Just wondering, is it possible / has anybody used the WP76 modules without the Legato layer? We don’t need it, so it would be simpler not to have that extra layer of complexity and not have our software team learn a new framework, and would free up a bit of storage.
We would need:
Has anybody done this, or are the services too integral with Legato?
Hi @sciscitatio, you can use the WP76 modems with PPP/AT/QMI interface to a host. The modem in this case will be just a bit pipe. You can also use it in ‘hybrid’ mode, bit-pipe with a host along with app(s) running on the the application core.
Thanks, yes we already did that, but I was more interested in the idea of removing unnecessary (to me) components from the build. I’m intending to use these modules in a commercial product so wanted to use a stripped-down OS build if at all possible. Our software guy assigned to this project has managed to set up a dev environment and compiled a fresh build using the Yocto tools but from what I can gather most if not all the documentation assumes a Legato build, so it’s not clear where dependencies lie.
We’ve done similar exercises on ARM SoC before, but nothing like these WP modules which seems to be a mix of open-source and proprietary.
Same here. Want to do a proper cross-compilation without using the developer studio/legato bollocks. Any ideas?
I wouldn’t hold your breath, this forum is about as lively as a snail on Valium.
Hi @stefandxm
You can use leaf to setup the toolchain etc for a release and compile Legato and Legato applications. Leaf instructions are here WP7601 update fails - no redSensorToCloud
You can also get the complete Linux source from the modem’s firmware components page and recompile it.
Hello, did you ever get this working? We are interested in the same thing.
Not really. We’ve just hired a developer to start work on building our system, but right now he’s tasked with getting some drivers built as I don’t want to use the hardware on the Mangoh dev boards; like the software ecosystem it’s pointlessly over-complicated and expensive for real world commercial applications.
TBH it’s probably going to be quicker, easier and cheaper for us just to get the bits we need working e.g. setting up the QMI interface, /dev/nmea to get GPS info and let the rest just sit there redundant.
After trying to port one of our apps over to the Legato system, I am beginning to realize the same thing. If you aren’t using Legato and the sandbox, what solution are you implementing to update the OS/RootFS? Updating the applications seems straight forward with a package manager. But I’m wondering about security and maintenance updates for the kernel, root fs, ect… Also, are you building your own OS distro using the WP bsp and yocto? I am also worried about LTS of the legato system and sandbox since it doesn’t seem to be taking hold in the community.
Hi @jimmy
Just commenting on the security aspect, the WP modem’s kernels are regularly updated with security fixes. As a reference, you can check section 5.3 in the WP77 R12 Customer Release Notes from https://source.sierrawireless.com/resources/airprime/software/wp77xx/wp77xx-firmware-latest-release/
@ sciscitatio Same problem here, we already have well tested firmware working on another linux platform, we only need to port this to wp7609. We don’t need legato to make our firmware works and same as you, we need disk space!! Any solutions until now?
No, nothing. We can get around the legato by stopping it, and as our application will potentially use quite a lot of mp3 files we’ll augment storage with a microSD card where needed.
In fact I’m seriously underwhelmed by the lack of support either by Sierra and the mangOH “community” (I’m using a m.red board for development) as you may be able to tell from my increasingly frustrated posts on the mangoh forum. If the WP module didn’t meet my needs exactly and I hadn’t invested quite so much dev time as I have, I’d have ditched it a long time ago to be honest.
@jmorais How much more flash space do you need? If it’s around 50MB, we can do something about it. If it’s a lot more, then you will have to use an external micro SD card.
This approach will cause a lot of pain as there’s no support from SWI available for this. We managed to get PPP, USB and GPIO working. No luck with QMI or GPS so far. There’s also loads of Qualcomm-proprietary stuff involved (only available as binaries).
Did you get anywhere with that?
@24alpha Did you mean me? We gave up on the WP/mangOH platform ages ago as it was a messy headache every step of the way. It’s a nice idea and the concept of Linux on a modem fitted our needs perfectly but the software ecosystem was pretty shambolic IMHO right from the “getting started” instructions (oh dear someone left some wrong files on the repo) to porting device drivers (search my username on the mangoh forum for some examples)
Hopefully it’s improved over the past year but there was no way I could base a commercial product on the mangOH mess at the time.
Well, we got loads working. But there’s basically no support from SWI once you remove Legato. Loads of information can be retrieved from the yocto kernel but there’s also some Qualcomm stuff that’s handled by binaries …