Mobilepro 900c and linux is possible?

Quote cmonex:
as for the m-systems DOC i don't know much about it even though i'm very interested in it. i want to access the nand
(probably DOC) flash in another hpc to copy the OS image, and there is no documentation. i do have some bootloader
code for it, but it'll need some playign with
so i'd like to know as much as possible about this topic. help
Unquote

1) The current available documentation on linux and DOC consider mostly the DOC2000: which has an 8K window.
AFAIK the window on the newer DOC's is 32K. What that matters I don't know. From the Wince registry we see that it is addressed as 8-bit data, as usual for a single 256Mb chip.

I notice that the kernel finds the Eprom disks and sets them as /dev/mtd0 etc, but fails to find the DOC.

the latter leads to
<FASTBRICK900>
mount and write to eprom memory device - fdisk is really fast!!!
<\FASTBRICK900> AND DON'T COMPLAIN YOU WEREN'T WARNED...
but then, a romdump is real easy: dd < /dev/mtd0 >outfile LOL !!



Back to the main topic:
see http://www.prosig.com/protor/kbase/DiskOnChipDevelopment-HOWTO.pdf ( working for DOC 2000, different but similar )

Maybe the kernel needs to know where to look using:

CONFIG_MTD_DOCPROBE_ADDRESS=0X80000 (or so, enough zero's anyway) - just guessing, the rest of the code is already there.

Maybe I just need some more persistence:
I have already mknodded with different known DOC major's to see if it's already there 62,63,83,93 but no luck yet.
- Need to script that next time, maybe I'll find the thing anyway going from 0 to infinity-


cosmo0 : what _do_ the kernel sources say about CONFIG-NFTL and CONFIG-MTD ?
maybe check sources at http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/

And what is a DOC anyway:

Disk-On-Chip started initially out as software:
- address a linear PCMCIA memory card through a (4K, 8K ) windowed memory area
- see it as a disk using TFFS - a software flash translation layer from M-systems


Remember LIM-EMS memory? Same principle.

then - bright idea - make a flash chip with:

- 8Kb window for addressing the chip
- MS-DOS TFFS software in (e)prom as a BIOS extension, making it a disk from bios, bootable even.
- map it directly to the bus using an address decoder.

Now all kinds of other OS's came up, so the software was moved mostly from eprom again except for its ID,
and supplied to OEM's and Microsoft to propagate the use of DOC's forever,
and infradead created/adapted the linux nftla for the DOCs to conform to the GPL -
and M-systems succeeded in propagating the uses of DOC's , and they were bought up by Sandisk,
and all was well, and the name of the chip was mDoc.

So the 900C has a 32MB / 256Mb mDoc, Windows CE just uses the standard DOC driver, knows the address
0x800000 from the registry, and paints and views the whole house through the (i think nowadays 32Kb) keyhole
and hence has a user flash disk available.

So all we need to know: can the 900C linux kernel find the DOC address, and recognize that the mDoc resides there.

hey michelbel if i showed you some asm code would you help interpreting the doc reading part? i understand the part where it actually reads the data from it, but the rest is not easy without documentation - at least i didn't find any. do you have recommendations?
the address is the same as on 900c, iirc. the cpu is xscale too.

heh on fastbrick900. will linux unlock and erase the blocks then to program the flash? without that no writing *should* be possible.
romdump is easy even under wince, i don't really like dd for the personal reason that i was led to believe dd is something special that only linux users can have.

cmonex, I can try. I have written device-drivers in assembler in a far past. So I should be able to see the stuff.

But I think that all the code is there already, but the DOC is just not seen: If the Roms at 0x0 are seen from the MTD driver, it should also spot the DOC at 0x8..... / CS2 but maybe should be directed there.
dmesg shows that the drivers are there. I rather would that it ignored the stuff at 0x0 (safer) and started at 0x8...
Maybe a good reason to limit the code.

Otherwise a simple #modprobe doc should work, but the module isn't there in the bootimage.
Just send me the stuff - you have my emailaddress.
I'll dig up the TrueFFS examples.

yes very good idea to limit the code..

i'll send you an email, thanks lots

You say Skype runs on the NEC Mobilepro 900c. Which version of Skype Mobile are you using ?

Thanks

Voip doesnt work on it yet, e.g voice calling, some sound driver issue. Works great otherwise for a messenger.

http://freeshells.ch/~wicked74/900c/skype/

Cheers.

i forgot to post the jtag info.

here it is as quoted (and translated) from my friend:

the jtag connector is the other special (white) connector beside the PIC connector. it is also under the CF slot too (easily accessible in the slot itself).

the pinout is: 8 - test, H11-ntrst 9, H12-tck 1, H13-tms 3, H15-tdi 5, H16-tdo 10, A1-DC3,3V

now could someone just tell me what software can be used for this flash+cpu

reminder: flash is intel nor flash 28f128j3c150 (2x16mb chips)


Edited by cmonex 2007-06-09 6:23 PM

sorry folks, I've had a nasty flu for over a week now so a while since posting ... getting better

cmonex, no kidding about JTAG easy access under the CF slot?? I was wondering about some of those 'gold-fingers' on the mobo, have to get out my multimeter again

AFAIK gumstix people ARE using ocd commander (uncracked) to rescue bricked gumstix ... after all if you have JTAG interface to the PXA can't you feed code to it to write to the flash chip? (ie you don't write direct to flash chip but write a script to go through PXA ...)

anyhow a couple more links this one mainly about the hardware side, cables etc which you may have sorted already

and here's some free software (linux tho' it can be made to run under windows) that claims PXA2xx and intel 28Fxxx compatibility.

