IrDA (FIR) driver for Toshiba laptops

IrDA (FIR) driver for Toshiba laptops:
Libretto 100/110, Tecra 8100, Portege 7020

Macedonian translation by Eva Velesky

During june 2012 I got this from Eva Velesky : "I am a student at the Department of Foreign Languages and at the same time a volunteer at an organization named Translation for Education..." She wanted to translate this page in Macedonian. I answered : "You can do it but this may be obsolete...". Three weeks later, the translation was done. Quite bad translation, without the good HTML tags that make the readable. However, I made a link the the macedonian page. The next day, I have got a mail from James Petterson who explained why my text has been translated : don't trust those people. They making that in a commercial purpose. The translation made by Google translate (you can check that). When you post the link back to the site (where the translation is located) you help them to prove the site Google score and the PageRank of the site. The higher PageRank and Google score the more people can find the site, the more money this site cost. It's a commercial sites. He was right.

Sources (version >= 2.13)

Download v2.13
Download v2.14
Current unstable version (now under tests)

Notes

Changelog after V 1.91

Substantial rewrite with new header file corresponding to Toshiba documentation
Donau oboe support
FIR support (about 15 times faster than SIR)
Probe chip before opening

Changelog

V2.14    Sync with [Linux-IrDA] patch-2.4.1-pre8-irda1 Mon, 22 Jan 2001
V2.15    Martin Lucina <mato@kotelna.sk> sync with 2.4.18, substantial fixes
V2.16    Martin Lucina <mato@kotelna.sk> fix freeregion, default to verbose
V2.17 Christian Gennerat <christian.gennerat@m4x.org> save_flags();cli(); replaced by spinlocks
V2.18 Christian Gennerat <christian.gennerat@m4x.org> Change probe default options

Driver name

I called "donauboe". Actually, it is a new version of the Toshiba Oboe driver that is included in the Linus kernel-source tree (toshoboe version 1.91), which is always the reference for all unoptimized modes. I cannot replace this driver by the new driver before I have received some feedback.. With a different name, it is easier to maintain 2 versions of the driver. The name is the contraction of the name of the second chip (the Donau Oboe) that it can manage.

MIR problem

MIR doesn't look to work on Libretto.
Not tested.

FIR problem

The biggest problem I had during the validation was that FIR needs more bandwidth than SIR, and when a beam allow the discovery of a computer, it is not always strong enough to allow FIIR transmission, when this happens, pppd begins the connection, order a speed change, and then, do not receive anything. I have had doubts about speed changes, but it was a hardware problem.
If you want to use FIR transmission, shorten the distance between computers, and put the mirrors with a precise orientation!

Todo

Packet length check, and error return code:

Manage big received packets (over buffer size).

Improve change speed procedure, with probing FIR, and fall back to the fastest SIR.

Installation (for kernel versions not including donauboe)

Update Makefile:
- obj-$(CONFIG_TOSHIBA_FIR) += toshoboe.o
+ obj-$(CONFIG_TOSHIBA_FIR) += toshoboe.o donauboe.o

Installation

Usual installation of a module included in linux source tree.

Modprobe options

max_baud	"Maximum baud rate" Can force donauboe to work at lower speed. Correct values are: 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200, 1152000, 4000000.
do_probe	"Enable/disable chip probing and self-test" For debugging on untested configurations, run donauboe with do_probe=1 If your hardware is trustable, you can get a light driver, by changing option USE_PROBE to: #undef USE_PROBE

Performances

Using NetPerf with default data (high compression) or a gzipped file (low compression or none)

on the slave computer

netserver
ping irnet1

on master computer (Libretto 110) Donauboe-2.13

batch with netperf -H irnet2

In SIR, compression reaches a ratio of 20. effective throughput is about 50% of transfer speed.
In FIR, compression has a ratio of only 2.5. (limited by a disk access throughput of about 600kB/s), effective throughput is about 26% of transfer speed (pre-amble and post-amble generated by FIR hardware are more long than the xbofs added by SIR software).

SIR mode (115kbaud)

Slave computer is a Toshiba Libretto 50: irtty=/dev/ttyS0

TCP STREAM TEST to irnet2
Recv   Send    Send
Socket Socket Message Elapsed
Size   Size    Size     Time     Throughput
bytes bytes   bytes    secs.    10^3bits/sec

43689 16384 16384    10.17    1211.03
32768 32768 16384    10.10    1499.66
65536 131070   2048    11.75    1463.19
65536 131070 16384    11.18    1345.81
131070 65536   8192    10.21    1649.96
131070 65536 16384    10.22    1667.55

43689 16384 16384    11.00    1328.48
32768 32768 16384    10.09    1156.38
65536 131070   2048    10.97    1425.22
65536 131070 16384    10.46    1200.72
131070 65536   8192    10.21    1277.66
131070 65536 16384    10.17    1237.77

with file -F /etc/irda/pppd.log.gz
TCP STREAM TEST to irnet2
Recv   Send    Send
Socket Socket Message Elapsed
Size   Size    Size     Time     Throughput
bytes bytes   bytes    secs.    10^3bits/sec

43689 16384 16384    14.29      70.03
32768 32768 16384    11.85      72.06
65536 131070   2048    33.64      67.49
65536 131070 16384    30.69      71.17
131070 65536   8192    20.97      70.75
131070 65536 16384    19.36      67.59

