Messages

1

Zaurus - Other distros support / Re: Linux kernel version 6 support

« on: January 16, 2023, 04:22:38 pm »

It would be a good idea to move the discussion into the #oesf IRC channel on oftc.net to work out some plan / project / work load sharing for those with some experience in kernel development and device tree. Leave a post below if you like to join the effort.

I'll admit that I haven't got as far as I hoped in the time since I last posted, but I would still like to be involved. I will join the IRC channel.

2

Zaurus - Other distros support / Re: Linux kernel version 6 support

« on: July 23, 2022, 05:36:22 pm »

So a proposal to start removing board files supporting older ARM devices has been made:

https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/20220721141722.2414719-4-arnd@kernel.org/

The SL-C3000 machines have been spared because I volunteered to convert it to devicetree, but lots of other Zaurus models have been marked as unused, including the SL-5500 type.

3

Zaurus - Other distros support / Re: Linux kernel version 6 support

« on: July 23, 2022, 05:22:29 pm »

Good stuff, great to see someone picking up the void build.
It's a bit work to keep following upstream, but if regularly build, it's manageable.

Yes, it's not too bad! Unfortunately I don't have somewhere to host so am unable to share the binaries.

Yes, need to try the latest kernels. How does the 5.16 work for you vanilla ?
I would think it will just boot, but did mmc and pcmcia/cf work out of the box ?
Does the screen fade white if not used for a while ?
Yatli did some fixes for 5.4 here recently as well : https://github.com/yatli/linux-zaurus-5.4

SD Card and CF work no issues with vanilla 5,16 kernel! The fade to white issue is interesting, I had an issue with my SL-C1000 where the screen would turn white when suspending, and then coming out of suspend would be very difficult, but with the SL-C3000 it suspends just fine. I thought it might be something broken with my device, having other people test would be helpful. I do have some other issues though, including offline charging not working.

I build kexecboot natively on Arch Linux ARM the last time as always keen to avoid setting up OE build chain for some reason.
There should be support for DT in kexecboot, but I never used it.

Ah, interesting, I must try that sometime.

4

Zaurus - Other distros support / Re: Linux kernel version 6 support

« on: July 13, 2022, 05:45:07 pm »

Thanks a lot for taking care of this, I really hope that Zaurus' support will be kept in the future 6.x kernel. I also hope that sa1100 support for the 5500 will be kept too, I have read that qemu already supports it and Linus Walleij seems to be interested to port it to DT:

https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/CACRpkdY2_ZbmcSuuMB9t5bB-tGE0iAc-nE26JwxidRFocRahSw@mail.gmail.com/

I will try, no promises though!

I'm not a developer, and unfortunately in general I don't have much free time, but I can help with testing the kernel builds on real hardware, as I have a collection of working Zauruses: I have all the models starting from the 5500 to the SL-C3200.

That's very cool! I may ask for testing things in future, I currently have an Akita and a Spitz, but I sometimes have issues that I'm not sure whether they are specific to my hardware or not.

5

Zaurus - Other distros support / Re: Linux kernel version 6 support

« on: July 13, 2022, 05:40:44 pm »

Hi Greg!

Your work on Void Linux has been a massive help and inspiration, so you've already done loads for me!

I got a Borzoi, but I also some ZipIt2 devices that are PXA270 based. For those the move to DT was partially done, but not submitted upstream.

That's interesting, are those patches available anywhere to look at?

What kernel version did you work with so far and do you have any patches apart from the one you send through to the mailing list ?

I'm currently running kernel 5.16.41 and a fork of your 'Voidz' Linux repo. The main difference to your repo is it follows upstream a bit more closely. You can see the interesting changes by going to

http://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/compare/master...lfdebrux:voidz-packages:voidz

Edited to add: Oh, and I'm also working on getting the 5.19 release candidate working, I have some other patches that are work in progress, my code is at https://github.com/lfdebrux/linux/tree/zaurus/fix-corgi-backlight-v3.

What bootloader and rootfs do you use on your Zaurus ?

Also I have not tested kexecboot alongside a DT file yet and do not know if kexecboot supports it, but we can always append the compiled DT to the kernel image.

For bootloader I'm relying on your 'frankenstein' linux 2.6 kexecboot, which works great on my devices (I have a Spitz and an Akita). On my todo list is getting the OpenEmbedded machinery back up and running so I can build a new kexecboot. I know that the latest versions of kexecboot do have support for devicetree, although I don't fully understand how botting with device tree blobs works yet.

6

Zaurus - Other distros support / Linux kernel version 6 support

« on: July 05, 2022, 06:14:25 am »

Hi,

While submitting a patch to the kernel to improve the Zaurus support, it was mentioned that the maintainers for the PXA port are looking to rewrite the code to use the Devicetree format:

https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/CAK8P3a0HBvhe0MHjjO+WyEp669qd2NEC5RC7_jcvnEJM6X0Fug@mail.gmail.com/

They asked if I would like to help, which I said yes to, although I'm a bit new to kernel development.

Is there anyone else who'd like to get involved with this?

7

Zaurus - Void Linux support / Re: Void Linux

« on: January 20, 2021, 02:54:03 pm »

Hi greguu, OESF!

I've recently been trying to get a modern version of Linux working on a Zaurus SL-C1000 (your GitHub repo has been really useful for this greguu), and I'm currently trying out voidz which I'm really liking. So big thank you!

One small issue I'm facing at the moment though is getting `man` working... I have installed man, but it doesn't work with the version of `less` in `busybox`. I'd like to install a full version of less, but when I do this it uninstalls `busybox-zaurus` leaving me with a broken system haha

Any help on how to get around this with the package manager would be much appreciated!!