[REQ: GLOBAL] Linux Boot CF for Jornada 728

Looking for Linux (English language) installed on a CF that will boot on the Jornada 728. Will reimburse via PayPal for cost of CF +reasonable labor.

Thanks, Hal

Edited by Hal 2010-02-07 3:55 PM

Have you checked into JLime?
I went through the process yesterday of formatting and copying files to a CF card for the Jornada 690 and it was a pretty easy procedure (I'm not a gifted Linux user by any stretch).
Of course, I'm doing this in preparation for receiving my Jornada later this week, so I haven't tried it yet, but everything went smoothly to create the file system on the card.
If your interested, the instructions for the 700 series are here: http://jlime.com/mw4/index.php/Installation_j700
Hope that helps.

I figured it out, for what I want. Jlime was my primary focus. My stumbling blocks had to do with the need for a compatible CF (Sandisk 2gb Ultra II in my case worked, while others didn't for the particular userland I chose) and a PC linux that does what is necessary, given the loose nut behind the wheel....me . Initially I used a Ubuntu liveCD to prep the CF and accidently blew away my HD NTFS and had to reinstall WinXP. Initially I could not get the Sandisk to work after the prep in Ubuntu, so I made a PuppyLinux liveCD and that worked yesterday and seems to have more obvious safeguards to prevent messing up the HD.

So thanks for the advice!!





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That's awesome. Glad it's working. Makes me excited to get mine up and running.
By the way, I've used Puppy Linux a lot and really like it. They make it very user friendly and always pop up lots of warnings to help keep me from doing something I shouldn't.

*sniffle*
It brings a happy tear to my eye to see people enjoying something that i have built (mongo/henchman).

RTFM: Out of curosity, why are some userlands CF dependent and some not?? (should start another thread, I suppose)

.....and what does one do to add in other apps?

Edited by Hal 2010-02-10 2:12 AM

Snappyjaw: My first attempt at partitioning and copying files went well, until I tried to run it and then chased my tail for a week debugging...good luck!

Thanks. I'll let you know how I do.

Long story short. The old 2.4 kernel based userlands the kernel booted into an initrd (base system mostly running in ram), then it searched for drives (cf cards) and treated them as generic drives. The 2.6 kernel does not boot into an initrd (much faster, and less resources) but that presents the problem. The kernel now treats the CF card like a hard drive. The problem is there are hundreds of CF cards and manufacturers. The kernel needs the ident string of each card added to its source and rebuilt in order for it to recognize the CF card. CF cards are not meant to be the 'primary' drive and the vanilla kernel doesn't support them as 'hard drives' but rather as generic slave drives. That's about the best i can explain it. Thats why Kristoffer asked on jlimes forums for people to post their cards and sizes of what works and what doesn't. Then the ones that don't need to boot his 'special' kernel which uses an initrd so users can access the CF card enough to get the ident strings and post them so he can add them to the current kernel for better card support.

As for adding more software, jlime moved the package feeds so you'll have to edit /etc/ipkg.conf and change the package feed url's to point to these instead.

src/gz base http://repository.jlime.com/hp7xx/mongo/feed/base
src/gz charmap http://repository.jlime.com/hp7xx/mongo/feed/charmap
src/gz jornada7xx http://repository.jlime.com/hp7xx/mongo/feed/jornada7xx
src/gz lib http://repository.jlime.com/hp7xx/mongo/feed/lib
src/gz libs http://repository.jlime.com/hp7xx/mongo/feed/lib/libs
src/gz locale http://repository.jlime.com/hp7xx/mongo/feed/locale
src/gz doc http://repository.jlime.com/hp7xx/mongo/feed/doc
src/gz dev http://repository.jlime.com/hp7xx/mongo/feed/dev
src/gz gpe http://repository.jlime.com/hp7xx/mongo/feed/morgue/gpe
src/gz x11 http://repository.jlime.com/hp7xx/mongo/feed/x11


Then in terminal type: ipkg update

Now use a browser and go to: http://repository.jlime.com/hp7xx/mongo/feed/ and look around for what you want. Most of the usefull stuff is in /base and /x11. Say you want irssi irc chat client. Type: ipkg install irssi

Cheers.

Edit: Also i noticed you said j728, but your ram only shows 32mb in your picture. To use the full 64mb on a 728 edit the params.txt (on fat partition) to say mem=64m instead of the default of 32m and it will run much faster.

Edited by RTFM 2010-02-10 4:28 AM

Thanks for the tips, RTFM!!!! Thought I did edit mem to 64, but will check again....obviously not for the pic I took a couple days ago.

As the next steps, a friend of mine is working toward running a TI99-4A adventure game on Linux on the Jornada 728 (would getting it running on something like PC-PuppyLinux first be advisable?). The s/w is already running on the Jornada 728 using a DOS emulator on CE3, so we are interested to see if performance might improve, since the CE3 and emulation are so slooooooo.

Edited by Hal 2010-02-10 2:54 PM

RTFM: Is there such a thing as a Screensnap type of program for Jlime/PuppyLinux? I've been looking on the net for images to view of Jornadas running these programs and almost all images are taken with a camera, except for perhaps the Opie screenshots, but I believe that Opie runs only on the 680/690 not the 720/728.

C:Amie: Since Hal no longer is looking for a Compact Flash Card running Jlime, can you please move this thread to the Linux Forum, so that we can continue our discussion about Jlime there?

Thanks

Christopher: Yes fbgrab is installed. In terminal type: fbgrab -s 10 /path/to/saved-image.png
Example: fbgrab -s 10 /root/screenshot.png ( the -s 10 means it'll pause 10 seconds before grabbing the image )

Hal: Your guess is as good as mine on that subject.

Cheers

RTFM: I checked the parms file and it is set to mem=64 for the Jornada 728. The "32" in my pic above is the number of processes running when I took the pic. Thanks!

Now that it is working, I am trying to get viewers of the Jlime forum to share their useful scripts.

Also, I have used WinHex to clone the CF so I can have a backup and to share. Takes 45 minutes, but don't have to do all the partitioning and file prep...just set it and forget it, as the rotissery guy says.

Edited by Hal 2010-02-19 4:56 PM