Mobilepro 900c and linux is possible?

rooofl. ok, i'll upload a mui file that disables the pointer. wait 10 mins

as for slowness, a good video driver does make wonders, as michelbel says.

example: smartbook G138.. same 206mhz as in jornada but blows jornada away in speed. it has to handle 800x480 and still.. GUI, video, everything. yes jornada is fast enough but smartbook is um....a wonder.

..and yes it loads programs faster as well. textmaker is very fast and not so on the jornada or 900c.





don't worry.. glad it works, i was surprised why it didn't.

let me check that manual!!




other stuff.... JTAG

we (friend and i) have managed to get OCD commander connected to the 900c over jtag! (using wiggler cable)

OCD can't flash the rom, but this is the first software that does handle the xscale alright. so we'll want to initialize the RAM and then download a bootloader into ram and jump to it! heheh.

situation now: flash can be read OK. i'm just not sure if the values given are valid. tried a download and run bootloader code, but the thing (900c) does nothing, probably i got the ram stuff wrong. i'm still a beginner with ram controllers... (and this OCD thing does no standard initialization thing, commands resembling ASM have to be given.)
or the bootloader code needs to be modified.
or maybe i got the file format wrong. OCD wants .s19 and similar, i used .s19..

not giving up..




edit: anyone well versed with this srec format crap here? i used s19convert.exe to convert the raw binary file into s19, giving the start address as 0xA00E0000 (which is bootloader start in this case). hmm did i do anything wrong? the file starts this way (plain ascii):

S0030000FC
S123A00E0000FE0300EA00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000F1
S123A00E00200000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000BC
S123A00E004045434543A0450F9000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000008


the original binary is FE 03 00 EA then lots of zero's then at offset 0x40 45434543 etc. so that looks ok.

Edited by cmonex 2007-06-14 5:31 PM

update 2.... tried to write into ram and then read that value, no write happened accordingly to that or i screwed up the write command (not exactly clear how it has to be written for the OCD program).

back to drawingboard (ram stuff) :/

michelbel:

nice tutorial absolutely great idea!

"We assume you have a limited knowledge of Linux, and can boot up a form of Linux on your PC, "
that sounds like it was written for me

"Log in as root!" you could mention what the exact command is for that. maybe some people dont know....
also here it sucks i'm not really meant for cli, and keep forgetting the simplest commands too. (bad verbal memory here i think)

"- Insert the CF card, and check that it is NOT mounted, by entering"

thats ok, but what do we do if it is mounted?


and the last thing.. this doesnt deal with the cases when the card is not called something between sda-sdz.
i've always had problem with that. and only isotherm could tell me what to do then. no other linux guru could. and yes i forgot what i needed to do then.

not complaining here, though. i can solve it somehow. just think this could make the manual perfect and save as much trouble as possible.

Edited by cmonex 2007-06-14 5:47 PM

Hey reguarding the speed issue...
(I may be wrong but)

Jlime was originally written for the Jornada 6xx which is a SH3 processor.
Mongo was written/recompiled for the 7xx series which is a StrongArm SA1110 proc.
We have a PXA which happens to be StrongArm compatible BUT doesn't run SA1110 code as fast as it does natively compiled PXA code.
This applies to kernel(or does the kernel have to be PXA compiled, which are you doing cosmo0?) as well as application compilation.

So...if we get a build environment that recompiles Jlime into a native PXA distro (Jlime/PXA as a name?) then we should get MUCH faster speeds.

IF I've got the mongo=sa1110 not PXA thing right, then I can tell you that there were a lot of complaints in the familiar/OpenEmbedded world when the PXA was first introduced....recompiling should help.

Let me know if I'm wrong.

Bill
ps- thanks cosmo0...I'm loading mongo now, I'm hoping for firefox tonigt via wifi, still need orinoco's?

OK, folks. Veeeerrryyy extended install guide updated. ( 38 pics by now)
change history:

- Disclaimer added
- date of modification added
- cmonex comments on root login used: examples added
- cmonex comments: umount example added
- pointers to all the software per today

Not yet: what if the cf is called differently - to be solved...


With a very few simple changes also usable for different hardware - so grab and use as required !!

see: here http://www.belxs.com/michel/mp900/LinuxonMobilepro900.htm

Cosmo0, i lost my password and your site doesn't mail me back.


