-Sample-like physical form factor;
* Openmoko GTA01 and GTA02 modems.