NFC Chip support / GNSS Support

[Midi Jari]

I have a Samsung Ativ Tab 7 which got a NFC chip and a GNSS. Is android-x86 supporting those devices? At least for the GNSS, I tried different methods from this group but none seem to work, it's connected through a USB to UART Bridge (it's internal, Silicon Labs CP210x), and it's a Broadcom GNSS 47511 Geolocation Sensor USB, even windows can't determine it's exact location, thought under device instance path it's ROOT\SENSOR\0000 (It's recognized as a sensor but not a USB device too? I have other sensors like rotation and it's recognized under USB and Sensor devices).

For the NFC it's NXP NearFieldProximity Provider device, under ACPI\NXP5440\. 

Is there anyway to add support for those two?

[Antony Stone]

On Sunday 14 February 2016 at 13:24:04, Midi Jari wrote:

> I have a Samsung Ativ Tab 7 which got a NFC chip and a GNSS. Is android-x86
> supporting those devices?

> Broadcom GNSS 47511 Geolocation Sensor USB

> For the NFC it's NXP NearFieldProximity Provider device, under
> ACPI\NXP5440\.

> Is there anyway to add support for those two?

Your best bet is to see whether these devices are supported by any Linux
drivers, which would give a starting point for porting them to Android.

Whether they're supported under Windows or not doesn't normally help, because
the code can't be re-used in any meaningful way in Android.

If there's no Linux driver available, the next two methods are:

- see if there's a data sheet available from the manufacturer, explaining how
to write a driver for them

- intercept the communications between the Windows driver and the chipsets
and reverse-engineer the protocol needed to control them

I'm sure it's clear that neither of those last two options are in any way
simple.


Regards,


Antony.

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[Antony Stone]

On Sunday 14 February 2016 at 13:24:04, Midi Jari wrote:

> I have a Samsung Ativ Tab 7 which got a NFC chip and a GNSS. Is android-x86
> supporting those devices?

Just out of interest, how would you install a different Operating System and
Boot Loader onto this device? Is it possible to boot the thing from an
external USB device?

Tablets are often a lot more tricky to do this sort of thing with, compared to
a standard PC/laptop, and if that's not possible, Android-X86 support for the
chips inside it is neither here nor there...


Antony.

--
"It is easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of
achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words - and
this is the rock solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's
Galaxy-wide success is founded - their fundamental design flaws are completely
hidden by their superficial design flaws."

- Douglas Noel Adams

[Midi Jari]

For the GNSS, I found this link: https://iam.tj/projects/meif_protocol/research/Broadcom_BCM4751x_GNSS_driver.html

For NFC, NXP is really used on many android phones, and there is this link http://www.nxp.com/products/software-and-tools/run-time-software/linux-software-and-development-tools:CW_BSP for Linux developing

Hope it has the information you need.  

[Midi Jari]

This device is a full blown PC, it's the same as the original Surface Pro, it got a AMI BIOS that supports UEFI and stuff, i5 3rd gen U CPU and integrated SSD, just like any other windows computer. Most parts of Android-x86 are working (that includes touch, sound cameras, battery and rotation sensor), some parts are half working like the 3G WAN (from Huawei) that works on boot until it breaks after a sleep-wake cycle, too bad there is no SMS/Calls capability :/ The only thing that bothers me too is the brightness, I donno if it's because the display is eDP connected, even on windows samsung provides a Brightness patch to get it working, the intel GPU driver isn't enough.

[Antony Stone]

On Sunday 14 February 2016 at 13:46:42, Midi Jari wrote:

> For the GNSS, I found this link:
> https://iam.tj/projects/meif_protocol/research/Broadcom_BCM4751x_GNSS_driv
> er.html
>
> For NFC, NXP is really used on many android phones, and there is this link
> http://www.nxp.com/products/software-and-tools/run-time-software/linux-soft
> ware-and-development-tools:CW_BSP for Linux developing

The first link looks quite encouraging, although I couldn't find any further
links which actually take me to the source code which is discussed ("The exact
same source code is used to build the Linux/Android and Windows 8 driver for
the BCM47511").

The second one looks very good from a support point of view ("BSPs are offered
free of charge" and http://www.nxp.com/products/sensors/nxp-sensing-
solutions/freescale:SNSDRVSANDROID) however again I couldn't find the actual
source code for the NXP5440 NFC device.

However, provided those links do actually lead to the code they seem to
suggest, then a programmer willing to port them to Android-X86 has a very good
starting point, I think.

On Sunday 14 February 2016 at 13:54:43, Midi Jari wrote:

> On Sunday, February 14, 2016 at 12:43:29 PM UTC, Antony Stone wrote:
> >
> > Just out of interest, how would you install a different Operating System
> > and Boot Loader onto this device? Is it possible to boot the thing from
> > an external USB device?

> This device is a full blown PC, it's the same as the original Surface Pro,
> it got a AMI BIOS that supports UEFI and stuff, i5 3rd gen U CPU and
> integrated SSD, just like any other windows computer.

Oh, okay - that makes things a lot easier, then. Good to get that potential
problem out of the way early :)


Good luck with the device - it looks quite nice from what I've just read about
it.


Antony.

--
"The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed yet."

- William Gibson

[Midi Jari]

Looks like 01.org is already working on NFC support https://01.org/linux-nfc and here http://elinux.org/images/d/d1/Near_Field_Communication_with_Linux.pdf (last slide got links)

Normally Android supports it but it is limited to HCI interfaces (donno what it means! looks like it's something else than USB/UART)