Re: Raspberry Pi Zero W almost useless

[Ramiro Aceves <ea1abz%gmail.com@localhost>]

El 25/1/24 a las 11:28, Matthew Widup escribió:
> I use one of these https://www.ebay.com/itm/113774031117?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=HZuLHORZQWm&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=rkGEi8qyQi6&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
>
> which is nearly as small as possible, and ridiculously cheap.  I don't normally advocate buying cheap things.
>
> Granted I don't use it with a Pi.  I use it with my Pinebook Pro (actually multiples of them).  But it should work for the Pi just the same.

Hello Matthew,

Thanks for the suggested wifi interface. I have ordered two of them 
(from another seller with lower shipping charges) and we'll see what 
happens. They are so cheap that I think it makes sense to try. The only 
problem is that Zero W has only 1 USB port and I will not be able to 
connect a keyboard at the same time. I normally do not use the keyboard, 
I think I will be able to do config it.

Thanks so much.
Ramiro.



> Sent with Proton Mail secure email.
>
> On Thursday, January 25th, 2024 at 4:05 AM, Ramiro Aceves <ea1abz%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > I have upgraded my raspberry pi Zero W board operating system to
> > NetBSD-10.0_RC3 using sysupgrade for the sets. Previously I manually
> > upgraded the kernel, firmware and dtbs (a bit tricky). No problem at
> > all with that, but do you know if there are plans in the future to do
> > kernel, dtb and firmware easier upgrades without having to vndconfig
> > the installation image, mounting it and copy manually the files? Just
> > curious...
> >
> >
> > I see that WIFI bwfm driver works the same as bad as in 10.0_RC1. I
> > have read that WIFI drivers are not very stable but I do not know
> > whether what I am experiencing is normal or not. My system is doing
> > nearly "nothing", at 30 minutes interval cron runs a wget command to
> > download a little 2 byte file from https://ipv4.cloudns.net/ just to
> > inform the DDNS system of my actual IP address. From time to time I
> > loose network and I cannot longer have ssh access. In order to
> > overcome that, I wrote a service that reboots the operating system
> > when network does not work (better than nothing). The service
> > registers in a file the uptime just before issuing the reboot command:
> >
> > netbsd-raspa# cat /root/network_conn_test.log |grep day
> >
> > 4:01AM up 3 days, 12:10, 0 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
> > 12:43PM up 4 days, 23:43, 1 user, load averages: 1.00, 1.00, 0.91
> > 4:01AM up 1 day, 15:18, 0 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
> > 11:28AM up 1 day, 7:27, 1 user, load averages: 0.24, 0.32, 0.16
> > 2:01AM up 2 days, 22:33, 0 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.02, 0.00
> > 3:01AM up 1 day, 1 hr, 0 users, load averages: 0.03, 0.05, 0.02
> > 5:01AM up 2 days, 2 hrs, 0 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
> > 2:01AM up 2 days, 20:59, 0 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
> > 2:01AM up 1 day, 0 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
> > 5:01AM up 4 days, 2:59, 0 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.04
> > 5:02AM up 2 days, 0 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
> > 2:43PM up 1 day, 9:41, 0 users, load averages: 0.02, 0.05, 0.02
> > 4:01AM up 2 days, 10:57, 0 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
> > 9:25AM up 1 day, 5:23, 0 users, load averages: 0.08, 0.11, 0.05
> > 4:01AM up 3 days, 11:27, 0 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
> > 2:01AM up 2 days, 22 hrs, 0 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
> > 5:01AM up 2 days, 3 hrs, 0 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
> > 12:01PM up 1 day, 7:49, 1 user, load averages: 0.10, 0.14, 0.13
> >
> > System do not last more than 4 days without loosing network. Sometimes
> > it breaks in a few minutes:
> >
> > netbsd-raspa# cat /root/network_conn_test.log |grep min
> > 3:28AM up 2 mins, 0 users, load averages: 0.38, 0.24, 0.10
> > 9:30AM up 5 mins, 1 user, load averages: 0.03, 0.08, 0.04
> > 12:18PM up 49 mins, 0 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
