And I said... "Beam me up, Scotty - and can I get a cup of coffee? And the Internet -- it still doesn't work." -beaming, by reliant K

Okay, so another update that I'm putting out here to try to get the research flowing onwards.

First off, to describe the Gobi's operation:

In order to provide all the capabilities it does from CDMA to HSPA, and provide the vast multi-carrier support that it does, it uses different firmware for different carriers.

Upon powering on the Gobi2000 after power loss (ie, standby, shutdown, etc), the Gobi enumerates a USB serial device with vendor ID 1410 (Novatel Wireless, Inc) and product ID A014. This is the Gobi2000 QDLoader device.

A proprietary service and protocol is then used to push the requisite firmware files to the device, which then continues a boot process. The Gobi then enumerates various additional devices with a PID of A010 and various additional flags:

• Network interface
• Diagnostics port
• GPS port (depending on firmware and loading)
• Additional serial ports for legacy support

Now, onto the next part: Drivers.
Any Gobi2000 driverset will work, provided you modify the VID and PID strings properly so that the QDLoader enumerates as a proper serial port and then the other devices enumerate with their proper drivers.

Firmware loading is our challenge. Linux has the package gobi-loader which I haven't gotten to work (yet). CrOS uses a Qualcomm provided service, which I haven't tested. Someone's written a homemade Windows gobi-loader clone, but it doesn't work (expects different data than this module provides). MacOS is a wildcard, but may work with gobi-loader.

For reference, on CrOS, the Qualcomm-specific files are in /opt/Qualcomm/. In the Images2k folder is the various firmware - folder 1 is the Verizon software that needs to be pushed to the card.

Also, if you can dual-boot stock CrOS and Windows 7, a soft reboot WILL KEEP THE GOBI ENUMERATED. That is, it will continue to have the proper devices for proper operation. Howerver, using VZAccess Manager, the Gobi will reset itself upon the loading of the VZAM and upon activation of the modem with Verizon as well - so you'd still have to figure out how to push new software to the modem either way.

So lets say I just wanted to use the GPS function for like, knowing where my laptop is, or searching for another (owned) GPS device such as a cell phone, or maybe using it with the Sensor and Location feature in Windows 7

Is any of this possible? And could be free (without me having to pay for a sim card for verizon or something)?

I am curious as well as to how we can get this working.

Is there anyone out there with some deep hardware knowledge?

So far, I've recompiled the qcserial driver to recognize the device on Ubuntu. The module gets loaded correctly.

I've also added the correct device id to /lib/udev/rules.d/60-gobi.rules -- looking in the system monitor after startup, it seems as if gobi_loader is getting "hung up" on n_tty_write.

Doing some Googling, it seems as if this is/was a regression introduced in the linux kernel 2.6.31+ -- I'm not sure if/when it was actually fixed, though, it has something to do with the way writes are executed over the usbserial driver.

Perhaps we can reverse engineer Google's method of loading the firmware, and adapt gobi_loader (it's only ~8.5KB of code) to load the firmware "correctly"?

Also, I attempted doing all of this using the Natty alpha -- it uses kernel 2.6.37 -- no dice.

Any ideas, anyone?

Originally Posted by unforgiven512

So far, I've recompiled the qcserial driver to recognize the device on Ubuntu. The module gets loaded correctly.

Does it spawn a /dev/ttyUSB device?

Yes, it spawns /dev/ttyUSB0 -- I'm trying to load the Verizon Wireless firmware from /lib/firmware/gobi/ and that's where it hangs on 'n_tty_write' =(

Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by unforgiven512

Yes, it spawns /dev/ttyUSB0 -- I'm trying to load the Verizon Wireless firmware from /lib/firmware/gobi/ and that's where it hangs on 'n_tty_write' =(

Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk

Cool. Can you download this tgz: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B5q...N2UxNzhl&hl=en

Extract it to /opt [so that /opt/Qualcomm exists].

Go to /opt/Qualcomm/QDLService2k and issue ./QDLService2kNovatel /dev/ttyUSB0. Afterwards check QDLService2kNovatel.txt to see that the firmware loads properly.

The Cr-48 kernel didn't come with PPP support and I can't get my own qcserial drivers to work, but once that firmware loads you can simply make a PPP connection out to Verizon, number #777, username <Cr-48 number>@vzw3g.com, password vzw.

