Firewire support?

Support
1

Hello everybody,

I’m using OM 4.3 and was wondering how Firewire is supposed to work. I’m using a Macbook Air mid 2020 (Intel processor) with dual boot via Bootcamp. I installed last Saturday the version 4.3 from an external USB Key and everything is working fine : Windows 10 bootable via grub as well !

I didn’t succeed to setup the broadcom wifi but my ethernet adpater is working great.

What I’m looking for is some advises or help to setup my good old LaCie 500GB (Secure) FireWire800 external hard drive. It’s my daily disk at work. The best in the world with fingerprint.

On MacOS / Windows, I’m using this drive via Apple’s Firewire2Thunderbold + Thunderbold2Thunderbold3 (USB-C) cable adapters and everything’s working fine.

With OpenMandriva nothing shows up on KDE. I tried to check with lsusb or fdisk and nothing was found. If I used the miniUSB to USB B cable it’s working :slight_smile: But the speed is so slow… It’s not possible to run a virtual machine, even ngnix. :sweat_drops:

I tried to dig on Internet but my knowledge is limited on the subject.
Do I need to compile a new version of the kernel with Firewire support enabled ?

If anyone can push a hint, that would be awesome.
I’m not in a hurry, Mr Win and Ms Mac still available :blush:
I would like to go more with Uncle Mandriva in the next months hehe

Kind regards, and well played for the 4.3 release ladies and gentlemen. I love the speed and the simplicity.

1 Like
2

I found some info on ubuntu / debian threads about a program called bolt.
I installed the one available from the Cooker repository - yes I know I shouldn’t mix - it’s a one shot time.
Guess what? It’s working ! :sunglasses:
I manually authorized the device and the drives popped up in Dolphin !

Please find below the output of the Terminal :

[peter@concorde ~]$ boltctl list
 ● Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter (###Bullet icon is orange###)
   ├─ type:          peripheral
   ├─ name:          Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter
   ├─ vendor:        Apple, Inc.
   ├─ uuid:          b0c44402-0300-0100-ffff-ffffffffffff
   ├─ generation:    Thunderbolt 1
   ├─ status:        connected
   │  ├─ domain:     97fc0400-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
   │  ├─ rx speed:   10 Gb/s = 1 lanes * 10 Gb/s
   │  ├─ tx speed:   10 Gb/s = 1 lanes * 10 Gb/s
   │  └─ authflags:  none
   ├─ connected:     lun. 25 juil. 2022 15:28:18
   └─ stored:        no

[peter@concorde ~]$ sudo boltctl enroll b0c44402-0300-0100-ffff-ffffffffffff
[sudo] Mot de passe de peter : 
 ● Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter (###Bullet icon is green now !###)
   ├─ type:          peripheral
   ├─ name:          Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter
   ├─ vendor:        Apple, Inc.
   ├─ uuid:          b0c44402-0300-0100-ffff-ffffffffffff
   ├─ dbus path:     /org/freedesktop/bolt/devices/b0c44402_0300_0100_ffff_ffffffffffff
   ├─ generation:    Thunderbolt 1
   ├─ status:        authorized
   │  ├─ domain:     97fc0400-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
   │  ├─ parent:     97fc0400-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
   │  ├─ syspath:    /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:0d.2/domain0/0-0/0-1
   │  ├─ rx speed:   10 Gb/s = 1 lanes * 10 Gb/s
   │  ├─ tx speed:   10 Gb/s = 1 lanes * 10 Gb/s
   │  └─ authflags:  none
   ├─ authorized:    lun. 25 juil. 2022 15:32:14
   ├─ connected:     lun. 25 juil. 2022 15:28:18
   └─ stored:        lun. 25 juil. 2022 15:32:14
      ├─ policy:     auto
      └─ key:        no

Check it out now, the funk soul Open Mandriva ! :musical_note:
Right about now, the funk soul Open Mandriva ! :musical_note:

Awesome guys!

3

Hello @peter-power-594. Thanks for reporting this.

OpenMandriva is a community distribution of Linux. All the folks that do things are part time unpaid volunteers. And we all wish there were more of us.

For anyone that wants to use OMLx Rolling there is some information about that here and here.

There is a good bit of information for any users of any OMLx version here and here. Users can find more about these with an internet search.

I admit to not knowing anything about firewire or Thunderbolt. The bolt software for using thunderbolt was added May 19 by @TPG in our Cooker branch.

What is Bolt (from Fedora docs)?

bolt is a system daemon to manage Thunderbolt devices via a D-BUS API. Thunderbolt 3 introduced different security modes that require devices to be authorized before they can be used. The D-Bus API can be used to list devices, enroll them (authorize and store them in the local database) and forget them again (remove previously enrolled devices). It also emits signals if new devices are connected (or removed). During enrollment devices can be set to be automatically authorized as soon as they are connected. A command line tool, called boltctl, can be used to control the daemon and perform all the above mentioned tasks. (upstream)

More about bolt (from OMLx bolt .spec file):

Bolt is a aserspace system daemon to enable security levels for Thunderbolt on GNU/Linux.

Thunderbolt is the brand name of a hardware interface developed by Intel that allows the connection of external peripherals to a computer.

Devices connected via Thunderbolt can be DMA masters and thus read system memory without interference of the operating system (or even the CPU).

Version 3 of the interface introduced 5 different security levels,

in order to mitigate the aforementioned security risk that connected devices pose to the system. The security level is set by the system firmware.

Today I backported the bolt package to Rolling and Rock/4.3 testing repositories. Users with a need for this my install from terminal:

Edit (2022-07-29): Packages are now moved to regular repositories.

Rock/4.3 x86_64:

sudo dnf --refresh in bolt

Rolling x86_64:

sudo dnf --refresh in bolt

If you use znver1 simply change the x86_64 to znver1.

Normally packages are moved from testing to regular repositories after approximately 4 days if there are not reports of issues.

1 Like
4

@ben79 CC @TPG
Thank you very much for pushing the package and all the info :+1:
I haven’t tested - and can’t test - with external display or similar devices but for a daily use with external hard drives the current bolt package seems to work great ! :muscle:

5

Thanks for the feedback. Hope you enjoy OpenMandriva Lx.

1 Like
6

bolt packages are moved to regular repositories. Post 3 above is edited to reflect this change.

1 Like