> > 4:11AM up 2 mins, 0 users, load averages: 0.20, 0.16, 0.07
> > 12:04PM up 3 mins, 1 user, load averages: 0.23, 0.21, 0.09
> > 1:28PM up 20 mins, 1 user, load averages: 0.22, 0.40, 0.25
> > netbsd-raspa#
> >
> >
> > It is difficult to download big files from the internet. If you try to
> > download a for example 1 GB file, it is very probable that it breaks
> > before 1/3 of the file transfer. That can be solved using wget -c
> > option but it is very annoying.
> >
> > It is very difficult to find a useful task for this board using
> > NetBSD. For example I would like to setup a minidlna server to watch
> > films but I have done that and it breaks after a few minutes. If you
> > setup a lighttpd WEB server it will be anoying for the user if it
> > reboots on the middle of WEB surfing...
> >
> > I do not see anything useful in dmesg. Only the messages that follow
> > the forced reboot issued by mi service:
> >
> > ...
> > ...
> >
> > [ 1.410723] bwfm0: Found NVRAM file:
> > brcmfmac43430-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-w.txt
> > [ 1.410723] bwfm0: CLM file default: brcmfmac43430-sdio.clm_blob
> > [ 1.410723] bwfm0: CLM file model-spec:
> > brcmfmac43430-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-w.clm_blob
> > [ 3.132473] bwfm0: CHIPACTIVE
> > [ 3.232559] bwfm0: address b8:27:eb:ed:85:47
> > [ 3.232559] bwfm0: wl0: Oct 23 2017 03:55:53 version 7.45.98.38
> > (r674442 CY) FWID 01-e58d219f
> > [ 14.405464] wsdisplay0: screen 4 added (default, vt100 emulation)
> > [ 1197.386358] syncing disks... done
> > [ 1197.436478] unmounting file systems...
> > [ 1197.436478] unmounted tmpfs on /var/shm type tmpfs
> > [ 1197.436478] unmounted procfs on /proc type procfs
> > [ 1197.436478] unmounted ptyfs on /dev/pts type ptyfs
> > [ 1197.436478] unmounted /dev/ld0e on /boot type msdos
> > [ 1.000000] Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003,
> > [ 1.000000] 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013,
> > [ 1.000000] 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023,
> > [ 1.000000] 2024
> > [ 1.000000] The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved.
> > [ 1.000000] Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
> > [ 1.000000] The Regents of the University of California. All
> > rights reserved.
> >
> > [ 1.000000] NetBSD 10.0_RC3 (RPI) #0: Tue Jan 16 08:28:51 UTC 2024
> > [ 1.000000]
> > mkrepro%mkrepro.NetBSD.org@localhost:/usr/src/sys/arch/evbarm/compile/RPI
> > [ 1.000000] total memory = 448 MB
> > [ 1.000000] avail memory = 429 MB
> > [ 1.000000] timecounter: Timecounters tick every 10.000 msec
> > [ 1.000000] Kernelized RAIDframe activated
> > [ 1.000000] armfdt0 (root)
> > [ 1.000000] simplebus0 at armfdt0: Raspberry Pi Zero W Rev 1.1
> > [ 1.000000] simplebus1 at simplebus0
> > [ 1.000000] simplebus2 at simplebus0
> > [ 1.000000] simplebus3 at simplebus0
> > [ 1.000000] cpus0 at simplebus0
> > [ 1.000000] cpu0 at cpus0: 700 MHz ARM1176JZ-S r0p7 (ARM11J V6ZK core)
> > [ 1.000000] cpu0: DC enabled IC enabled WB enabled LABT
> > [ 1.000000] cpu0: L1 16KB/32B 4-way (128 set) VIPT Instruction cache
> > [ 1.000000] cpu0: L1 16KB/32B 4-way (128 set) write-back-locking-C
> > VIPT Data cache
> > [ 1.000000] vfp0 at cpu0: VFP11, rounding, exceptions
> > [ 1.000000] fclock0 at simplebus2: 19200000 Hz fixed clock (osc)
> > [ 1.000000] fclock1 at simplebus2: 480000000 Hz fixed clock (otg)
> > [ 1.000000] bcmicu0 at simplebus1
> > ..
> > ..
> > ...
> >
> > I am trying to use something different from Raspbian, I really like
> > very much the simplicity and organization of NetBSD operating system,
> > I have been playing and studying it during the last months and I love
> > it but I think I cannot use it for something really useful in this
> > Raspberry Pi Zero W board. Adding an ethernet adaptor even if it works
> > makes no sense to me, the adaptor will have the cost and the size of
> > the Zero W itself.
> >
> > Do you think I have something wrong in my system or the bwfm driver is
> > in such bad condition? Can I tweak something when loading the driver
> > to improve the situation? Do you have an estimation of when the
> > FreeBSD Wifi driver migration will be finished for that driver?
> >
> > I appreciate very much your work.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Ramiro.