I have successfully loaded the firmware dragonfli wondered about. they load, however a device never spawn from it that can be used, it releases /dev/ttyUSB0 and thats it. anybody got an update on their status?

Update: I swear to god I f*cking hate Qualcomm.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...thkey=CMf377oC is the log from a Cr-48 pushing firmware into the Gobi.

Now, onto the unsuccesses and successes (and a theory):

Success 1: Any Linux distro running with CrOS kernel
Because the CrOS kernel has the proper qcserial driver modifications, the Gobi's serial interface is exposed as a /dev/ttyUSB device - enabling you to simply use the stock app to push firmware into the device further exposing the alternate interfaces.

Unsuccess 1: GobiLoader for Windows 7
Qualcomm Gobi WWAN Card on Windows 7
This is expecting a few different messages from the modem than what it's really sending out. By using my log above and the source provided, someone (Not me. I give up trying.) may be able to modify that loader to push firmware on demand.

PROTIP: The VZ Access Manager will cause the Gobi to reboot, so you'll have to reload the firmware twice - once at startup, and once when you start the VZAM - QUICK.

If someone else has an alternate, that may work.

Unsuccess 2: Porting gobi-loader from Linux into Cygwin
I don't know if it's me, Cygwin, or gobi-loader itself. I modified that to the best of my abilities to no avail, too.

Theory 1: Loading and soft-rebooting from Linux (untested)
This is the only thing I've yet to test and seems likely to work, but is the biggest kludge -- boot a USB Linux distro with the CrOS kernel (at least to a shell), initialize the Gobi, and soft-reboot to Windows. From there use an alternate manager to connect to the EvDO connection.

The downside is as stated - you'll have to spend a couple minutes bringing up the modem - and when you put it in sleep/hibernate, you'll lose the modem altogether!

I give up on modifying firmware loaders. I give up on the entire adventure. I'll provide my modified drivers for Windows 7 that when used will load the proper drivers, though:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B5q...thkey=CNiRjecN

And a sweet, final note to Qualcomm and Novatel Wireless: Gently caress yourselves for developing such a sh*tty product.

I figure this warrants the second post (sorry):


Thumbnail!

Yes, that's Windows 7 on a Cr-48. Yes, that's an EvDO session running. Yes, those are the drivers for the device that are posted above.
No, you can't load the firmware in Windows (yet).

But...

Success #2: Any Linux
I compiled a driver from Chromium source -- QCSerial2k.ko. Oddly in IRC discussions the only reason that driver was ever in place was because it was the "official" driver that they'd get support for the modem with and then went upstream with qcserial instead.

Anyways, tested with Ubuntu 10.10 stock: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B5q...thkey=CIf-4s4P

Copy it to /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/usb/serial/, run a depmod, and then modprobe QCSerial2k. This brings up the firmware downloader interface. You'll also need the firmware files and stock loader from Qualcomm (hint: up a bit in the thread - qc.tar.gz). Extract to /opt (to create the /opt/Qualcomm structure). Issue /opt/Qualcomm/QDLService2k/QDLService2kNovatel /dev/ttyUSB0 and watch in amazement in your dmesg output as ttyUSB0 disappears and then reappears (this time as the modem interface!).

And onto Success 3 - Windows Kludging
If you've done all this from a Ubuntu USB flash drive and soft-reboot, you'll notice four unknown devices in Device Manager. Use my drivers provided above (x32 only) and create a new dialup connection - the only info you need is #777.

(You'll need to have activated the modem, first. Until we can get Windows firmware loading, and thus VZAM support, we can't activate it anywhere but CrOS.)

well ive done it. i downloaded the chromium source, made a diff of the qcserial.c vs. 2.6.35.8 kernel (though should work on any) containing the correct id's for the device, then grabbed the /opt/Qualcomm folder from the tar mentioned earlier(Link) after issuing "/opt/Qualcomm/QDLService2k/QDLService2kNovatel /dev/ttyUSB0" i get /dev/ttyUSB0/1/2 which work with the default dialer app in ubuntu 10.10. this is the patch i made, just compile the kernel with this patch applied and all should be AOK. dont use the gobi_loader.

oh ya, btw http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=128534473802312&w=2 is why i got three interfaces, one is the gps, one is the mobile broadband and the other is a diagnostics port