Fwd: AX500 support quirks

[Mark Herbert]

I had no such problems with bt on my XPS 13.

As soon as I made it work compiling all necessary modules it just works.

Maybe the issue it with bluez version or somethng. I use bluez 5.63 from 
main Gentoo tree and blueman 2.2.2 as desktop utility. Mice (apple mm2 , 
MAd Catz RAT M), sony headphones WH-H900N - all works well.

Getting fresh firmware from Kalle's git is always a good idea anyway.

On 1/31/22 12:30, Patricio Ferraggi Ares wrote:
> Hi,
>
> So I decided to give it a go, I prefer to dive more into Linux and
> have a distro that I enjoy using than the one that plays it safe and
> has "everything" working but I hate it.
> My Linux partition is just for my personal use (my windows partition
> is for paying the bills) at the end so why not enjoy it.
>
> I am currently running:
>
> Distro: Arch Linux
> Kernel: 5.16.3-arch1-1
> Linux firmware: linux-firmware 20220119.0c6a7b3-2
> System firmware: 3.4.0
>
> The wifi works out of the box, always connects and I haven't had any
> issues whatsoever.
>
> BT still a different story:
> Some boots I can't connect to devices, some boots I can't find
> devices, some boots BT works fine.
> When it doesn't work I get errors like:
>
> Reading QCA version information failed (-110)
> hci0: Frame reassembly failed (-84)
>
> What would recommend my next step would be for trying to solve this
> issue? I assume getting the last firmware from kalle's git would be a
> good idea? if so is this the appropriate git
> https://github.com/kvalo/ath11k-firmware?
> It would be nice if you guys could give me a few steps to follow.
>
> I tried the following thing:
>
> I cloned https://github.com/kvalo/ath11k-firmware. Took the files from
> that repo regarding the QCA6390 and copied them to the lib folder as
> described here:
>
> # Install firmware
> cd ../ath11k-firmware
> sudo mkdir -p /lib/firmware/ath11k/QCA6390/hw2.0/
> sudo cp QCA6390/hw2.0/1.0.1/[LATEST_VERSION]/*.bin
> /lib/firmware/ath11k/QCA6390/hw2.0/
> sudo cp QCA6390/hw2.0/board-2.bin /lib/firmware/ath11k/QCA6390/hw2.0/
>
> I also had to xz the files since now arch-linux is compressing firmware files
> https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/72899
>
> Unfortunately when trying that I lost wifi and bt altogether. It might
> be caused because Arch is using a different compression algorithm or
> something. I went back to my original files for now.
>
> Thanks for hearing me out. Have a nice week.
>
> El jue, 27 ene 2022 a la(s) 19:33, Mark Herbert
> (mark.herbert42 at gmail.com) escribió:
>> Hi Patricio,
>>
>> As I see it there are DIY distributives like Gentoo or Arch that are
>> targeted to the people who has no issues to patch and compie new
>> kernel.  So they do not care much to backport any new drivers to old
>> kernels. Who want it - will do it.
>>
>> And distributions like Ubunto or Fedora  that are targeted to out-of-the
>> box usage.  There the developers try to backport everything, compile
>> standard kernel with all the features and so on.
>>
>> SO maybe you need to choose the correct distribution.  Do you want to
>> make a distribution highly optimized for your hardware and your usage
>> (and willin to spend some time and effort for this) - or do you prefer
>> to have general distribution that will work on any hardware including
>> the one you have.  Linux can offer you  a choice.
>>
>> I've choosen Gentoo (after slackware (started from 0.98 long long ago,
>> redhat,suse, debian) - just because I have enough knowledge and
>> experience to build system for my hardware and usage. From other side I
>> understand that if I take my ssd from 9310 and plug it in Ryzen based
>> laptop it will not even boot as all my binaries are compiled to use
>> every single Intel feature availabe on intel Tigerlake.
>>
>> So just select a proper distribution for your needs and tour skills. As
>> for new features of new hardware - they will sooner or later land into
>> mainstream and all the concervative distributions - but it will take
>> time. As for AX500 the proper support is not in the mainline yet. I bet
>> Ubuntu gives you WiFi + BT but your energy saving features are crap (CPU
>> never goes below PC3 state ), and hibernate/suspend makes you trouble
>> (or you do not use it or do not care if it does not wake up 50% of
>> times).  And you have 2 choices - wait when all the recent development
>> from this mailin list land to mainstream or take the latest code from
>> Kalle's git and do it yourself.
>>
>> On 1/27/22 16:58, Patricio Ferraggi Ares wrote:
>>> Hi Mark, thanks for answering back. Generally, I would agree with you
>>> that newer hardware requires distros that update frequently to get
>>> those drivers in, but in this situation, I find it very strange is the
>>> other way around.
>>>
>>> More updated distros like arch-based ones have no functioning BT,
>>> while older distros like ubuntu-based ones have both working BT and
>>> WiFi. It might be the case that the arch distros I tried simply did
>>> not enable the modules you mentioned.
>>> I am not sure what is going on.
>>>
>>> I will give a try your recommendations and see if can make some progress.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> El jue, 27 ene 2022 a la(s) 14:28, Mark Herbert
>>> (mark.herbert42 at gmail.com) escribió:
>>>> I use Gentoo with very custom kernel (ath11k master-pending backported +
>>>> more bleeding edge and experimental features). So it is hard for me to
