Netbook Pro I've found a working linux distro!

Damn, salmonito, good work getting the right combo set up! Got it up and running, as well.

Very interesting to watch the serial output when it was booting... but waaaay to lengthy to post here.

I did grab a few photos of various screens, including the warning that salmonito mentioned. You can look at them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10209838@N04/sets/72157602794463379/

Have not tried any of the other JFFS2 files yet. From the warning message, it appears that the nBkProOs.img file is tied to the JFFS2 file.

Ok... now it's time to play!

I have tried two more jffs2. One 20 Mb from Florian's website, it contained OpenEmbedded Linux, difference was it took more space and had Gaim and AbiWord in it. Looked like OpenZaurus one had more features like usb setup(did not work yet with my USB devices). The second file was jffs2 from ~anonymous at linuxtogo, it was 20 mb Familiar linux, same as OpenEmbedded version, had Gaim (did not work) and AbiWord. All had same kernel 2.6.9. I liked OpenZaurus the best, it also has newer version of mail client. I still cannot make my Cisco Aironet 350 PCMCIA Wireless card working. Card is recognized in PC/CF settings but says driver not loaded upon selecting airo_cs driver nothing happens...
Good Eddie eh?

Edited by salmonito 2007-10-30 7:53 AM

@salmonito and @Eddie:

Congratulations!

But, before doing it the same way myself, I have a question: After installing and running Linux using the images from http://www.linuxtogo.org/~anonymous/ - did you ever try to re-install Windows CE.NET? Maybe via the package "Netbook_Pro_-404_Int'l_Package.zip" from http://www.psionteklogix.com/ (download requires registration)?

I just think it could happen I want to sell my machine one day, and therefore I would like to be able to restore CE.NET.

Did not try it yet

Whoa! You guys are great! Good job! Persistence pays off.

Paul Krupa

Well me personally did not do much in terms of preparing images and loaders, and etc... I hope I will be able to do that one day. Say thanks to Keon, Florian, From Angstrom, OpenEbmedded peojects, etc...

Yes, Thank you Keon, Florian and the other open Angstrom folks. I tried to contact them in the past when I stumbled on their NB images but I never heard anything. I was looking for more contact info when I stumbled onto this thread! Lucky me! I'm still trying to find my power supply so I can give this a whirl.

Paul Krupa

PS It's interesting to note the path to success here. Without the proprietary info from Psion, the object was elusive. I would be very interested to learn the process of discovery here, specifically, how do you start to uncover the information inside these machines. Perhaps trial and error as you did.

One other thing. I posted the "announcement" on the Psion netbook pro board. I hope this generates more interest and activity.

Paul Krupa

Where is that Paul?

This is the PDA streets forum that includes a lot of handhelds but maintains several psion forums.

http://www.pdastreet.com/forums//forumdisplay.php?s=e3bd8598e8f94bb...

Salmonito,
I was trying to snag the sh file off the above referenced page and it said I didn't have permission. Is there some direction I am missing? Thanks.

Paul Krupa

http://www.linuxtogo.org/~anonymous/ sh script file is there... you gotta do "save as" or "save link as" (firefox in Linux)

no, the damn download doesnt need registration if you know the direct link: http://www.psionteklogix.com/assets/downloadable/developer/Netbook_...

Eddie sign up for the forum I will forward you a very cool letter about Native Psion linux I just reveived... We have those sources.

Hi, I have both a netbook pro and a netbook pro LX (on loan from www.pulster.de). Before celebrating too soon the original LX linux (sources), which I have, I want to say that I have played a few days with it, and it has some potential interesting base (based around GPE), I found the selection of software not very good. Starting firefox took much more than 30 seconds. (However minimo should be a better option). I had problems with files on CF cards, which the LX did not see. (Even after unmount and remounting; it looked like it wanted to persist to data in a cache which could not be flushed).

I think we should focus on getting a good description on how to install the Angstrom distribution on the netbook.

One of the questions I have seen in this forum about returning to Windows CE once Linux had been installed. I tried this, and it is possible. However if NAND errors appear, it may be necessary to use the solution in the BoostDongle pdf file which I created earlier.