I am also a bit unclear what type of antennas I should be purchasing to go with the hardware that would be compatible with the Ten64 case. The “MA963 Guardian 4-in-1 5G/4G MIMO Wideband Adhesive Mount Antenna” device seems recommended and includes a buy link – but which 5g card should be paired with it?
Does someone have a parts list with where to order (inside the US) to add WiFi 6 and 5g support to your Ten64 device?
Just FYI, my current plan is to use the hardware with Google Fi data sims in both US and Australia.
We have been evaluating alternative vendors, but most of them don’t have the level of support in mainline Linux and OpenWrt that Qualcomm/Atheros does.
Sources for 5G modules from the US I don’t have as much knowledge on. I have seen some modules pop up on Digikey and Mouser, like: Quectel RM500Q Thales MV31-W
I’d caution that the price for the Quectel RM500Q on Mouser is significantly higher than what they are available for in distribution channels, I would recommend shopping around.
The Thales (Gemalto) MV31 should work but we haven’t had an opportunity to retest it since the production version became available - it is on my TODO list.
The MA693 works well with any modem card with 4 antenna connectors. The caveats are that it’s a bulky external unit (best placed up a pole or in a window) and isn’t suitable if you are very close to the nearest cellular tower.
Are you intending to build a configuration that does WiFi 6 + 4G/5G at the same time? It gets a bit tricky as a “full spec” configuration for each of those demands 4 antenna connectors.
I have been meaning to add an “application note” of what to buy and how to assemble for each type of configuration (WiFi only, 4G/5G only, WiFi+4G/5G) - might be able to get around to it next week.
Such application note would be great. My long term plan is to have Wifi 6 + 5G and any recommendations from someone having expertise in this subject is big life (and money) saver.
Actually it looks like it did land in 5.14, but just isn’t compiled as a module in the linux-traverse-5.14.0-traverse-stable-5-14+47-00011-gf06fec81f73c kernel? (Probably because it is a new in 5.14 config option of CONFIG_IOSM?)
As best I can tell, this is because the L860 has a USB transmitter but isn’t driving it due to being in PCIe mode. The USB hub thinks a USB device is there and keeps trying to talk to it.
This will require a firmware update to disable the USB port attached to the M.2 slot when it sees this class of device. The Ten64 u-boot already does this when it sees a NVMe SSD in the Key B.
If you get tired of seeing it, here is a kernel patch that silences this particular log message.
I haven’t found a suitable one (at least that is easily obtainable) for indoor use. The “4x4 MIMO” ones out there tend to be for vehicles or for “hotspots on wheels”.
Will be covered in the aforementioned application note. In the meantime:
These are good ‘whip’ antennas that work on both WiFi bands: Taoglas GW.51.5153
For MiniPCIe WiFi cards, you need RP-SMA to UFL bulkhead connectors, my suggestion would be to grab two short (~150mm) ones and two longer ones (~300mm) to be installed either side on the Ten64.
Example of a 150mm: CA-DKCA1-152L1-ALI0
300mm: CA-DKCA1-305L1-ALI0
For M.2 Cellular modems, you need SMA to MHF4, like CAB.S02
(Warning: due to how small the MHF4/card connector is, they can only be connected and removed several times before they break. It’s a good to have a couple of spares)
Also recommended:
8mm spanner to tighten the SMA connectors to the enclosure
A suitable silicone adhesive to ‘glue’ down the antenna connectors onto the modem and WiFi cards (otherwise they could get dislodged during transport). Dow 744 is what we use. Not required for ‘lab’ use.
Yes, the entire ‘WWAN’ stack is new in 5.14, previously most cards used USB drivers and these cards sat out of the tree.
I’ll add it to the next kernel build for 5.14.
@mcbridematt - It also seems the ath11k driver is currently not enabled in the linux-traverse-5.14.0-traverse-stable-5-14+47-00011-gf06fec81f73c kernel either?
ath11k is very, very new (at least outside Qualcomm IPQ SoCs).
I’ve been running all my ath11k experiments under OpenWrt after I managed to “backport” it… the main reason being to take advantage of all the infrastructure for WiFi management in OpenWrt (e.g hostapd config generation)
Curiously, CONFIG_IOSM has a dependency on CONFIG_INTEL_IOMMU, effectively making it x86-64 only.
The driver compiles on arm64 with the INTEL_IOMMU dependency removed, who knows if it will work though.
Kernel 5.14.8 has been uploaded as 5.14.8-traverse-stable-5-14+52-00013-g703e0524bb7c, let me know how you go.
On the WWAN module, for some reason it has now decided to only appear as a USB device;
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 8087:095a Intel Corp. MODEM + 2 CDC-ACM + 3 CDC-NCM + SS
[ 491.488089] cdc_acm 4-1.2:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[ 491.500631] cdc_acm 4-1.2:1.2: ttyACM1: USB ACM device
[ 491.529085] cdc_ncm 4-1.2:1.6: MAC-Address: 00:00:11:12:13:14
[ 491.534908] cdc_ncm 4-1.2:1.6: setting rx_max = 16384
[ 491.540601] cdc_ncm 4-1.2:1.6 eth10: register 'cdc_ncm' at usb-xhci-hcd.1.auto-1.2, CDC NCM, 00:00:11:12:13:14
[ 491.573074] cdc_ncm 4-1.2:1.8: MAC-Address: 00:00:11:12:13:16
[ 491.578830] cdc_ncm 4-1.2:1.8: setting rx_max = 16384
[ 491.584492] cdc_ncm 4-1.2:1.8 eth11: register 'cdc_ncm' at usb-xhci-hcd.1.auto-1.2, CDC NCM, 00:00:11:12:13:16
[ 491.596171] cdc_acm 4-1.2:1.4: ttyACM2: USB ACM device
[ 491.601407] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
[ 491.607080] cdc_acm: USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters
[ 491.625151] cdc_ncm 4-1.2:1.10: MAC-Address: 00:00:11:12:13:18
[ 491.631008] cdc_ncm 4-1.2:1.10: setting rx_max = 16384
[ 491.636788] cdc_ncm 4-1.2:1.10 eth12: register 'cdc_ncm' at usb-xhci-hcd.1.auto-1.2, CDC NCM, 00:00:11:12:13:18
I assume there is a command I will have to send the board to get it to “mode switch” back to being a PCIe card (and thus have the IOSM drivers see it) but I haven’t had the time to figure out what that is yet. It is yet unclear to me what seems to cause the card to choose USB or PCIe at power on.
Wireless Assembly Guide has been added to the documentation.
This has a list of suggested antennas and cables and a couple of example setups for both cellular and WiFi use cases.
Would be swell to have atk11k modules compiled in those .debs.
Using the Debian Bookworm (12/testing) kernel 5.16.0-6-arm64 I can see the ath11k card, scan, maybe connect. I’ve done minimal testing, I don’t have antennas for it yet.