FOSS capabilities of the HP Veer smartphone

May 16, 2011 by Simon Fels

Yesterday HP released their new smartphone the HP Veer in the US to the market. At the same they released their webOS doctor for the new phone which is the ulitity you use when your device gets broken some way. It contains the whole rootfs and kernel files for the device so I was able to do some first research about the FOSS capabilities of the new device. Here are my first notes about the device and the software it's using:

  • Linux Kernel 2.6.29
  • Wireless chip is a bcm4319; kernel driver is found /lib/modules/2.6.29-palm-shank/kernel/net/wifi/dhd.ko; I didn't found a linux driver for the bcm4319 out there after a short search
  • Modem protocol is mostly the same as we found in the Palm Pre devices
  • The only thing about the modem that has changed is the lowlevel character of the protocol. The HCI protocol as found in Palm Pre devices isn't used anymore. Instead they are now using a shared memory buffer for the communication between the baseband the application processor. One keyword here is oncrpc.
  • Touchscreen is a cy8ctma300e from Cypress
  • most utilities like PmTilTest, PmModemInfo are still there

So far some already interesting points. Let's see when I get one of these devices in my hands do some more detail research.

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