It doesn’t actually build properly… I’m using it on a Ubuntu 12.04.2 host, which was the specified host for 1.04.06 (the release which had a text file detailing the build steps when the other buildroot’s dont)…
1.04.06 builds fine on this system as expected and compiles a full 75MB+ firmware… however the buildroot provided for 1.06.06 errors several times, and finally produces an unsafe to flash 6MB bin file which is incomplete.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by build properly. If you mean that it doesn’t turn into the firmware that is installed on your device, then it won’t because it does not contain the proprietary programming that we add for our products.
The 1.04.06 (older) buildroot from that same page builds a fully working firmware as far as I can tell… I flashed it and it worked just fine! I never rebooted the device before flashing back to 1.06.06 so it may have failed to boot I guess… but as far as I could tell nothing was missing. (It may have rebooted during flashing actually)
I assumed the WD proprietary stuff was the added WD section in buildroot and it was just either gpl’d or was binaries that got pulled in.
Even if the intention was not to build a release like flash able firmware, there’s still a problem as 1.06.06 errors out all over and produces only a 3MB bin file (I didn’t try but I guess this would fail to flash), when the older one produces 79MB bin file after running the build script.
The GPL source code contains all the open-source programming that we use. You might be able to compile a working firmware out of it, if you really know what you’re doing, but we don’t provide support doing that.
I’m going to escalate you, so that we can make sure that this isn’t a firmware issue that you are experiencing with 1.06.06.
As far as I can tell, there is no reason to use 1.06.06. You will not get any advantages or improvements. Yes, 1.06.06 is newer, but it does not provide any enhancements over 1.05.01.
As I wrote in my post in the ‘where did 1.06.06 go’ thread:
When the device is left charging for long periods of time, the battery will discharge down to 80% and will maintain that level of charge. The amount of time for this to happen varies as follows:
Firmware v1.05.01: When the device is left charging and powered on for a 9 hour period of time or longer.
Firmware v1.06.06: When the device is left charging and powered on for a 72 hour period of time or longer.
Maybe WD wants to play it safe and let the battery discharge after only 9 hours rather than 72 hours? Maybe they found that 72 hours was too long and might cause battery bloating/failure?
Why chance battery failure (if you leave your passport plugged in after it has reached full charge)? What advantage would anyone get with 1.06.06?
I still have WD’s original bin file for the 1.06.06 release, and I did use that release without problems for quite a while, but I never left the passport plugged in for too long after it was fully charged. Even though I still have the 1.06.06 bin, I really can’t think of a reason why I would want to use that over 1.05.01.
