Char Driver for Silicon Labs Si446x Transceivers

Char Driver for Silicon Labs Si446x Transceivers

[Sunip Mukherjee]

Hi,

I am very new to the kernel community; this is my first message in the
LKML so my apologies if I am doing things wrong.

I have been using an Si4463 transceiver for UHF communication with a
cubesat I developed. I could not find any code to control the
transceiver on Linux. The closest thing I could find was an AVR
implementation by Zak Kemble
(https://blog.zakkemble.net/si4463-radio-library-avr-arduino/).
I followed the API docs and rewrote the whole thing at first for
userland only (can be found here:
https://github.com/SPACE-HAUC/si446x_linux/releases/tag/v3.1), and
then I decided it would be a great learning opportunity for me to port
it to the kernel.

The kernel port has gone mostly smoothly. The transceiver communicates
with the host MCU over SPI, and requires a pin for RESET, and another
pin for IRQ.
I have implemented the driver to provide a char device (/dev/si446x#)
to the userland for open, read, write, poll and ioctl.
I had initially set up a pull request for the driver and the device
tree overlay to the Raspberry Pi kernel community. They have agreed to
accept the device tree overlay for the device, however the driver
needs to be included by the Linux Kernel community. I want to use this
opportunity to find some people who have access to a Si446x
transceiver and a Raspberry Pi, so that the code I have can be tested,
and if deemed worthy, included in the kernel tree.

My code is hosted here: https://github.com/sunipkmukherjee/silabs.git

Any suggestions/criticisms are welcome.

Thanks,

Sunip Mukherjee,
PhD Candidate,
University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Email: sunip_mukherjee@student.uml.edu | sunipkmukherjee@gmail.com

Re: Char Driver for Silicon Labs Si446x Transceivers

[Greg KH]

On Mon, Jul 05, 2021 at 06:09:28PM -0400, Sunip Mukherjee wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am very new to the kernel community; this is my first message in the
> LKML so my apologies if I am doing things wrong.
> 
> I have been using an Si4463 transceiver for UHF communication with a
> cubesat I developed. I could not find any code to control the
> transceiver on Linux. The closest thing I could find was an AVR
> implementation by Zak Kemble
> (https://blog.zakkemble.net/si4463-radio-library-avr-arduino/).
> I followed the API docs and rewrote the whole thing at first for
> userland only (can be found here:
> https://github.com/SPACE-HAUC/si446x_linux/releases/tag/v3.1), and
> then I decided it would be a great learning opportunity for me to port
> it to the kernel.
> 
> The kernel port has gone mostly smoothly. The transceiver communicates
> with the host MCU over SPI, and requires a pin for RESET, and another
> pin for IRQ.
> I have implemented the driver to provide a char device (/dev/si446x#)
> to the userland for open, read, write, poll and ioctl.
> I had initially set up a pull request for the driver and the device
> tree overlay to the Raspberry Pi kernel community. They have agreed to
> accept the device tree overlay for the device, however the driver
> needs to be included by the Linux Kernel community. I want to use this
> opportunity to find some people who have access to a Si446x
> transceiver and a Raspberry Pi, so that the code I have can be tested,
> and if deemed worthy, included in the kernel tree.
> 
> My code is hosted here: https://github.com/sunipkmukherjee/silabs.git
> 
> Any suggestions/criticisms are welcome.

If you post it in a patch form, as described in our documentation, I
will be glad to review it.  Otherwise just looking at a random github
repo is quite difficult and provides no way to give proper feedback.

Instructions on how to make a patch and submit it and the proper format
for everything can be found in the Documentation/SubmittingPatches file.

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: Char Driver for Silicon Labs Si446x Transceivers

[Randy Dunlap]

On 7/5/21 10:10 PM, Greg KH wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 05, 2021 at 06:09:28PM -0400, Sunip Mukherjee wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am very new to the kernel community; this is my first message in the
>> LKML so my apologies if I am doing things wrong.
>>
>> I have been using an Si4463 transceiver for UHF communication with a
>> cubesat I developed. I could not find any code to control the
>> transceiver on Linux. The closest thing I could find was an AVR
>> implementation by Zak Kemble
>> (https://blog.zakkemble.net/si4463-radio-library-avr-arduino/).
>> I followed the API docs and rewrote the whole thing at first for
>> userland only (can be found here:
>> https://github.com/SPACE-HAUC/si446x_linux/releases/tag/v3.1), and
>> then I decided it would be a great learning opportunity for me to port
>> it to the kernel.
>>
>> The kernel port has gone mostly smoothly. The transceiver communicates
>> with the host MCU over SPI, and requires a pin for RESET, and another
>> pin for IRQ.
>> I have implemented the driver to provide a char device (/dev/si446x#)
>> to the userland for open, read, write, poll and ioctl.
>> I had initially set up a pull request for the driver and the device
>> tree overlay to the Raspberry Pi kernel community. They have agreed to
>> accept the device tree overlay for the device, however the driver
>> needs to be included by the Linux Kernel community. I want to use this
>> opportunity to find some people who have access to a Si446x
>> transceiver and a Raspberry Pi, so that the code I have can be tested,
>> and if deemed worthy, included in the kernel tree.
>>
>> My code is hosted here: https://github.com/sunipkmukherjee/silabs.git
>>
>> Any suggestions/criticisms are welcome.
> 
> If you post it in a patch form, as described in our documentation, I
> will be glad to review it.  Otherwise just looking at a random github
> repo is quite difficult and provides no way to give proper feedback.
> 
> Instructions on how to make a patch and submit it and the proper format
> for everything can be found in the Documentation/SubmittingPatches file.

