Success: MicroSDCard boots Devuan on Jornada 720

Found a free program for Win 10 and made backup disk images of the Fat32 and Ext2 partitions... called DiskGenius

I have successfully restored/overwritten several defective or deficient ext2 partitions (it is vulnerable to corruption if improper shutdown/crashes).

I found most of 99% my wasted time involved the faulty cheap off-brand microSDcards which could not be formatted. Samsung sdcards were zippy, and sandisk a bit slower...32Gb for most part. So don't get a $5 card when a $8 card will bring you success.

I have restored to old and new brand name SDcards (not micro) with no difficulty ...older cards slower on restore but run fine on J720 32Mb ram or 64Mb ram. Going to do a restore on a CF card soon. Should work fine.

So my new plan is to upload the individual partition "DiskGenius" images to HPCFactor if C:Amie goes along with the idea. Those interested can download DiskGenius (free version) and easily create the partitions without monkeying around with Linux command line, etc.

If possible, to simplify things further, I will make a full drive image and you won't have any partition work to fool around with!

Interested Factorites should download the free program above and install it and get familiar with an old sdcard or such, making say 15Gb Fat32 primary partition1,
and a 16Gb Ext2 primary partition2, and a 0.5 Gb linuxswap file partition3. Very very easy to do with the drop down menu listing partition types... it willbe a breeze, IMHO.

My image files are less than 0.5Gb for ext2, less than 0.3Gb for Fat32 (I have alot of downloaded web articles and wince backups, etc... probably near 100Mb is my stuff is deleted). I hope that is easily available for download here as I don't recall the upload limit.

This will allow me to update the ext2 partition easily as I fix or add additional features. All I ask is a reasonable donation to support the HPCFactor... and I don't mean cans of soup!! (am I right about that C:Amie? How do I go about uploading disk images). And I will include a some basic instructions. Try to dig up a pcmcia type 1 ethernet card and of course a RasPi 3B+ or 4.

We're ready... lets get you going!

joval

posted via my J720/Devuan/ethernet/RasPi "hybrid"

Well, Great! Firefox does not shut down... stays online all day long. Which means that with Devian/RasPi symbiosis, the J720 can be a dedicated pseudo-instant-on mini-desktop (literal Laptop); available anywhere at home,etc.. Start reading or listening to a site and resume doing so days later if desired...running off less than 6 watts/hr. Save files and pickup where you left off, monitor weather, whatever.
Could this mean no more dark and lonely hours in the loo??

The screen turns off automatically, saving the backlight...but pops up pronto with keyboard input. Possibilities "possibly" endless. Come and get it

joval

brought to you on a J720/Devuan/RasPi/low power "hybrid"

Edited by joval 2021-05-10 10:29 PM

Raspberry Pi has a backup program which can make a disk copy or an entire disk image. Duh, I should have thought about trying this first!! This should make creating a J720 Devian sdcard a breeze if I can get it to work... no partition or configuration modifications necessary for the rest of you. Wish me luck, this could be the Holy Grail for J720 users!! Easy Peasy, or so I hope...

C:Amie... are you out there?? Calling C:Amie.... do you read?Calling C:Amie.... do you read?Calling C:Amie.... do you read?Calling C:Amie.... do you read?Calling C:Amie.... do you read?Calling C:Amie.... do you read? over...

joval (on his J720/Duvean/RasPi).

Ok just made a disk image file using "dd via RasPi terminal command line" on a 32Gb sdcard.... img is 8Gb. I will do a restore to check its integrity and then I will try making the image without all my personal webpage files and also will try a 4Gb or smaller card... this should yield something around 500Mb to 1GB file. Thus, any of you can use this with your RasPi to create your own Devian booting sdcard. I think we have finally arrived! Easy peasy. Off to the office now, more later!!

joval

Edited by joval 2021-05-11 4:44 PM

Does anyone have a 8 GB image with software installed and everything else? I am not able to get it to work on my Jornada 720.
Tried the instructions 3 times and it get stuck failed to mount cgroup and tmpfs all the time.

Also how do you fix the white screen issue at every reboot? Or do you totally give up on having the Jornada run Windows CE and boot just in linux automatically at every restart?

I have 2Gb, 8Gb, 32GB images presently, but I am only hosting the 2Gb image which will work any SD Card 2Gb or LARGER. You will find it here toward the bottom of the first page: https://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=20175&po...

I've spend a zillion hours working through all that partition cfdisk, mkfs, extract tar.bz,then correcting the menu, and network interfaces, and much more. I have saved you the trouble and tribulation. If you have a windows laptop it takes less than 5 minutes to generate a working J720 Devuan SD Card. You just need a sd card to cf card adapter and you're set. Start with the 2GB image... fast download and fast image to disk creation. Just download it and try it. I use Fat32 partition to save wince backup file for dual boot option, Devuan/Linux is on an Ext2 partition which is faster and more appropriate for SD cards than Ext4. Trust me, just do it as I have outlined.



