Maybe write a plugin for fwupd and upload firmware to the LVFS

[hughsie]

I'm the developer for fwupd. Would you like to write a plugin for fwupd, so that the hardware can be updated easily using the built-in tool for the Linux distro? I'd be happy to help you, but I don't have any hardware myself for testing. If this sounds interesting to you please see https://www.fwupd.org/ and if needed I can create you an account so you can have a play.

Richard. (LVFS and fwupd maintainer)

[hughsie]

If it helps, I've got a PoC 100% untested branch of fwupd that adds support for the novatek devices. I'd need a lot more support (and hardware!) to be able to upstream something that's actually going to work.

[hughsie]

Of course, the other issue is that the code is currently MIT and fwupd requires all plugins to be LGPLv2+ -- but if you own the code outright (i.e. you wrote it all) then it's easy enough to just tell me I can use the existing flashing code as LGPLv2+.

[barthalion]

I'd be happy to send my PBP to Richard if anyone from Pine64 is interested in supporting fwupd officially.

[tllim]

@hughsie, I am TL Lim, PINE64 community founder. Please email your shipping address, phone (shipping purpose) and email, I will ship the Pinebook Pro to you. Thanks to Aleix Pol ping me and bring up this attention.

[hughsie]

Hey @tllim -- you have email! Before sending hardware I had a few hardware and legal questions, but it's all in the email. Thanks.

[hughsie]

I've been working on a plugin for a few hours now. I've got one question about the source code which might explain some issues other people are hitting: #22

[hughsie]

Hi @tllim. Many thanks for the hardware, it arrived last week. I’ve written a new plugin and created a pull request against fwupd: fwupd/fwupd#2495 – the plugin mostly works, but is incomplete; I need some more information to enumerate the hardware more completely so that it can work with firmware metadata from the LVFS.

• How do you get the keyboard version from runtime mode? The USB descriptor REV already sets this to v1.0 which might be correct but seems super coincidental.
• How do you get the touchpad firmware version from runtime mode? There nothing in the HID descriptor either.
• How do you tell apart the ISO/ANSI keyboards from runtime mode? I suppose I could read and parse the HID descriptor if that’s different, but ideally I could ask the device directly with a command on either of the HID interfaces and add the appropriate GUID to the fwupd device.

Thanks,

Richard.