which is now known as Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst


-- 
~Randy

Re: Char Driver for Silicon Labs Si446x Transceivers

[Greg KH]

On Tue, Jul 06, 2021 at 01:17:09PM -0700, Randy Dunlap wrote:
> On 7/5/21 10:10 PM, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 05, 2021 at 06:09:28PM -0400, Sunip Mukherjee wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I am very new to the kernel community; this is my first message in the
> >> LKML so my apologies if I am doing things wrong.
> >>
> >> I have been using an Si4463 transceiver for UHF communication with a
> >> cubesat I developed. I could not find any code to control the
> >> transceiver on Linux. The closest thing I could find was an AVR
> >> implementation by Zak Kemble
> >> (https://blog.zakkemble.net/si4463-radio-library-avr-arduino/).
> >> I followed the API docs and rewrote the whole thing at first for
> >> userland only (can be found here:
> >> https://github.com/SPACE-HAUC/si446x_linux/releases/tag/v3.1), and
> >> then I decided it would be a great learning opportunity for me to port
> >> it to the kernel.
> >>
> >> The kernel port has gone mostly smoothly. The transceiver communicates
> >> with the host MCU over SPI, and requires a pin for RESET, and another
> >> pin for IRQ.
> >> I have implemented the driver to provide a char device (/dev/si446x#)
> >> to the userland for open, read, write, poll and ioctl.
> >> I had initially set up a pull request for the driver and the device
> >> tree overlay to the Raspberry Pi kernel community. They have agreed to
> >> accept the device tree overlay for the device, however the driver
> >> needs to be included by the Linux Kernel community. I want to use this
> >> opportunity to find some people who have access to a Si446x
> >> transceiver and a Raspberry Pi, so that the code I have can be tested,
> >> and if deemed worthy, included in the kernel tree.
> >>
> >> My code is hosted here: https://github.com/sunipkmukherjee/silabs.git
> >>
> >> Any suggestions/criticisms are welcome.
> > 
> > If you post it in a patch form, as described in our documentation, I
> > will be glad to review it.  Otherwise just looking at a random github
> > repo is quite difficult and provides no way to give proper feedback.
> > 
> > Instructions on how to make a patch and submit it and the proper format
> > for everything can be found in the Documentation/SubmittingPatches file.
> 
> which is now known as Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst

That's what that file says :)

I should update my bot one of these days to point to the real
location...

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: Char Driver for Silicon Labs Si446x Transceivers

[Sunip Mukherjee]

Thank you so much, I will follow the documentation and submit a patch
soon for review.

Thanks,
Sunip

On Wed, Jul 7, 2021 at 2:01 AM Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jul 06, 2021 at 01:17:09PM -0700, Randy Dunlap wrote:
> > On 7/5/21 10:10 PM, Greg KH wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jul 05, 2021 at 06:09:28PM -0400, Sunip Mukherjee wrote:
> > >> Hi,
> > >>
> > >> I am very new to the kernel community; this is my first message in the
> > >> LKML so my apologies if I am doing things wrong.
> > >>
> > >> I have been using an Si4463 transceiver for UHF communication with a
> > >> cubesat I developed. I could not find any code to control the
> > >> transceiver on Linux. The closest thing I could find was an AVR
> > >> implementation by Zak Kemble
> > >> (https://blog.zakkemble.net/si4463-radio-library-avr-arduino/).
> > >> I followed the API docs and rewrote the whole thing at first for
> > >> userland only (can be found here:
> > >> https://github.com/SPACE-HAUC/si446x_linux/releases/tag/v3.1), and
> > >> then I decided it would be a great learning opportunity for me to port
> > >> it to the kernel.
> > >>
> > >> The kernel port has gone mostly smoothly. The transceiver communicates
> > >> with the host MCU over SPI, and requires a pin for RESET, and another
> > >> pin for IRQ.
> > >> I have implemented the driver to provide a char device (/dev/si446x#)
> > >> to the userland for open, read, write, poll and ioctl.
> > >> I had initially set up a pull request for the driver and the device
> > >> tree overlay to the Raspberry Pi kernel community. They have agreed to
> > >> accept the device tree overlay for the device, however the driver
> > >> needs to be included by the Linux Kernel community. I want to use this
> > >> opportunity to find some people who have access to a Si446x
> > >> transceiver and a Raspberry Pi, so that the code I have can be tested,
> > >> and if deemed worthy, included in the kernel tree.
> > >>
> > >> My code is hosted here: https://github.com/sunipkmukherjee/silabs.git
> > >>
> > >> Any suggestions/criticisms are welcome.
> > >
> > > If you post it in a patch form, as described in our documentation, I
> > > will be glad to review it.  Otherwise just looking at a random github
> > > repo is quite difficult and provides no way to give proper feedback.
> > >
> > > Instructions on how to make a patch and submit it and the proper format
> > > for everything can be found in the Documentation/SubmittingPatches file.
> >
> > which is now known as Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
>
> That's what that file says :)
>
> I should update my bot one of these days to point to the real
> location...
>
> thanks,
>
> greg k-h