>>>> say why bnary distributes have it all so different.
>>>>
>>>> When I got my 9310 in August 2021 it was completely unisable because of
>>>> ath11k no matter of distribution, but now the situation is quite
>>>> different - thanks to Kalle and team.
>>>>
>>>> The only issue now is to wait till those new features will land into
>>>> mainstream distributions which sometimes prefer to stay on so called
>>>> "stable"  kernels for ages. They maybe stable if your hardware is  from
>>>> stone age, but for new hardware like 9310 "stable"  kernel is stabe in
>>>> only one aspect - it is not working and will never do.  In all
>>>> distributions there are usually packages with newer "experimental"
>>>> kernels that are available but will not be installed by default, but you
>>>> can install the packages and enjoy working system.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> For ath11k /dell 9310 the best will be 5.17 which is in rc1 now, but I
>>>> guess 5.16.3 released today will also be fully usable. Just need to get
>>>> new firmware from Kalle's git as the firmware in linux firmware package
>>>> is absolute junk more that 1 year old.
>>>>
>>>> As for bluetooth - it is working perfectly, but it is not an USB module
>>>> as intel. It is hci_uart , so you need to have uart bt support built is
>>>> as well as ath3k bt firmware loading and btqca extensions. And aldo the
>>>> firmware is required (available in regular linux-firmware )
>>>>
>>>> Here is my log of bt initialization. All working well.
>>>>
>>>> [    4.930758] hci_uart_qca serial0-0: failed to acquire enable gpio
>>>> [    4.932732] Bluetooth: hci0: setting up ROME/QCA6390
>>>> [    4.936750] Bluetooth: hci0: Frame reassembly failed (-84)
>>>> [    5.254533] Bluetooth: hci0: QCA Product ID   :0x00000010
>>>> [    5.256045] Bluetooth: hci0: QCA SOC Version  :0x400a0200
>>>> [    5.257636] Bluetooth: hci0: QCA ROM Version  :0x00000200
>>>> [    5.259263] Bluetooth: hci0: QCA Patch Version:0x00000d2b
>>>> [    5.260790] Bluetooth: hci0: QCA controller version 0x02000200
>>>> [    5.262228] Bluetooth: hci0: QCA Downloading qca/htbtfw20.tlv
>>>> [    6.210557] Bluetooth: hci0: QCA Downloading qca/htnv20.bin
>>>> [    6.438691] Bluetooth: hci0: QCA setup on UART is completed
>>>>
>>>> On 1/27/22 15:29, Kalle Valo wrote:
>>>>> Patricio Ferraggi Ares <pattferraggi at gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>> My name is Patricio, I am a fellow software developer and user of the
>>>>>> Dell XPS 9310 (AX500 version). First of all, I wanted to thank you for
>>>>>> all your hard work bringing support for this model, thanks to you, I
>>>>>> have been able to use my laptop with Linux almost since I got it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This is not a bug report in any way, I just would like to gain some
>>>>>> knowledge on the subject and you might be the perfect person for my
>>>>>> questions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I noticed that although all distros use the Linux kernel, support for
>>>>>> this hardware is not the same across all Linux distros. To be more
>>>>>> specific, Ubuntu-based distros have had working wifi and Bluetooth for
>>>>>> almost a year now, although there are some problems like resuming from
>>>>>> deep sleep,  both wifi and Bluetooth work right away on installation,
>>>>>> at the moment I am using Pop OS with Linux kernel 5.15.5 as my main
>>>>>> driver. On the other hand, arch-based distros dont' have working BT,
>>>>>> as you can see here and here. The wifi is working but Bluetooth
>>>>>> sometimes doesn't turn on and when it does it cannot properly connect
>>>>>> to devices. This happens across multiple arch-based distros and kernel
>>>>>> versions, even if I try kernel versions that work fine in PopOS, they
>>>>>> don't in Arch.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So finally, my questions:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Why is there this inconsistency of support between distros when
>>>>>> theoretically, they are all Linux?
>>>>>> Why is it that if Arch is always updated, in this particular case
>>>>>> their hardware support is lacking compared to ubuntu?
>>>>> This is something you need to ask Ubuntu, or check from their git
>>>>> history or package changelogs. But in general distros make changes to
>>>>> the kernel, some of them even quite drastic, so behaviour between
>>>>> distros can be different. My guess is that Ubuntu had custom changes to
>>>>> ath11k, maybe they backported patches?
>>>>>
>>>>>> And finally, do you have a working configuration with wifi and
>>>>>> Bluetooth? if that is the case could you tell me your distro, kernel,
>>>>>> firmware, system firmware versions?
>>>>> I also use Dell XPS 13 9310 with QCA6390 as my daily driver (no pun
>>>>> intended) and I have no issues with wifi. BIOS is 3.1.0 from 07/22/2021.
>>>>> I'm a debian guy so I have Debian 10 and use connman, but
>>>>> network-manager should work as well. I compile my own kernel from my
>>>>> ath.git master branch[1], but with QCA6390 I would expect stock v5.16
>>>>> release to work fine. For WCN6855 I recommend to use v5.17.
>>>>>
>>>>> Firmware version is WLAN.HST.1.0.1-05266-QCAHSTSWPLZ_V2_TO_X86-1.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't use Bluetooth so can't comment on that.
>>>>>
>>>>> [1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/kvalo/ath.git/
>>>>>