Mobilepro 900c and linux is possible?

jtag... finally finally

wait, you mean we didnt measure the nreset ...uh? hehehhehe. good.

as for 0x13080000.. the bsquare phh has the same thing just at 0x10000000. driving me crazy. maybe its some special debug board stuff. i dunno

Well, using my understanding of DOC programming:
a) the bootloader system needs no knowledge of the DOC, unless there is another hidden feature like C-F or C-whatever booting to allow direct boot from the DOC. IF the bootloader looks at the DOC, there probably is!
b) The definition for Windows and Linux is, that a DOC can be addressed at any time, once the DLL driver/module is loaded. The trueffs.sys or trueffs.dll or linux .o or .ko modules are dynamically loaded. This is explicit in the TRUEFFS definitions: only DOS has it's own bootloader preprovided (usually that is)

c) considering that the DOS bootloader creates a filesystem in about 2Kb, we should expect a maybe 20K Trueffs driver for an Xscale - the ATADISK.DLL is only 17K!. But then, maybe Bsquare loads all the available Msystems TrueFFS 6.0 libraries into the DLL including the disk driver. This would mean we should we should be capable of dumping the DOC through the calls in the DLL. And maybe use a kind direct hook into the driver, similar to a linux NDIS wrapper.

d) What might be worse, it may set up interrupts (DOC Ready Interrupts) in a totally different area of memory. Then tracing becomes a real problem. Ever tried to debug a realtime driver? I once had to. But I doubt that.

So, when I have time, I will look at the calls in the DLL, and see if I can come up with an explanation.

Yeah - I tried that several times. And it´s always hard to press the crosshair in the upper right. Takes about 3-4 presses.
As for the touchscreen-sensitivity: Until now it seemed to be rather somewhat random on how the pointer reachted. So I didn´t get much besser results by pressing the stylus harder.

However, I have the impression, that the pointer in OPIE reacts better somehow. But maybe that´s just my impression.

Edited by Jens 2007-07-02 4:01 PM

well, as for the bootloader on the bsquare phh, it must access the DOC because it has to load the OS from there, uncompress it and copy it into ram then execute the kernel.
and not just that. when the device boots up, the IPL (a small initial bootloader in special ram for the nand) is started, and its main job is to load the secondary bootloader(s), i.e. copy them out of the DOC to ram, and transfer control to that then.
the code in the IPL for that is real simple, it accesses the nand directly, easily seen what it does with which registers etc., but it doesn't match what the documentation says.. :/
the code that copies the (compressed) OS image is more high level, don't know if similar to the trueffs, yet. but the OS is definitely on another partitition from the userdisk and it is never needed outside the bootloader and the bootloader has to load it into ram only on a hard reset.

i can post the trueffs.dll. either for bsquare or 900c. no never debugged a driver. btw, to debug it i will need to restore the relocation info for trueffs, that's ok, maybe 15 mins of work.
thanks if you can look at it.


p.s.: about the OS and bootloader partitions: they are not even seen by the pdocread utility. only the userdisk is listed.

Edited by cmonex 2007-07-02 6:36 PM

Hi All,

Sorry to dilute the thread =-) but I'm (fingers crossed) going to recieve a 900c in the post tomorrow and have been researching the apps etc. I need to get for it.
The reason for my being here is that I've wanted to adopt Linux for a long time and this certainly looks like a reason to do it =-)
I can say happily my experience, with Linux, runs to having loaded an Ubuntu live cd, but I've looked michelbel's instructions for this install and am happy to give it a go.
This said please forgive me for asking a stupid question.. What linux apps are limited to running on the 900c with considering the hardware difference between it and normal pc architecture?

Anyway good luck with all the efforts and congratulations on the work so far,

Jamie

Hi encore, have a look at the jlime website to get an idea of what apps (lots and lots ) are possible http://www.jlime.com as the mobilepro will be officially supported by jlime project. Most apps you would want will run. There's some problems with firefox atm but hopefully we'll sort that out, wicknix has compiled mplayer for movie playback (no sound yet of course but should be before too long ...)

Yes cmonex finally, finally jtag

Guess what - I can confirm your results so far ! it's damn frustrating

I've put together a buffered wiggler type cable with nRESET wired in as I think it should be (actually nRESET signal is not considered essential for jtag but better to have it wired in than not i guess) and OCD commander just won't talk to it (nor will linux jtag-tools)

I tried every variation of parport mode in bios, different speeds, nothing informative ...

