Actions
Forum Thread Details
  • State Verified Answer
  • Replies 5 replies
  • Answers 1 answer
  • Subscribers 57 subscribers
  • Views 641 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Related

Problem getting WIFI + PWM + PYTHON/PYGAME working on the same distro.

vitormhenrique

Hi Guys, I'm looking for some help.

I'm working on a robotic project with my beaglebone black, and my problem is with which distro use.

I need to have WIFI dongle, PWM working and python and pygame installed.

I tried the latest ubuntu image (04/18/14) and the newest debian (04/23/14) and i'm having a hard time to get wifi dongles working reliable (tried using TP-LINK TL-WN823N, Edimax EW-7811Un and D-Link DWA-121).

I guess it's because both are using the same v3.8.13 kernel. If I try to upgrade to the 3.13 I can't get PWM to work.

I did not try the angstrom distro because i read that people have a lot of problems to make pyton and pygames to work properly.

Does anyone have a suggestion?

  • 0

    Vitor de Miranda Henrique wrote:

     

    Hi Guys, I'm looking for some help.

    I'm working on a robotic project with my beaglebone black, and my problem is with which distro use.

    As the new official distro, Debian seems likely to get the best support.

    I tried the latest ubuntu image (04/18/14) and the newest debian (04/23/14) and i'm having a hard time to get wifi dongles working reliable (tried using TP-LINK TL-WN823N, Edimax EW-7811Un and D-Link DWA-121).

    I guess it's because both are using the same v3.8.13 kernel.

    Not necessarily. At a basic level Debian and Ubuntu are very similar, so it's easily possible that a distro issue with wifi can get carried across to Ubuntu from Debian.

    The 3.8.x BBB kernels have historically had issues with usb hotplug without a hub, so it's still possible you're finding some quirk in the 3.8.x usb implementation for BBB.

    If I try to upgrade to the 3.13 I can't get PWM to work.

    Is wifi stable for you on 3.13 ?  If it's not then fixing the PWM won't help you much.

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    Hello agrahambell

     

    Thanks for the help, updating to the 3.13 kernel does make wifi much more stable. But Robert Nelson did not add PWM support yet to it.

     

    Unfortunately, I tested all dongles using a powered usb hub, shutting down the BBB before plugging and configuring the new dongle. So it is not a issue with power requirements and hotplug.

     

    I guess i'll have to wait until someone figure it out how to use PWM on 3.13.

     

    For now, what i'm thinking is to use a rPI with a custom made shield with some PWM and ADC ic's controlled via I2C.

  • 0 in reply to vitormhenrique

    PWM on 3.13 should be fairly simple, 3.8.x overlays for PWM exist as far as I recall so all that's really needed is to merge those fragments into the 3.13 dts and rebuild the dtb.

    The only time this gets messy is when things move around in the more recent kernels, there were some examples previously where various things were off-by-one due to the newer kernel having adjusted things to match the TI docs rather than the beaglebone docs.

  • 0

    Make sure you have enough power to the wifi dongle a DC external power source is always recommended or powered USB hub.

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    Thank you all for the help, I actually solved the problem, apparently the 3.8 kernel does not work well with the Realtek RTL8188CUS chipset, and I was very UNLUCKY to buy 3 different brands of wifi dongles that uses the same chipset.

     

    I bought a new TP-LINK TL-WN722N that uses an Atheros AR9002U chipset and wifi is working like a charm on my BBB with the 3.8 kernel.

     

    I'll do a post on my project as soon as i finish more stuff, but my go is to build a remote control robot that fire those USB Rocket Launcher and stream a  webcam for the controller computer.

     

    I'm building the control interface using pigame, and i want everything on the same "screen"  (meaning, i don't want to use montion to stream a webcam to a website / vlc and use a different "app" to control the robot. I have a service (on python) on mt BBB that handle both streaming the webcam and receiving the control code, and i have a client on my computer (on python) that receive the stream and send the control information based on user input.

     

    Thank you guys!

     

    Vitor Henrique