Netbook Pro I've found a working linux distro!

hi guys,

how is the progress?
i cant even get my netbook to boot anythink linux like :/

i followed the guide in
http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=10543&st...
by oldman

booted from the CF.

loads my nBkProOs.img,
then the screen turns black pretty fast.
i think the last line i could read was

"Resetting to RAM module."

now the netbook seems idle. there is a colored cursor top left that looks like some graphic card bug and nothing happens....

any ideas?

There's a prototype Linux Netbook on ebay... I've already mailed the guy and unfortunately there's no source with it

ok got it working now. looks like i had the wrong gpe image or something.

now i have a NB with gpe .... this is much better than winCE.

but unfortunately pcmcia, sd and usb seems to not work at all ....

I just recently followed oldman's instructions for reading the gpe jffs2 image. I must admit the first time I tried it I didn't have a clue. Nevertheless, I got the image transferred to a cf card and it booted the first time.

If anybody wants the tarbar I can upload it somewhere. The wiki perhaps?

My first impressions are that it's less of a load than the lx stuff that psion produced.

I don't have wireless yet but I'll be working on it.

Paul

Oldman, are you out there? Can I get some guidance on your instructions to load extra modules. The "file" that is to be "mv'd" is a directory and the os won't let me do that.
Thanks.

Paul

Paul, hey, do you still have that tarbar? I've tried numerous times to get gpe up and running with no luck. I was only able to get the psion image running on mine. It was pretty interesting but eventually became a dead end when trying to install new software on it. If anyone doesn't mind emailing me a tar or any other archive file with the gpe or any others I would appreciate it greatly. Just send to rw_studios at yahoo dot com. For some reason even when I managed to mount and copy some of the jffs2 files but whenever I tried them I got nothing but the strange color cursor in the top left screen that eventually turned into a smaller vertical red line or a blank back lit screen... so yeah... would be nice to just get ahold of a tarbar with the filesystem on it... Thanks.

Bob

well I found a different one on http://linuxtogo.org/~florian/index.php The file gpe-fs-cf.tar.bz2 in there works. I changed the modules as well, however even though my wifi seemed to be working and showed itself as being connected to a nearby router, minimo wouldn't connect to any pages and even wget wouldn't download a simple text file. However, I am able to connect just fine on the psionlx install. But I digress. What I really want is to just be able to install dosbox on either distro. I tried going the ipkg route with gpe and with every dependency I had to install came 4 more. I finally gave up and switched back over to the psionlx in case it might have more of the dependencies filled, however I ran into even more problems with it. I know this is a long shot but I'm just wondering if anyone has tried and managed to get dosbox on one of these and can tell me how they managed to do it. Thanks.

Bob

I guess here is where we stuck. We have PsionLX/GPE working with old kernels and that is it. What else do we need to do and how to do it?...

Just an update on things for anyone interested in this.

I have switched back to the GPE image and have been able to find the proper Familiar ipkg feeds to be able to install software. So far I've managed to install gpe-filemanager, gpe-mini-browser, abiword, dillo2, icewm, make, and some others from these feeds. I also found a working feed that had dosbox and was able to install it and get it working great. The only things I have been trying to get installed and cannot seem to are a working email program, mozilla-browser, and firefox. The downside to both gpe-browser and dillo2 is that neither of them work with sites that use cookies so no webmail or forums or anything else you have to login on.

***I did all of this without changing the modules at all!!!***

Here are the feeds:

The proper feeds for the version of familiar that is in the gpe install:
http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.8.4/feed/base/
http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.8.4/feed/x11/
http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.8.4/feed/common/
http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.8.4/feed/updates/
http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.8.4/feed/perl/

Some feeds from earlier versions that are helpful for finding other software:
http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.8.2/feed/base/
http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.8.2/feed/x11/
http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.8.2/feed/updates/
http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.8.2/feed/world/
http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.7.2/base/armv4l/
http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.7.2/x/armv4l/
http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.6/x/armv4l/

The feed where I got dosbox:
http://openzaurus.jaduncan.net/mirror/3.5.4.1/feed/base/

Some misc. helpful feeds:
http://handhelds.org/distributions/familiar/feeds/unstable/packages...
http://handhelds.org/feeds/devel/
http://handhelds.org/distributions/familiar/feeds/stable-obsolete/p...

A good site to search for packages and the feed they are hosted on is http://ipkgfind.handhelds.org
I found most of these feeds on that site just by searching for programs I needed. The easiest way to add these feeds is to run gpe-package and click on the feeds tab and then click add and add them one at a time. However I have found that trying to install software with gpe-package instead of ipkg in the terminal does not work very well. If you do not know how to use ipkg go to http://www.handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/Ipkg for instructions. You can also add the feeds to a .conf file in an editor. The information is all at the page I just listed.
Hope this helps someone.










Edited by bobbyshane 2009-05-01 1:34 PM

I'm glad there is something going on here. I thought with all the other netbooks available today there would be less and less interest.

Personally, I haven't got my oe setup going. I hold out hope that I will actually do it. The first attempt was a blind romp installing everything cookbook style. At some point I hope to actually know what I am doing.