So I don't know if it's the software, my cable or the mp900c. Next I'm gonna try hooking up my gumstix through this wiggler ... that should work (if not I know it's software or the cable)

MobilePro900c JTAG could do with it's own thread maybe some people who actually know JTAG will see it and help us out - or maybe we want to crack this problem first and then go public with a complete HOWTO

I'll let you know how I go with the gumstix.

btw I'm trying to spend some time on #jlime (on freenode) evenings my time (I guess that's the middle of the day Europe)

cheers all cosmo0

damn so it isn't too easy did you use the right version of jtag tools, i assume..? has to specifically support the pxa255.

did OCD at least find the target? it did for us.

ok. i'm going to make a jtag thread now and will copy the relevant stuff there from here.

p.s.: not just #jlime please.. #hpcfactor too!

new thread at http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=9529&posts=1#M92909

Hey Cosmo0

Thanks for the reply. thx to a little help from my friends (well i sat back) I have linux up and running. The most buggy bit for me is the screen but my hands were shaking with excitement when I calibrated the it so I'll have another go..

Waiting on a linksys wifi card to get things rolling but in the meantime I'll keep checking back on how things are doing.

Obviously this thread is above my head in nearly every respect but I'd like to offer my help in the only form I can, i.e. testing/bug reporting, gfx/icons if needed.

Again good luck and best wishes

Jamie

Hello all
You've done really great job. I installed linux yesterday on MobilePro 900 c and looks great.
I have some questions in order to start Internet on it:
I want to use it with mobile phone gprs modem, but for that reason I need cdc_acm support through the USB port. Also I have PC network card wired and I need support for it. I want to ask how can I compile kernel for my needs - is the kernel you use original linux kernel or there are changes in the source and also where I can find the kernel config file in to add components I need in the kernel.

Best regards,
Ipolit

Hi. I just purchased a MobilePro 900c on ebay and am really interested in installing Linux on it. I'm reading through here and am wondering if there has been any progress on the calibration issues. Does this problem make the touchscreen useless? Also, is this affecting all 900c's, or just some?

Are there any other major bugs I should be aware of before attempting the install?

Thanks!

Calibration is fine, just some ( quite a few actually ) 900/900c's have the tendancy to lose calibration regardless if its ce.net or linux. Like mine for example is horrible. Initial calibration is fine, until i move/tilt the screen, then its all out of wack and i have to recalibrate it again.

The install is pretty staright forward, but again, this project is in the early stages and alot isnt functioning yet. Currently its quite useable, but lacks suspend, apm, usb, sound and possibly irda. Alll that will come with time.

Cheers.

RTFM, because your 900c is in a bad shape, it doesn't mean that (having a physical flaw) is the only reason for the calib problems under linux

i know the touch driver will be improved on. let's recognize there are problems and fix them. that simple.

Hey all, I've started a thread over at jlime forums just to expand the discussion. Bsaunders suggested a kind of TODO list I think, so that kind of thing could go over there.

Great to see new users, testers, bug-reporters coming on board Encore - glad you got that to work, and gfx/icons would be cool

So yeah, jlime, jlime, jlime what can I say... it's a great community, head on over there and we'll keep the mobilepro support growing.

Of course I don't need to say stick around here too - hey Quake Raven I probably would never have bought a mobilepro myself if I hadn't read this thread

re touchscreen questions, it works fine for me, I need to get more of a handle on what's going wrong for other users, it's still a work in progress but quite useable, bug reports will help us improve things so they're appreciated.

cheers cosmo0

oh yes, lpolit - the kernel is customised, I've posted links to the kernel patches earlier in this thread ( take a look here ) several jlime members have successfully compiled kernels with added modules cheers

Edited by cosmo0 2007-07-17 8:24 AM

My two cents on the calibration issue is that i agree with RTFM that mine drops out by say 10 pixels/points to the left/right often under CE. As I'm new to the 900c and only ran jlime for 2 days before wiping it to flash cmonex's ROM I can't give a sure estimate of its behaviour under Jlime. It did seem aok to me at the time though.
2 pennies on the other issues ditto, usb, sound (affects all jlimers?) and suspend.

70% and counting!

:edit: cosmo about icons etc let me know if anything needs done as I realise under the Jlime project they have all that wrapped up and their own tux

Edited by encore 2007-07-17 11:20 AM