Edited by michelbel 2007-06-15 5:30 AM

michelbel: cool! if i find the solution about the naming problem i will let you know..


any idea about jtag?
going to have a go at it tonight again.

bsaunder: Yeah i know its early to pass judgement ( for linux anyway ). I'm just anal about things and assumed 400mhz would be snappier than 206mhz when i decided to buy a 900c. This assumption fails for both CE and linux on the 900c. From my testing ( still going to do benchmarks eventually ) the 900c with linux is exactly the same speed as a j720 when it comes to starting X and applications ( which by no means is slow ). The j728 however acts like *its* the 400mhz machine and comes out the clear winner in this case.

While in theory, you are right about compiling for the PXA specifically will make the programs more 'optimized', but you wont notice any *major* speed boost. Mongo's packages and userlands were built by me as standard arm binaries, ( and were built with every known gcc optimization flag known to man ) which makes them compatible with many more arm devices. Since the pxa is backward compatible, all is good. Unfortunately, sa1100 can not run pxa binaries, so why reinvent the wheel twice? Also if its suppose to make *that* much of a difference, why wasnt ce.net 4.2 rebuilt for pxa on the 900c in the first place?

While i am a dev, i dont own the jlime server or pay the bills for it. Maybe down the line a complete pxa compiled feed and userland will be made. I do know this however, there are certain things in the mongo userlands specific to the jornada. So in my spare time i personally will rebuild a new icewm userland specifically for the 900/900c once the hardware/driver specifics have been laid out and fully work. That way i can apply brightness/contrast utils etc etc for the 9xx.

The built in orinoco driver is flakey btw. I managed to connect to irc ( barely ) but couldnt browse the web or download packages as it disconnects ( with TX and HERMES errors ) and reconnects every 2-4 seconds continuously. ( which really makes a mess of the root console )

Anyway, still very cool as i have a newfound love/hate for my 900c again.

Cheers.

cmonex: finding the CF card in linux: several ways. Easiest is

start a console as root ( see installguide )

a) plug the CF card in
b) after a few seconds run a commandline

# dmesg | tail -10

you find something like:

SCSI device sdb number of blocks... 512-byte hdwr sectors (256MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
...
sdb: sdb1

...etc...

And there she is.

anyway: good comment - I'll add it to the manual this evening.

Edited by michelbel 2007-06-15 8:46 AM

I'm happy I just looked for an oversized jornada/zaurus to cater for my eyesight needs
I'm probably more visual about things

cosmo0 : could you config a

CONFIG_MTD_DOCPROBE_ADDRESS=0X80000.. ( with sufficient zero's, the real physical address)

when next compiling a zimage? 0x8.... It is out of the usual probe range for the MTD driver.

Edited by michelbel 2007-06-15 9:15 AM

Spded: michelbel - you definately know more that I (since you roll your own distro), I just remember that the familiar / Zaurus crowd also had the speed problem. Zaurus made by sharp came with a SA1110. Sharp made the linux distro for it. People were unhappy with it and rolled their own (OpenZaurus, then OE). When Sharp introduced PXA models people complained they weren't that fast. Then the OZ people claimed that recompileing would/did speed it up. Since I never had a PXA Zarurus I didn't follow the argument to see if it did speed it up. I just remember people referenceing this a lot (both in Zaurus land, and in early CE PXA land)

Compiling: michelbel - do you have an automated way to make jLime or is it all by hand? Why didn't you use something like OE to make jLime? (not a complaint, just wondering how to proceed so we don't eat your bandwidth if we do want to roll a PXA specific version of jLime)

CF partition/device naming: On my box I use a $12 CF to PCMCIA adapter to load my CF card. This does NOT use the SCSI subsystem like the USB adapters do. So my device is usually named /dev/hde. (Usually cause on some systems I have enough drives that the hde isnt avail and we get something like hdz (ok not z but you get the point )

(cfdisk: I find it easier to use fdisk. cfdisk does not mean "compact flash"disk. It is just a prettier formatted version of fdisk, ie menus and such. I find fdisk to be easier to use. )

Modules/wifi: I was unable to load modules with cosmo0's latest kernel. There's a version mismatch between /lib/modules and the kernel. Can't remember which way but one is 2.6.17 and the other 2.6.19. I couldnt figure out a way around this. Which means I couldnt load the orinoco_cs or any other modules. Even things like depmod -a failed. Does this mean it's time to roll our own jLime?
(ps- is there a web company that will look at your site, make a cd or dvd, sell that online and give you some of the profits? ie I charge $10 to ship the jLime site to you on CD/DVD, then I pocket $4 and send $6 to michelbel? Seems like michelbel could pay for his site that way...Seems like I could aid in the bandwidth problems...Seems like bittorrent killed the need for this...)

cosmo0: I want to get you some cash and or an orinoco card. Still interested? Which one and how?