Paul

Hello everybody,

I recently bought a Netbook Pro with 128 Mb RAM, and I want to install linux on it. I tried the method described by salmonito, but I don't have the same result. I copied the files bBkPro.img, nBkProOS.img, NBLXLoad.sh and gpe-image-3.5.4.1-netbook-pro.rootfs.jffs2 on a CF with one FAT partition. When I insert the CF card, I finally arrive on the strange cursor at the top of the screen, but nothing more. I tried to reinstall Windows CE with the 4 files (nbkpro.img, nbkprobt.img, nbkproce.img, nbkpropc.img), but I can't. I have a message that says it is already installed in the NAND. How can I completely erase this NAND, so that I can restart from the beginning? Can you explain me how to make a nbkpro.img file? I am completely lost, I can't do anything more with that Netbook Pro. I have no serial cable, I just have the USB cable.

Thanks in advance for your help.

What is the benefit of having dosbox? Can you run borland c++ 3.11 there? Or is it pretty limited? What do you use it for?

I have PsionLX, I will try the feeds supplied. I wonder if anyone used feeds to install new stuff on LX. Are we better off with GPE image in the long run? Thanks!

DVR,

First of all use the Rom Eraser from this posting http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=10543&st...

Then put the image files from here: http://www.vigay.com/psion/files/nbpswfeb18english04218.zip on a cf card and reset the device with a paper clip and press Ctrl d and then the on button and put the cf card in the machine. It should start installing the image and you should have Win CE back. (supposedly there is a french version of this image, but you would probably have to contact Psion Teklogix about that as I cannot seem to find it anywhere)

Now as far as installing linux on this machine the best way to do this is to install it onto a cf card and run it from the cf card. In order to do that you want to start by formatting the CF card into two partitions, the first being vfat and the second ext2.

You will want to use the CF boot file that Florian provided here: http://linuxtogo.org/~florian/nBkProOs.img_cf (as it boots much faster than the Psion LX boot file and will boot both the GPE image and the Psion LX image). Put this file and this file alone in the vfat partition of the card. Now, depending on which image you want to run, you will take one of two tarballs and extract it's contents into the second partition.

If you want to run the Psion LX distro extract the contents of this tarball: http://rapidshare.com/files/67872227/soho-image-netbook-pro-2005010... into the second partition and then reset the machine with a paper clip and then hit Ctrl d and the on button and it should boot into the Psion LX image.

If you want to run the GPE image download and extract this tarball: http://linuxtogo.org/~florian/gpe-fs-cf.tar.bz2 onto the second partition and then reset the machine with a paper clip and then hit Ctrl d and the on button and it should boot into the GPE image.

The benefits of running off of a CF card are: 1. Much more space for programs and files (depending on the size of your cf card) 2. you can still run Win CE on it if you need to (I rarely do anymore but I have used it a couple of times, however you are best to save any files and third party software that you will need on an sd card as you will find that with switching back and forth you have to reset the machine and its built in ram is rather poor about keeping files when this is done. 3. it doesn't run any slower than Win CE on the CF card as far as I can tell.

I myself have ended up going back to the Psion LX image as it has better support for my cisco wifi card and includes firefox and balsa of which neither one I could get to install on the GPE image. Not to mention I have come to hate the GPE window manager. It really wasn't made for a device like this. I find that Icewm works wonderfully if you don't mind taking the time to set it up. But I ended up getting used to the Psion window manager so I use it. The feeds I listed above work with both images out of the box. However the Psion LX grumbles out some strange errors when you install programs but it still works just fine for most programs. If you have no need for email or signing in to websites I would recomend the GPE image with Icewm as the window manager. It works really great and more software installs better. There are several browsers that work great in it, however none of these I was able to get installed supported cookies and shtml good enough to be able to sign into most anything. Hope all of this mumbling helps.

Edited by bobbyshane 2009-05-25 4:29 AM

Maris,

Since the post I put up about feeds I have actually switched back to the Psion image. I was able to get most software to install just fine with an error that I cant remember now that I came to find out was of no consequence. So these feeds will work. However, some apps I could not get to install without messing up the os were FBreader, gpe-mini-browser, and dillo2. Installing any of these will cause serious problems with gpe icons and I want to say that even one of these programs caused it so that it wouldn't boot back into Psion LX after resetting. Dosbox works great however. It works almost better on this machine than it does on my dual core ubuntu desktop. I actually use Wordstar 7 on it and it works great. In fact it runs much better than the proprietary pocket dos for WinCE! I would guess that borland would run good as dosbox was designed for gaming and higher memory intensive dos apps. If you don't need Firefox or Balsa than I would highly suggest going with the GPE image instead as none of the browsers that will install in GPE can handle cookies or shtml. But if you are ok with basically no email or can find a work around for it go for GPE. It handles installing software much better. You really just have to try both of them and get a feel for which one balances out for you as they both have their weak and strong points. Let me know if you try out borland and how it goes.

Edited by bobbyshane 2009-05-25 4:47 AM

Who has access to the wiki that still checks this? I would like to rewrite the CF Card install instructions. In their current form they are not very clear. Thanks.

Edited by bobbyshane 2009-05-25 4:39 AM