I have the keyboard driver under control now. The prob was where I was buffering incoming data from the BTUART, my buffer was overflowing and trashing other variables (like the address where I was writing direct to the BTUART) so writes would go to bad places ... nuff said. Anyhow that's thoroughly taken care of now.

I'll put a new kernel image up on the web today, and get the kernel sources up there too. This version can access the CF card too!

michelbel, are you using a serial cable? I've been able to test out modules by booting up then transfering modules with rz (serial transfer) onto the mp900 ... anyhow with CF working the serial cable won't be needed ... I'll get those sources available and you should be able to try compiling a kernel and put DOC modules on the CF card for testing

cheers, cosmo0

ok, if anyone has a chance to try ocd commander before i try (or cosmo0) : initialize the ram with some commands (gumstix macro file is a good template) then download the updater bootloader (updbl.nb0) to ram and try to boot that by jumping to it (base address is 0xA00E0000). see if it boots make sure you do NOT have a saboot.nb0 on your cf card, just for first test not needed

Edited by cmonex 2007-06-12 4:39 AM

of course the normal bootloader (saboot.nb0) can be downloaded too (base 0xA0060000). hopefully one of them runs ok without modifications (but saboot might need some )

Edited by cmonex 2007-06-12 5:49 AM

Cosmo0 - no serial cable yet. Have been playing with some phone cables but not yet found a good match.
Can't you switch the IR on as console? I have a serial IR.
- and a lot of CF cards for experimenting, so I could afford to burn one or two if the CF code is not stable yet.

Uhm, I have not yet seen where/how you folks recompile the kernel for the ARM. What is it I need?
Just the Makefile with the right switches for the Arm /Xscale?

I have any kind of PC available at home, with Windows, Linux etc. ( To wit: 4 times Pentium IV, 5 thin clients, beside the three 900C's a collection of older handhelds, mini-PC's etc down to the Epson PX-8, - oh yes, and still 150 or so HP 200LX's to refurbish and sell - anyway, enough P IV's to make for fast building of a kernel)
I _assume_ I need a linux box with gcc etc set up - never bothered before with target building though.

The DSL (Damn Small Linux) config which has most of what I need, i will use parts of that.
I would like to try making a kernel that _does_ see the DOC, and _ignores_ the standard flash chips
- probably have to pass the chip-id of the DOC to allow recogniton.
Can anyone tell me what is written on the DOC ( if visible at all) ?

Cheers,

OK there's a kernel with CF support (yes use at own risk but I've had no probs so far ...) available from here

some info on usage:

This kernel has working LCD, keyboard, touch-screen and CF card support.

(the nasty bug in my earlier keyboard driver which could crash the kernel and
even corrupt your flash is gone)

Touch-screen calibration is still an issue, Y-axis is reversed and the device
is showing up as /dev/mice and not /dev/ts0 for some reason - so behaviour is
more mouse-like than what one would expect... more work needed, but some of the
calibration issues are more userland than kernel.

I made two partitions on a CF card, a small FAT16 one with zImage, HaRET and startup.txt

And a second large ext2 partition (/dev/hda2) with a suitable rootfs on it.

Hint - try a jlime image eg icewm-image-Mongo-jornada7xx.rootfs.tar.bz2
or opie-image-Mongo-jornada.tar.bz2 they both work with some errors about lack of
modules and touchscreen calibration annoyance.

See this page for some more guidance http://jlime.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=802 but
note that you have a different set of files on your FAT partition...

Start up winCE, navigate to HaRET and the zImage on the CF card, launch HaRET and try out
jlime on the mp900c!


michelbel, you need a linux box with gcc, yes and a cross-compiler set up for arm ... i've been using a uclibc buildroot from here http://buildroot.uclibc.org/ but it's kinda complicated to set up - i'm sure there's arm cross-compiling packages for most distros but I have yet to look into setting up that way...

I havn't put the latest kernel sources up yet either but will soon - my email addy is in the README with the kernel image above, please email me if you want some help getting this set up

Oh yeah, IR would be cool, and the DOC shouldn't be too much hassle

OK bye for now - cosmo0

i can tell you this evening hopefully.

as for the serial cable, connector info here if you've not seen it yet http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=8917&posts=62

I got it nicely installed from a Suse Box. Count me in in the project to make a full and mostly generic 'install manual' for the 900C with lots of pictures. Any preferred place to send it to, or should I just put it up on one of my sites?

Now for the testing ( left my 900C at home though - will be tonight).