(now that that is out of the way)

cosmo0: priorities?
- I'd like to be able to reboot from linux without physically doing a hard reset. How tough would it be to write a linux app that just calls the bootloader (cmonex? input?). Once I can reboot easily, I can test quicker.
- acpi? pipe dream? a PDA in my mind is worthless unless I can press the on/off button, get at least 16 hours of sleep, press the button again and be back to where I left off. I'd really love pxa driven suspend, but also a hibernate a true "off". Maybe swsuspend would work there.
- we should make a list of items that need work, prioritizing on the kernel/system level not userlevel. There are many distros that work on userland so why dup work. Kernel is where the fun stuff lives (usb, bright/contrast, acpi/power, pcmcia).

Bill
ps- I hope you found some value in this long ramble

d@$#mn

RTFM - Sorry I said michelbel made the distro....Lost track of it all...
Thank you for compiling mongo. It was great to load cosmo0's kernel, a standard mongo Opie, and see a semi functional linux pda...The early days of familiar were a lot slower to get to functionality than today.

You already saw i didn't make my own distro. There are more experienced people for that, so I just ride the waves and choose to make it easier for the rest of us. I expect when everything works, that I have a 30-40 manual ready so that everone can enjoy the real gurus work easily. And maybe this won't be necessarily be so large anymore if my last point below is fulfilled.

- cfdisk- why: Better pictures, feedback, non-terse etc. Makes explaining easier since you see what you do. I write manuals as part of my job, and this instruction I wanted to write for beginners as well.

- naming of the cf - coming up in the manual,see my reply to cmonex on this: dmesg is the fastest way.

- IMHO the idea should not be selling CD's but at most small CF's with the complete distro at a small markup. 256MB's are getting real cheap. Anyway, at some time we should have a Knoppix like version, just a bootloader, kernel and (c)loop in a fat partition. Download, copy to (FAT) USB or CF and run. No need for CD then, no need for cfdisks and linux boxes. I think cmonex already mentioned this.

hey. glad you've found a use for your 900c again.

as for cenet 4.2, the kernel and all the rom modules are compiled for pxa.

i think the problem is the video driver, nothing else. just a hunch







ah, yes i think it was dmesg! thanks. and thanks for adding all this to the manual






hey. good ideas there! i agree with them. (cd and power management!!!)

as for the zaurus, i dont find mine slow but then i dont find the 900c slow either

i'm not sure i understand the part about avoiding the hard reset. you mean you don't want to have to yank the battery?

that should be possible using proper code, yes.

but please confirm i didnt misunderstand.


...

i still need jtag ideas.

cmonex - yes, I basically dont want to yank the battery. My $25 mp900 has a weird backup battery that I cant get outta the bottom easily. Having to yank it and the big bat is just a pain. It'd be really nice to have a program that just does a hard reset whenever you run it. Kinda like a fake "shutdown -r now". This would add a bit of polish and allow newbies and easier way to get out of linux. (Currently I could find no way to turn the machine off when I was done playing...)

I can attempt to write a linux prog to do this. Cmonex? do you know the "way to force a hard reset"? Jump to a certain location in memory?

Bill

jumping to a location isnt enough. you have to convince the bootloader that a hard reset has happened and you have to have the cpu in the right state for the bootloader code as well. so you need to set some registers, memory controller, turn mmu off, .. if you just jump to the bootloader that is nowhere near enough. i'm playing with such stuff right now if you've seen the other threads just some exams take part of the time right now..

first i'm trying to get soft reset for CE, then if that works, hard reset will not be very different.. and the same code should work with linux too if you want to boot to CE (i dont know what about booting to linux kernel, i dont know much about it yet.).