lots and lots of coffee supply.

If someone gets this working I'll send them a Starbucks card.

as far as i know, BME is a blocker.

it does a lot of things, it mainly manages the battery drain ratio and charging procedures, and it actively are disabling the host mode efforts, so it needs to be shut down to make any kind of host mode connection.

so, what we have until now is a working host mode connection but at the price of disabling vital parts of the phone

not a good place to be

what the people are asking to be open source is BME. but the last thing that ive read from bugzilla is not promising at all. Its like nokia do not own all the code, so it cant be open sourced without heavy modification

bme is not any problem, we know how to deal with that bugger quite well.

We have a few handles (force_host bit for musb core in SoC et al) to poke hardware, but results are random. So what's needed is a really good kernel hacker, preferably familiar with USB drivers, to code a stable driver alternative to musb_core.c and relatives, that will take care of all the hardware handles wiggling and dials wheeling.
Alas musb_core.c plus related files is really complex and so are the changes that need to be applied and any debugging as that's kernel code you can't strace or run under gdb.
For now we are in a limbo state :-S I probably should clearly state I'm *not* the project head of the sw part of h-e-n aka usb hostmode. I am just the hardware dude to help when it comes to reading datasheets. we are missing developers

cheers
jOERG

You don't need developers. You need skilled developers

So Usb hostmode is not impossible, but is still far from ready. did i get it right?

Yeah basically. If only I had started learning my way around coding and software and all that other stuff a couple years ago instead of a couple months ago, I may have actually been useful for this.

I've seen loads of pics and youtube vids
of people using 'UsbHost with their Nokia N900'

So it cnt be that impossible

We actually got a GUI, and specs are for an even more versatile and convenient version of this GUI. See project h-e-n.

What we NOT GOT is a kernel driver for mentorgraphics musb core USB controller hardware in SoC, that actually would switch to USB hostmode flawlessly, reliably, and do this no matter which peripheral is attached to N900. The issue is most likely a mix of timing issues, plus special properties some rare peripherals show (like maybe USB1.1 peripheral, or some details in protocol when negotiating USB speed etc), so we need a proper implementation of all the little hostmode details that is completely under our control wrt how it works, and does not interfere with the OTG code in same musb_core.c driver.

Actually today another kernel devel joined and somewhat brought new life to the stalled development of last 4 weeks. Welcome alterego :-D

I'm considering to publish a strictly for testing/R&D purposes kernel so users really interested in helping, even with unknown return of investment regarding their time and effort, might reflash their N900, ruin their current system , and try with some peripherals. Odds are you won't see any success, and nota bene if we really publish such kernel, there will be ZERO support for it from the devels (us), and the only thing we'd be interested in would be success msgs with detailed description what's been done and which peripheral device has been used, plus a few logs from system so we (the devels) have decent data to find patterns in what does/doesn't work.
I'm still considering, and you all know there's all the details out there in that other closed thread so you could do this right now if you want.

Sorry there's not more/faster progress but that musb core is a b**ch
But at least me haven't given up yet. :-)

WANTED: Experienced Kernel Developers familiar with USB driver, which are willing to invest a good slice of their plenty free time into project h-e-n Hostmode Easy Now for developing the needed hostmode functionality in musb_core.c and related. Also may take over sw side of project administration and coordinate efforts of co-devels.


cheers
jOERG

The thread "Joerg_rw and MohammadAG what still needs to happen for usbhost mode to be achieved?" with 9 posts (Posts #182-#191) has been merged into this thread.

Please do not create multiple threads. Simply posting and asking in this thread would be enough to get attention. (Try not to do it too often, though.)