Very simple: do what is called a "hard reset" where you unplug the charger, remove the main battery, and permanently remove the backup battery (make a hp backup of WInCE first before booting into Linux/Devuan...you need this to dual boot back to Wince.after replacing the main battery. (To keep the backup battery alert from nagging you once back in WInCE, there is the Battery app that will stop that).
And reset the date and time. I have covered all of these things over the last few months... do a search for my name/topics and carefully READ through it. After a while you get used to the white screen when viewed from above angle and can navigate to the storage card and Jlinexec boot file.

My (version of _dev-null/Stefan's "amazing" Devuan Os port ) image creates a bootable SD Card very similar to the simple way the RaspberryPi OS microSD card is created. Super simple and easy. Do change the Params.txt file to mem=32 (as I have it as mem=64 for the J728 or equivalent) otherwise the boot will stall (I will fix later to default mem=32).

pleased to see you're interested, too.

joval


Joval

Edited by joval 2021-07-07 4:59 AM

Much appreciated, Joval! I don't mind give a try to set up things, but it is quite hard to dig into a device like the J720, since most of the info are only here and nowhere else. I tried 3 times and was not able to get it to work, and this is why I gave up and asked for a pre-made image.

I have a 4 GB card; how do I expand the file system so it will use the whole card? I know how to do it on a raspberry pi because it has pre-made scripts, but I am not sure how you do it with this version of linux.

What is not clear to me is this: if you run Linux, and you get the white screen at the subsequent reboot all the time, it means that I need to do a hard reboot every time? Which means I will never be able to use the WinCE partition ever anymore, since it get wiped every time. I hear you mentioning dual boot, but I don't see how that would be possible unless there is a bootloader; but even so, that would not work anyway since you need a hard reset of the device to get rid of the white screen issue.

I get the whole process of removing the internal battery; is that the only way to get the screen back to working conditions?

At this point I am under the impression that I require 2 cards: one for WCE with my backup and one just for Linux; and swap the card when I need to use either system. Is this the actual state of things or can I have one card and use both OS switching at will, without have to restore a backup (it takes like 10 minutes), every time I want to go back to WCE? Thanks!

You'll always get a white screen when going to back to WinCE after booting Linux or NetBSD and the only solution is removing both batteries and inserting them again. This bug is at least as old as 2004 (first reported here) and as far as I know there has never been a proper solution for it.

If you don't want to lose your WinCE files you should make backups, if you don't want to use a secondary card for the backups you can use your computer and the USB cable but depending on how many files you have that process may be slower than the card (or at least it was when I tried, it took me several minutes to copy just 4 or 5 MB).

Hi guys, listen I'm in a bit of a bitchy mood having been climbing under my motorhome to repair /replace the fuel filter and discovering a jungle of hanging wires, felt like Tarzan on a bad day cleaning up Cheetahs mess again... so excuse my bluntness.



If you take the time to read my MULTIPLE threads on Devuan setup under the Linux forums and HPC3.0/Jornada forums you will get all the answers and see the evolution of our progress.

NO!!! you do not need 2 memory cards! I greatly enlarged and changed the Fat16 partition to Fat 32, so that in addition to the linux/devuan boot files, there is plenty of room to store your WinCE HP Backup file(s) with all your apps and data files there. So when done with you Devuan/linux session, do a shut down with ctrl-alt-delete a few times, when the white screen appears do a hard reset (no batteries, no power plug ) as it reboots hold down ctrl and shift keys to avoid all that hp setup stuff if you can. Then just do a restore from your backup (using the backup icon fixed on the right side of your screen/display (2nd from top...remember) on the Fat32 partition named "storage card", use tab key and arrow keys to select backup, use arrow key to select restore option. when complete do a soft reset (hold down ctrl shift keys). Now, no need to recalibrate touch screen as your restore remembers it. Just reset date and time and you have a successful "pseudo" dual boot... with ONLY ONE SD Card. Only takes 2 or 3 minutes for WinCE reboot, about 5 minutes for Devuan/Linux to RasPi full boot up in firefox, etc.



Well you can read up on the debian command line resize option... I have yet to master it but will. Easier for now to put you J720 Devuan SD card into a windows laptop slot and download minipatitiontool, find the sd card partition, click on the freespace, create another Fat32 or another Ext2 partition, apply, and it will auto-format the new partition. Later in Devuan/Linux create a set point to access it: in media or root or wherever you want type: mkdir /cf (or SD if you prefer) followed by: mount /dev/hda4 /cf. To access the new partition just cd /home/media/cf or if in Root, just cd /cf. This will get you by for now... unless others want to weigh in...Munchausen is more expert for example.

Look, at this stage things are not as fluid as desired, I generally leave my J720 plugged in with the RasPi as well 24/7 so it's there when I want it, mostly for blogging...uses maybe 4 watts or less in idle for J720 and RasPi combo. I put it into WinCE mode if I am going somewhere to conserve battery. You can save/transfer webpages, etc from the Raspi to the Jornada storage card using "scp" and read later in WinCE using A1Reader2 app. Enough spoon feeding already...just try it warts and all...as is...get your feet wet (vs wetting your pants :0 or getting a wedgie [ArchiMarks term of endearment]...the best is yet to come and the J720 is clearly "born again." Now, it's never gonna replace our tablet in speed or display... but it is amazing to watch youtube videos on a J720/Duvean/RasPi hybrid sitting on you lap while watching a big screen TV from your favorite easy chair or just laying in bed and fall asleep without worry you'll drop your expensive laptop off the edge, etc.

Ok, I promise better behavior later!

Joval




Edited by joval 2021-07-08 1:15 AM

Hi Joval,

Hope things are looking better today....and no wedgies......

Thank you for all your hard and good work providing images...

A few questions please...

1. Do you need to use a SD card for this or can you use CF card?

2. Are all the keyboard keys mapped correctly ?

3. Anything different with your image regarding WiFi card support or same as Stefan's image?

Best,

Mark

ArchiMark! Great to hear from you.

1. Any CF, SD, or micro SD card will work... tried them all.

2. Still need to fix the keyboard mapping... do you have a good one? Appreciate you efforts in that area.

3. Basically using Stefan's Devuan port but different partitions: FAT32 and much bigger to hold WinCE backups, EXT2 instead of ext4... speeds up and best for flash memory cards (avoids excessive writes), swap drive bigger may or may not be better. Also Menu tap is reversed, my preference. Added ntp auto time update, MC file manager, did apt update, maybe has Python 3.5 too.

Stefan has done a remarkable job getting the kernels fixed, I now have kernel 4.8.7 running well on J720 with 64Mb upgrade. Will host that image too, later...

Anyway, give it a try and help where you can.

best regards

Joval

Hi Joval!

Thanks for your helpful reply and info.

1. Sounds good....nice that I can use CF card if I want....

2. The 'us-j720-key.map' file is working well. So, everyone that needs map for US keyboard in console can use the file I posted on the keymaps thread....

Unfortunately, the 'test.Xmodmap' file for use when using 'X' needs fixing per post on keymaps thread.....had hoped that Timo would fix my mistakes, but as of today, he has not responded...don't know what happened to him.....hope he's OK.....I posted in that thread today asking if he can deal with it. We shall see.

3. Sounds good....would like to use Python, so, 3.5 is good....and newer kernel is nice too.....certainly would be glad to help where I can......

Meanwhile, due to work and falling down the emacs - org-mode- org-roam rabbit hole about 2 months ago, has meant that I haven't used my J720 for quite a while, but feel lately like using it again......and if so, want to play with emacs on it....I'm getting more and more hooked on it.....



Best regards,

Mark

Hi Joval,

Tried yesterday to run your 4GB image......got kernel panic....

Thought maybe file downloaded was problem, so redownloaded file and created image on CF card again......

Tried to run it and got kernel panic again....

Hmmmmm.......

Unfortunately, without the SHA256 or md5 or other such info, there's no way to check the downloaded file to make sure it's OK before going through making image on card and testing it out.....

It shouldn't matter (I think...), but I made first image with Popsicle (comes with Manjaro linux) and second one with Balena Etcher program as I mostly use linux (Manjaro).

Oh well....

OK I will host the 2GB version again... I just wanted to "clean it up" a bit. The 4Gb was tested on a micro sd card not CF ... so I will re- do. Did you have mem=64 or mem=32? Did you try an SD Card too? Did you use Win32Imager of Etcher to burn your image? Thanks for your feedback. Anyone else having trouble or success ??

Presently I'm using the 4.8.7 kernal... mostly stable and easy to test out, just replace the 3.x.x zImage with the 4.8.7 zImage (Stefan's "do not use" version).

I'm on vacation, in the Motorhome now at the northern Calif coast and enjoying electric bicycle rides along the coast trail and visiting with friends.who have a good internet connection I'm using.

Addendum: The 2Gb image is back online... FYI params.txt has mem=64 for J728 or equiv, change to mem=32 for stock J720. This image worked for 2 other members. Good luck. I'm working on larger
sd/cf card size images. We're getting there... inch by inch maybe!

best regards,

joval

Edited by joval 2021-07-13 5:46 PM

Hi Joval,

Thanks for your reply and help.

I have mem=128m......as I have Stefan's 128MB board in my 720....

I didn't try a SD card.....don't think I have an adapter for it...

I used Popsicle on first attempt and Etcher on my 2nd attempt.....

FYI, I have two 64GB CF cards....so, larger image files are OK with me...


Yes, odd that it didn't work for me....

I can use my CF card with Stefan's image file OK....tried it this morning....

Will try your 2GB image and report back....

Thanks for your help!

Enjoy your vacation.....

Mark