43689 16384 16384    16.80      54.62
32768 32768 16384    12.00      69.44
65536 131070   2048    33.34      66.01
65536 131070 16384    29.51      72.84
131070 65536   8192    19.49      73.13
131070 65536 16384    21.17      73.94

TCP REQUEST/RESPONSE TEST to irnet2
Local /Remote
Socket Size   Request Resp.   Elapsed Trans.
Send   Recv   Size     Size    Time     Rate
bytes Bytes bytes    bytes   secs.    per sec

16384 87380 1        1       9.99        2.00
16384 43689
16384 87380 4        4       9.99        1.90
16384 43689
16384 87380 16       16      10.00       1.90
16384 43689
16384 87380 64       64      9.99        1.90
16384 43689

Slave computer is a Compaq Armada 1700: irtty=/dev/ttyS2

CP STREAM TEST to irnet2
Recv   Send    Send
Socket Socket Message Elapsed
Size   Size    Size     Time     Throughput
bytes bytes   bytes    secs.    10^3bits/sec

43689 16384 16384    10.24    1395.52
32768 32768 16384    10.08    1391.78
65536 131070   2048    10.39    1454.10
65536 131070 16384    10.43    1332.29
131070 65536   8192    10.26    1450.50
131070 65536 16384    10.26    1494.37
with file -F /etc/irda/pppd.log.gz
TCP STREAM TEST to irnet2
Recv   Send    Send
Socket Socket Message Elapsed
Size   Size    Size     Time     Throughput
bytes bytes   bytes    secs.    10^3bits/sec

43689 16384 16384    14.39      57.64
32768 32768 16384    12.44      66.33
65536 131070   2048    32.32      66.92
65536 131070 16384    33.51      61.34
131070 65536   8192    18.31      68.02
131070 65536 16384    19.94      71.47

FIR mode (4Mbaud)

Slave computer is a Toshiba Libretto 100: Donauboe 2.13

TCP STREAM TEST to irnet1
Recv   Send    Send
Socket Socket Message Elapsed
Size   Size    Size     Time     Throughput
bytes bytes   bytes    secs.    10^3bits/sec

87380 16384 16384    10.19    2187.68
32768 32768 16384    10.24    2521.35
65536 131070   2048    10.22    2391.73
65536 131070 16384    10.45    2396.57
131070 65536   8192    10.20    2603.08
131070 65536 16384    10.22    2410.94

87380 16384 16384    10.36    2543.16
32768 32768 16384    10.22    2538.78
65536 131070   2048    10.20    2389.96
65536 131070 16384    10.52    2318.29
131070 65536   8192    10.19    2605.19
131070 65536 16384    10.22    2578.94
with file -F /etc/irda/pppd.log.gz
TCP STREAM TEST to irnet1
Recv   Send    Send
Socket Socket Message Elapsed
Size   Size    Size     Time     Throughput
bytes bytes   bytes    secs.    10^3bits/sec

87380 16384 16384    10.35     987.73
32768 32768 16384    10.44    1004.38
65536 131070   2048    20.20    1027.61
65536 131070 16384    20.34    1056.57
131070 65536   8192    15.31    1048.54
131070 65536 16384    15.51    1039.34

87380 16384 16384    10.46    1052.11
32768 32768 16384    10.39    1009.58
65536 131070   2048    21.07    1015.47
65536 131070 16384    20.51    1048.30
131070 65536   8192    15.31    1052.77
131070 65536 16384    15.46    1042.66
TCP REQUEST/RESPONSE TEST to irnet1
Local /Remote
Socket Size   Request Resp.   Elapsed Trans.
Send   Recv   Size     Size    Time     Rate
bytes Bytes bytes    bytes   secs.    per sec

16384 87380 1        1       10.00       2.10
16384 87380
16384 87380 4        4       10.00       2.00
16384 87380
16384 87380 16       16      10.00       2.00
16384 87380
16384 87380 64       64      10.00       1.90
16384 87380

Applicable Models

According to Toshiba's lists for drivers

780fir98.exe	Toshiba Windows 98 Fast Infrared Port Driver (Type 0)
Applicable Models	Libretto 100CT Portege 3010CT, 3015CT, 3020CT, 3025CT, 320CT Satellite Pro 490CDT, 490XCDT Satellite 2530CDS, 2535CDS, 2540CDS, 2540XCDT, 2545CDS, 2545XCDT, 305CDS, 305CDT, 310CDS, 310CDT, 315CDS, 315CDT, 320CDS, 320CDT, 325CDS, 325CDT, 330CDS, 330CDT, 335CDS, 335CDT, 4000CDS, 4000CDT, 4005CDS, 4005CDT, 4010CDS, 4010CDT, 4015CDS, 4015CDT, 4020CDT, 4025CDT, 4030CDT, 4060CDT, 4080CDT, 4080XCDT Tecra 550CDT, 750CDM, 750CDT, 750DVD, 780CDM, 780DVD, 8000
z426ir2k.exe	Toshiba Windows 2000 Infrared Port Driver version 2.21.
Applicable Models	Portege 3110CT, 3440CT, 7140CT, 7200CT, 7200CTe, 7220CTe, 3480CT Satellite Pro 4260DVD, 4280XDVD, 4280ZDVD, 4300Series Tecra 8000, 8100