Getting Started with the HDG229

Introduction

This guide will help you to set-up and use the HDA229 (evaluation board to the HDG229 module) for first time experience. A prerequesit to this guide is to register an account to be able to access the driver source code in the Downloads section.

Scope of the Demonstration

1. Wifi connection to an access point and perform a throughput test using two Linux computers.
2. BT connection using the bluez tools.

Requirements

Things you need to have:

• The HDA229 (HDG229 mounted on a SD carrier card).
• A Linux computer or Linux development platform with an operational SDIO slot, with Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later. Note that not all the newest kernel versions are supported, please refer to the file wlan_src/README of the driver release to know what kernel version is supported.
• iperf3 installed.
• HDG229 Linux driver package (see the Download Section).
• An 802.11 access point connected with Ethernet to a second Linux computer with iperf3 installed.
• The bluez Bluetooth stack installed, see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BluetoothSetup for help.

Driver installation

• Power up the first Linux computer
• Start a terminal window
• Unzip the driver package in a local directory
• Compile the driver by running the helper script provided (some commands need to be run as root, you will be prompted for your password):

  $ ./install-driver.sh
  ...preparing installation for antenna config version v1
  [sudo] password for <your_user_name>: 
  blacklist mwifiex
  blacklist mwifiex_sdio
  blacklist mwifiex_usb
  blacklist mwifiex_pcie
  blacklist btmrvl
  blacklist btmrvl_sdio
  blacklist btmrvl_usb
  ...done!
  
  Unloading mwifiex, mwifiex_sdio, btmrvl and btmrvl_sdio legacy drivers...
  -------Don't panic if you see some error printouts here. Quite normal.
  rmmod: ERROR: Module mwifiex_usb is not currently loaded
  rmmod: ERROR: Module mwifiex is not currently loaded
  rmmod: ERROR: Module btmrvl_usb is not currently loaded
  rmmod: ERROR: Module btmrvl is not currently loaded
  ...done!
  
  Copy fw image...
  cp FwImage/sdsd8977_combo_v2.bin /lib/firmware/mrvl/.
  Copy fw image...done!
  
  Install Power tables...
  cp config/txpower_EU_v1.bin /lib/firmware/mrvl/txpower_EU.bin
  cp config/txpower_US_v1.bin /lib/firmware/mrvl/txpower_US.bin
  Install Power tables...done!
  
  Build wifi drivers...
  make -C /lib/modules/4.4.9/build M=/home/hdwireless/dev/builds/linux-sdio-driver-229-1.0/wlan_src modules
  make[1]: Entering directory '/usr/lib/modules/4.4.9/build'
    CC [M]  /home/hdwireless/dev/builds/linux-sdio-driver-229-1.0/wlan_src/mlan/mlan_module.o
    [...]
  
  cp wlan_src/mlan.ko wlan_src/sd8xxx.ko .
  cp mbt_src/bt8xxx.ko .
  

  The firmware and calibration files needed by the HDG229 to operate are installed on your system (in /lib/firmware/mrvl) during this operation.
• Load the Wifi and BT driver with the helper script:

  $ ./load-driver.sh 
  Loading Wifi driver
  Loading Bluetoth driver
  

• Insert the evaluation board into the PC SDIO slot, a new WLAN network interface and a new BT controller should now be listed:

  $ iwconfig
  [...]
  mlan0     IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:""  
            Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Bit Rate:1 Mb/s   
            Tx-Power=24 dBm   
            Retry limit:9   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr=2346 B   
            Power Management:on
            Link Quality=0/5  Signal level=0 dBm  Noise level=0 dBm
            Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:18
            Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0
  [...]
  
  $ hciconfig
  hci0:   Type: Primary  Bus: SDIO
          BD Address: 78:C4:0E:A0:0C:D9  ACL MTU: 1021:7  SCO MTU: 240:3
          UP RUNNING 
          RX bytes:664 acl:0 sco:0 events:39 errors:0
          TX bytes:411 acl:0 sco:0 commands:39 errors:0
  

Wifi demonstration example

In this example an iperf3 client resides on the HDG229 Linux computer and a remote iperf3 server running on a computer connected to the Ethernet port of an 802.11 AP.

Running the IPerf Server Side via 802.11 AP

• Power up the 802.11 AP (follow AP installation and configuration guide)
• Power up the second Linux host computer
• Open up a terminal window
• Enter ifconfig command to get IP address to be used below in the IPerf client session
• Start IPerf Server as per below:

  $ iperf3 -s

Running iperf3 on the Client Side

• Start a WLAN connection to the access point by using your Network Manager. If your computer also has an internal Wifi card, make sure you are selecting the mlan0 interface when setting up the connection.
• Run the ifconfig command to check that an IP address has been successfully assigned to the mlan0 interface.
• Then start a iperf3 client as per below:

  $ iperf3 -c <ip-address> -t 30

  -c means you are running in client mode, connecting to a "host" which is the IP address following the -c.
  -t 30 means the time in seconds to perform the IPerf test the default is set to 10 seconds.
• Tx TCP throughput data speed is presented continuously in the Terminal window for given time -t 30

Bluetooth demonstration example

In this demonstration, we will connect to a XooparBoy Bluetooth audio device.

• Start the bluetoothctl command line interface:

  $ bluetoothctl 
  Agent registered
  [bluetooth]#

• List the Bluetooth controllers and make sure the HDG229 is the selected default, this is important if there is already an internal controller on your PC:

  [bluetooth]# list
  Controller 00:28:F8:60:D8:F2 hdwireless #1 [default]
  Controller 78:C4:0E:A0:0C:D9 hdwireless 
  [bluetooth]# select 78:C4:0E:A0:0C:D9

• Start and stop scanning:

  [bluetooth]# scan on
  Discovery started
  [CHG] Controller 78:C4:0E:A0:0C:D9 Discovering: yes
  [...]
  [NEW] Device FC:58:FA:8D:8A:B3 XooparBoy
  [...]
  [bluetooth]# scan off
  

• Pair and connect to the device:

  [bluetooth]# pair FC:58:FA:8D:8A:B3
  Attempting to pair with FC:58:FA:8D:8A:B3
  [CHG] Device FC:58:FA:8D:8A:B3 Connected: yes
  [CHG] Device FC:58:FA:8D:8A:B3 UUIDs: 00001101-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb
  [CHG] Device FC:58:FA:8D:8A:B3 ServicesResolved: yes
  [CHG] Device FC:58:FA:8D:8A:B3 Paired: yes
  Pairing successful
  [XooparBoy]# connect FC:58:FA:8D:8A:B3
  Attempting to connect to FC:58:FA:8D:8A:B3
  Connection successful
  [CHG] Device FC:58:FA:8D:8A:B3 UUIDs: 00001101-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb