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J-720 Distro Progress

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karloch Page Icon Posted 2006-02-04 7:28 AM
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ProgramSynthesiser - 2006-02-04 8:28 AM
Hardware support? That should not take much fiddling, we will see. And I think that I will do things differently this time, and I might start with a somewhat more prepared filebase to begin with, instead of the default Woody install. But I also might not. It would just be to get battery status working, which is important to me. Maybe even sound could work too? I have spent more time on the software than the hardware, but I will finally be able to change that.

Ey PS, I don't get your meaning. Things like battery status and sound are already supported and working. Debian Woody is a good base, but too old now. It would be better to use Sarge.

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Also, as I have already stated, I am highly against both apt and ipkg. This is my distribution, and I want to get it as far away from Debian as possible! Of course, I will leave apt in there, even if it is somewhat crippled. Ipkg is an irritant for me. I will use it to get X and other basics running, and then will probably dump it. I do not want this to be a crippled Linux install, but an incredible one.

That's a bad thing You can build a wonderful distro with lots of useful things, but people will always have their needs. The users will always need to install additional software that it's not included in the distro. This is totally normal, there is no distro in the world that has by default every package needed by everyuser.

Also, package systems exist because they are damn useful for mantain the system and keeping it clean from unused software and dependencies. Debian package system is the best in that field. So, why to negate something that every distro is trying to imitate? Indeed you can install software compiling source code packed in tar.gz, but... if we want to uninstall? and what about dependencies? Tarball are nice, but there is no apt like tool for that package system, and... do you know any ARM tarball repository?

Debian is the distro that has far better support for our Jornada. I really do not get your point dropping it.

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Like I said before, I will probably compile a lot of the software, as many ipkg ones do not have enough extras installed, and apt's have too much.

That's good, but as I said, the users will always need to install new software or even upgrade the current one installed.

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When I get a solid base with a beta out, I will give it to all of you, and give out bits of work to be done. (Assuming that you?, Karloch, and that Linux user who slipped by me join me on this distribution). For now, everyone wait for me to get everything back up and running, it is too much to think about before I even bid on the microdrive.

I'll test it, but I think that you are taking the wrong approach. However first problem to treat is the suspend thing. There is no point working on a distro for the Jornada, if we can't solve that issue like Jlime does.

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EDIT: Unless if I can get to the point of coding small scripts quickly, there will be a lot of manual labor - deleting files, I mean.

There shouldn't be so many. Even if you manage to build a wonderful distro by cutting down by hand, are you willing to mantain it? (upgrade packages when time comes). If it's not done, the distro will get outdated. Doing it manually will be a lot of work. With Debian packaging we may be losing some space, but there will be no problem mantaning the distro updated and full ready-to-run binary ARM programs.

Greets!
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karloch Page Icon Posted 2006-02-04 7:31 AM
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[Double Posted >_<]

Edited by karloch 2006-02-04 7:32 AM
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snickersmd Page Icon Posted 2006-02-04 9:44 AM
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Glad to see someone else here.
...
This is great, I am finally seeing more people cheering this project on!


Not a problem, the power of Linux is collaboration. The problem up until now is a lack of active collaboration for a j720 distro. It seems like all parties involved stopped playing around mid-2005, at the same time. Although I may have different goals than you, I chose to speak up in here since this thread is probably the only active thread in which j720 Linux is being discussed.

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Also, as I have already stated, I am highly against both apt and ipkg. This is my distribution, and I want to get it as far away from Debian as possible! Of course, I will leave apt in there, even if it is somewhat crippled. Ipkg is an irritant for me. I will use it to get X and other basics running, and then will probably dump it. I do not want this to be a crippled Linux install, but an incredible one.


It is completely your prerogative to decide how you want your distro to take shape, and I didn't join to argue with you. However, you really should take that power of collaboration into consideration, and listen well to all sides of the debate. I think Karloch was very right when he wrote:

Karloch
Even if you manage to build a wonderful distro by cutting down by hand, are you willing to mantain it? (upgrade packages when time comes). If it's not done, the distro will get outdated. Doing it manually will be a lot of work. With Debian packaging we may be losing some space, but there will be no problem mantaning the distro updated and full ready-to-run binary ARM programs.


...so if you're going to say that everyone else has it wrong and you want to reinvent it to have it right, you better be willing to back it up. At least by following the herd, you can worry less about maintenance and more on tight integration of the distro components, which is what is really lacking.

PS, it's funny to note that you want to take this distro "as far away from Debian as possible," while the author of ipkg stated that his philosophy was "to do everything like Debian unless there is a strong reason not to." Since your philosophies clearly differ from Karloch and I, and yet we really need to get everyone we can into this project to ensure good support for the j720, maybe we could meet in the middle. An excellent design model would be how Familiar/Intimate worked, with Familiar being the base distro, and if they wanted full Debian power they would install Intimate on top which provided that functionality.

ps
That should not take much fiddling, we will see. And I think that I will do things differently this time, and I might start with a somewhat more prepared filebase to begin with, instead of the default Woody install.


karloch
Indeed. Do you know any easy way to bootstrap a debian install on the Jornada? I would like to install a brand new stable, so the packaging problem from the Matthis image would be solved and full support is already there. Almost perfect distro!


Why Woody? It's a bit dated. It's bad enough that, we're stuck on 2.4 kernels, and even under Sarge, we still have to use the Woody PCMCIA modules since anything newer just crashes on a j720 with 2.4. Karloch, I'm also using the Matthis image, I took the small one and am crafting it into a mixed distro. A dist-upgrade breaks it, so I'm just installing and upgrading stuff as I need it. The repository does have its bugs (missing packages and whatnot) so I do find myself downloading packages by hand sometimes but not often.

Not that 2.4 is really bad per se, but the reason that kristoffer and jlime stopped using it was that it would eventually be less supported in terms of hardware drivers. Right now 2.4 is the best choice for us, but as soon as Michael gets to a working 2.6 I'm jumping right on.

karloch
How do you power off your Jornada?
...
We need to know how to get back to Windows CE from Linux. Isn't there any Jornada 720 guru in HPCFACTOR?


Michael's e-mail to PS already hints that getting a jlime-like suspend has a lot to do with how the MIPS processor in the 6xx starts reinitializing the Windows CE boot rom after leaving linux. The ARM processor in our 720s works differently, so to get this functionality, it may take some boot loader hacking (which Michael maintains, and his major goal with the boot loader is getting 2.6 to boot smoothly, so I can imagine this isn't high on his priority list.) or some kernel hacking, to reinitialize Windows CE properly as the Linux kernel exits. Judging from the crowd we have here, I doubt that we have coders of the required skill level (yet) among us but if we show active interest by participating in this effort, then I believe the coders will follow.

Right now, as I am still tweaking my installation, powering off hasn't been an issue. Although it's a pain, I don't mind the reboot-with-battery-pullout to hard reset the Jornada, I've actually gotten quite fast at it. I may even wire a kill switch in there (physically attacking the motherboard or the battery itself). Personally I haven't been too concerned about battery life or suspend or reboot myself. My current battery, a used 1920 mAh standard, lasts about 7 hours running completely down. I haven't measured how long it lasts under the kernel "suspend" mode. And should things become a problem, I'm prepared to recell the battery to a 2400 mAh. I'm actually one of the battery hackers from the PalmOS forums at Brighthand, and I am more than comfortable about cracking my battery open to get more life out of it, rather than wait for some kernel code to be written that will suspend better. And now that I think about it, a small switch could be installed inside the battery casing itself, that when pressed could kill the power and effectively hard reset without doing a battery shuffle. Hey, if no one does a proper software hack, I'm ready for a good hardware hack.

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However first problem to treat is the suspend thing. There is no point working on a distro for the Jornada, if we can't solve that issue like Jlime does.


Ah, which comes first, the chicken or the egg. If we don't hang around here and show the Linux community that there is a demand for Linux on the j720, no one will see the need and the code will never be written. If the code is never written, then j720 linux will be forever crippled. I say jump in, use Linux as it is for now and do anything to make it better, even if it's the most miniscule feature. If there is a community, the coders will come. jlime was the effort of two guys, then just one, but because of the forum, coders started popping up. Someone is going to need to get a dedicated website and forum to this effort if we want that kind of collaboration.
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karloch Page Icon Posted 2006-02-04 10:30 AM
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snickersmd - 2006-02-04 3:44 PM

Why Woody? It's a bit dated. It's bad enough that, we're stuck on 2.4 kernels, and even under Sarge, we still have to use the Woody PCMCIA modules since anything newer just crashes on a j720 with 2.4. Karloch, I'm also using the Matthis image, I took the small one and am crafting it into a mixed distro. A dist-upgrade breaks it, so I'm just installing and upgrading stuff as I need it. The repository does have its bugs (missing packages and whatnot) so I do find myself downloading packages by hand sometimes but not often.

That's why I was talking about bootstrap a new Debian Sarge install on our Jornada, but it's true that we need the pcmcia-cs from Woody... It will be difficult to bootstrap new Debian installs...

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Michael's e-mail to PS already hints that getting a jlime-like suspend has a lot to do with how the MIPS processor in the 6xx starts reinitializing the Windows CE boot rom after leaving linux. The ARM processor in our 720s works differently, so to get this functionality, it may take some boot loader hacking (which Michael maintains, and his major goal with the boot loader is getting 2.6 to boot smoothly, so I can imagine this isn't high on his priority list.) or some kernel hacking, to reinitialize Windows CE properly as the Linux kernel exits. Judging from the crowd we have here, I doubt that we have coders of the required skill level (yet) among us but if we show active interest by participating in this effort, then I believe the coders will follow.

Jornada 680/690 does not use a MIPS processor. They use a Hitachi SH3. Anyhow you are right, to get our distro back from Linux to Windows CE will requiere some coding skills that we don't have. I like the idea of the hardware poweroff hack, by adding a switch to the Jornada (I have two batteries, so the hack should be done at the Jornada and not the battery). Any idea of how to do that?

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Ah, which comes first, the chicken or the egg. If we don't hang around here and show the Linux community that there is a demand for Linux on the j720, no one will see the need and the code will never be written. If the code is never written, then j720 linux will be forever crippled. I say jump in, use Linux as it is for now and do anything to make it better, even if it's the most miniscule feature. If there is a community, the coders will come. jlime was the effort of two guys, then just one, but because of the forum, coders started popping up. Someone is going to need to get a dedicated website and forum to this effort if we want that kind of collaboration.

You have a good point here. I think that you are right.
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oski Page Icon Posted 2006-02-04 2:46 PM
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Hi,

While experimenting with linux (Matthis Debian-Sarge) I am using a Microdrive in the CF slot, (cover removed!!), sitting on the cradle protects the microdrive, and I use it WITHOUT the batteries, to make hard resetting easy. Question: is this setting OK or I will fry my j720?

oski
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snickersmd Page Icon Posted 2006-02-04 4:10 PM
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karloch - 2006-02-04 9:30 AM

That's why I was talking about bootstrap a new Debian Sarge install on our Jornada, but it's true that we need the pcmcia-cs from Woody... It will be difficult to bootstrap new Debian installs...


I did look into using a Debian ARM net disk but I don't think it's easy enough to be practical, especially considering how a lot of the newer packages in "stable" just don't run on the j720. Many stable packages seg fault, and I can't figure out why, so it's really just trial and error to see which versions of which pre-compiled packages will run well. It's just easier to use the Matthis image and update the parts that need to be updated. It may even be a good idea to take the Matthis files, update the base files to current stable, and then make a new tar-gzip distro from the updated Matthis.

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Jornada 680/690 does not use a MIPS processor. They use a Hitachi SH3.


Oops! I knew that, but must've been thinking MIPS after reading Michael's e-mail to PS. j6xx uses SH3, j7xx and j8xx use ARM, and the NEC Mobile Pro uses MIPS.

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I like the idea of the hardware poweroff hack, by adding a switch to the Jornada (I have two batteries, so the hack should be done at the Jornada and not the battery). Any idea of how to do that?


To modify the battery itself is much simpler, as a normally closed push button switch can be put in between the battery cells and the protection circuit (these are connected by a single wire, so cut and insert), and squeezed into the case. To do the mod to the Jornada itself, one would have to break the contact from the battery connector's positive terminal, and run tiny wires from the battery connector and the motherboard to a pushbutton switch. This can be done elegantly but it wouldn't be for the faint of heart; one slip up and your soldering iron can toast a motherboard component.
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snickersmd Page Icon Posted 2006-02-04 4:14 PM
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oski - 2006-02-04 1:46 PM

Hi,

While experimenting with linux (Matthis Debian-Sarge) I am using a Microdrive in the CF slot, (cover removed!!), sitting on the cradle protects the microdrive, and I use it WITHOUT the batteries, to make hard resetting easy. Question: is this setting OK or I will fry my j720?

oski


It certainly doesn't sound like you'll have a problem with that. I'm looking into a mod to the Jornada's bottom case to allow CF type II (i.e. Microdrives) while keeping the shutter door. It will involve the removal of the plastic that frames the backup battery, which you don't need anyway if you're running Linux.
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cmonex Page Icon Posted 2006-02-04 5:16 PM
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snickersmd - 2006-02-04 3:44 PM

Ah, which comes first, the chicken or the egg. If we don't hang around here and show the Linux community that there is a demand for Linux on the j720, no one will see the need and the code will never be written. If the code is never written, then j720 linux will be forever crippled. I say jump in, use Linux as it is for now and do anything to make it better, even if it's the most miniscule feature. If there is a community, the coders will come. jlime was the effort of two guys, then just one, but because of the forum, coders started popping up. Someone is going to need to get a dedicated website and forum to this effort if we want that kind of collaboration.


OK. you convinced me! i'll install linux on my j720 asap (ok, first to get the newest knoppix and learn some linux commands... i'm a total newbie at this.)
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sophisticatedleaf Page Icon Posted 2006-02-04 6:24 PM
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karloch - 2006-02-04 4:08 AM

Isn't there any Jornada 720 guru in HPCFACTOR?

Why do I feel ignored?

Karloch, ever hear of swaret? It is exactly like apt. And there is also slapt-get. I thought about this already. Anyways, packages are _not_ important right now. I have bigger things to worry about.

Yes, of course I am willing to maintain my distribution. And if I get things my way, there will only be one big deletion of files, and things should be smooth from there.

snickersmd, I am willing to meet in the middle until something stable is reached. Then I will branch off my own way. But for now, there will be full Ipkg and Deb support, because that is where the software is. Believe me, I am not trying to kill the project.

Argh. Are you both missing something?! Matthis's image is not as good as mine is, and he started off the same way! I have a stable Sarge base, better than his. I simply need to rebuild it from the Woody - you cannot start off Sarge currently. Look closely at his base, you will see the Woody remains. Anyways, we also have a big problem that you both forgot to mention. For some reason, and this goes back to woody, only the very dated pcmcia_cs works! That is preventing us from using certain cards, and may also explain the resume crash if a card is plugged in. That should be priority 2. I do not know the cause, yet. Oh wait, Karloch mentioned it.

Anyways - priority 1 is to figure out what needs to be changed for the reboot into CE. I think it has a lot to do with the shutdown command, telling it to go into that part of the rom as the last instruction.

I am becoming very irritated - I cannot explain what I mean until I can show you all! Right now, I need to wait for a microdrive to come in, which I can finally afford. Until then, I see no point in arguing. In the meantime, I need to desperately work on learning C. We are useless with a couple of coders.

There will be few replies from me, if any, until everything is sorted out.
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MichaelGernoth
MichaelGernoth Page Icon Posted 2006-02-04 6:27 PM
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Just some remarks after reading this thread:
Yes, I mixed up MIPS with SH3 when thinking about the 680. But the resume-process on SH3 is much friendlier than on ARM. IIRC you simply load the address of the wakeup-code in a register of the processor and put it to sleep. On ARM you can't decide where the processor resumes. It will always start on 0x0 in ROM. On the jornada, there is a direct jump to 0x1000, which is still in ROM and resembles remarkably some sample wince-bootloader code found in the MSDN. But I couldn't find an easy way to resume linux by disassembling the bootloader (with gnu objdump). If you want to dump your win ce rom to a file for further examination, I put my rom-dumper at:
http://wwwcip.cs.fau.de/~simigern/jornada-7xx/utils/
(wwwcip.cs.fau.de is a new alias for wwwcip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de, so it's still the same site)

Yes, there is a ChangeLog for my 2.4 kernels available at: http://wwwcip.cs.fau.de/~simigern/jornada-7xx/ChangeLog But in short: Sound should be much more stable in 2.4.32-j720-4

The pcmcia-cs package from sarge work fine for me, but its default-config is broken: Comment out all include-lines in /etc/pcmcia/config.opts before starting the new cardmgr. Don't let the cardmgr be restarted during the upgrade! Change the file and reboot (through wince :-( )

Btw, I've uploaded the documentation I sent ProgramSynthesizer to: http://wwwcip.cs.fau.de/~simigern/jornada-7xx/docs/

And, please use the linexec from: http://cvs.zerfleddert.de/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/linexec-j720/out/linexec.exe
This fixes a kernel command line termination bug. I've replace all linexec copies on wwwcip with this one now.
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cmonex Page Icon Posted 2006-02-04 6:47 PM
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MichaelGernoth - 2006-02-05 12:27 AM

If you want to dump your win ce rom to a file for further examination, I put my rom-dumper at:
http://wwwcip.cs.fau.de/~simigern/jornada-7xx/utils/
(wwwcip.cs.fau.de is a new alias for wwwcip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de, so it's still the same site)


wow, thanks for this.

also the docs are very interesting, reading through them (not that i understand too much of them..)

edit: Michael, i have a problem with your dump tool, ... how do i run it to get the image? i have used some such dumpers but they always were just exe's that i could run under CE. thanks..

Edited by cmonex 2006-02-04 6:51 PM
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MichaelGernoth Page Icon Posted 2006-02-04 7:26 PM
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cmonex - 2006-02-04 12:47 AM

edit: Michael, i have a problem with your dump tool, ... how do i run it to get the image? i have used some such dumpers but they always were just exe's that i could run under CE. thanks..


Download the 'dumpme' file, make it executable with chmod 755 dumpme and then run it as root with: ./dumpme in a directory with at least 24MB free space. (The best thing would be to use a network filesystem):

journey [~]> uname -a
Linux journey 2.4.32-j720 #1 Sat Feb 4 22:22:21 CET 2006 armv4l GNU/Linux
journey [~]> sudo mount stargate:/halde/jornada /mnt
journey [~]> cd /mnt/
journey [/mnt]> mkdir romdump
journey [/mnt]> cd romdump
journey [/mnt/romdump]> wget http://wwwcip.cs.fau.de/~simigern/jornada-7xx/utils/dumpme
--01:20:15-- http://wwwcip.cs.fau.de/%7Esimigern/jornada-7xx/utils/dumpme
=> `dumpme'
Resolving wwwcip.cs.fau.de... 131.188.30.102
Connecting to wwwcip.cs.fau.de[131.188.30.102]:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 13,208 [text/plain]

100%[====================================>] 13,208 --.--K/s

01:20:15 (130.97 KB/s) - `dumpme' saved [13208/13208]

journey [/mnt/romdump]> chmod 755 dumpme
journey [/mnt/romdump]> sudo ./dumpme
written: 25165824
25165824 bytes written
ourney [/mnt/romdump]> ls -al
total 24628
drwxr-xr-x 2 michael michael 4096 Feb 5 01:20 .
drwxr-xr-x 24 michael michael 4096 Feb 5 01:19 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 michael michael 13208 Feb 5 00:14 dumpme
-------r-x 1 root root 25165824 Feb 5 01:21 rom

Don't use sudo if you're already root or you haven't configured sudo (use su then).
The permissions of the generated dump are strange, but simply ignore that. I was too lazy to fix that in the code.
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cmonex Page Icon Posted 2006-02-04 8:08 PM
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ah. i see i'll need linux for this thanks for the fast and detailed answer!!
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karloch Page Icon Posted 2006-02-05 8:02 AM
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ProgramSynthesiser - 2006-02-05 12:24 AM

snickersmd, I am willing to meet in the middle until something stable is reached. Then I will branch off my own way. But for now, there will be full Ipkg and Deb support, because that is where the software is. Believe me, I am not trying to kill the project.

Ipkg (and therefore) DEB support is indeed a good thing

ProgramSynthesiser
Argh. Are you both missing something?! Matthis's image is not as good as mine is, and he started off the same way! I have a stable Sarge base, better than his. I simply need to rebuild it from the Woody - you cannot start off Sarge currently. Look closely at his base, you will see the Woody remains. Anyways, we also have a big problem that you both forgot to mention. For some reason, and this goes back to woody, only the very dated pcmcia_cs works! That is preventing us from using certain cards, and may also explain the resume crash if a card is plugged in. That should be priority 2. I do not know the cause, yet. Oh wait, Karloch mentioned it.

Ok ok, we are not missing you, don't be upset xD We are just talking about Matthis' image because it is what is available right not. I'm sure that your distro will become better, but there are some steps in order to get the same hardware support as Matthis one. But let's stick for now to the main priorities

ProgramSynthesiser
Anyways - priority 1 is to figure out what needs to be changed for the reboot into CE. I think it has a lot to do with the shutdown command, telling it to go into that part of the rom as the last instruction.

Yup, I think the very same. From Michael explanations (what a great honor to have you here!) it looks like it will be more troublesome on the ARM than on the SH3, but he has provided us with valuable documentation for that.

Quote
I am becoming very irritated - I cannot explain what I mean until I can show you all! Right now, I need to wait for a microdrive to come in, which I can finally afford. Until then, I see no point in arguing. In the meantime, I need to desperately work on learning C. We are useless with a couple of coders.

There will be few replies from me, if any, until everything is sorted out.

Take it easy PS. We will be arround here.

MichaelGernoth
On ARM you can't decide where the processor resumes. It will always start on 0x0 in ROM. On the jornada, there is a direct jump to 0x1000, which is still in ROM and resembles remarkably some sample wince-bootloader code found in the MSDN. But I couldn't find an easy way to resume linux by disassembling the bootloader (with gnu objdump). If you want to dump your win ce rom to a file for further examination, I put my rom-dumper at:
http://wwwcip.cs.fau.de/~simigern/jornada-7xx/utils/

Quite interesting. That explain the resuming difficulties. But we are not so concern about ressuming. Our main goal it be able to rebbot Linux and get back into Windows CE, where we can do a full suspend. As I'm sure that you know, is quite a pain to be removing the battery everytime.

About the romdup, I have dumped mine so you can get it at http://karloch.hispamsx.org/temp/rom.bz2 (yes, it's bzipped to save about 50% of space, it's 12 MB long now).
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snickersmd Page Icon Posted 2006-02-05 11:01 AM
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ProgramSynthesiser - 2006-02-05 12:24 AM

But for now, there will be full Ipkg and Deb support, because that is where the software is. Believe me, I am not trying to kill the project.

The only reason I made an issue of this is because your earlier posts regarding apt and ipkg were bordering on inflammatory, i.e.
Quote
Also, as I have already stated, I am highly against both apt and ipkg. This is my distribution, and I want to get it as far away from Debian as possible!

Forgive me for being nitpicky on tone. It's still your distro, and your prerogative, but the community comes first.

ProgramSynthesiser
Argh. Are you both missing something?! Matthis's image is not as good as mine is, and he started off the same way! I have a stable Sarge base, better than his.

karloch
Ok ok, we are not missing you, don't be upset xD We are just talking about Matthis' image because it is what is available right not.

Ditto. Until your stuff is ready for primetime, it's the Matthis image, Familiar-Opie, and Familiar-GPE. I think I've already mentioned why the two Familiars aren't quite what I'm looking for in a Linux distro for the 720. PS, it's all on you.

karloch
From Michael explanations (what a great honor to have you here!)

I said it, didn't I? Build the community, and the coders will come. Kudos to PS for initiating communication, and kudos to Michael for finding time to visit.

ps
I am becoming very irritated - I cannot explain what I mean until I can show you all! Right now, I need to wait for a microdrive to come in, which I can finally afford. Until then, I see no point in arguing.

We're not arguing... yet. This isn't arguing. It's healthy discussion.

I just found how to get generic, OEM 2.2 GB microdrives for $60 or less. It's those pocket USB hard disks, Fry's has them. Buy it, pop open the shell, claim your microdrive prize inside. Oh, and the shell works great as a CF card reader too. Now that I have mine, I'm playing with the CF slot on my Jornada to make it a Type II with the cover.

MichaelGernoth
On ARM you can't decide where the processor resumes. It will always start on 0x0 in ROM. On the jornada, there is a direct jump to 0x1000, which is still in ROM and resembles remarkably some sample wince-bootloader code found in the MSDN. But I couldn't find an easy way to resume linux by disassembling the bootloader (with gnu objdump).

karloch
Quite interesting. That explain the resuming difficulties. But we are not so concern about ressuming. Our main goal it be able to rebbot Linux and get back into Windows CE, where we can do a full suspend. As I'm sure that you know, is quite a pain to be removing the battery everytime.


If I understand the code required correctly, the problem of resume and rebooting Linux is one and the same. Once you signal a reboot, and Linux shuts down, there needs to be a way to pass a memory location to the processor such that the processor can start executing WinCE again. And as Michael has pointed out, there seems to be no way to do that, the ARM processor always starts at 0x0. Therefore, resume is the key, whether we're talking about resuming Linux from a full suspend, or resuming WinCE after Linux exits. I'm sure that somewhere along the line a solution will be figured out, but I understand the technicalities that make it so difficult to begin with. In the meantime, I will see what I can do about implementing my hardware hacks to make our experimentation as painless as possible.
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