OESF Portables Forum
General Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: Ashitaka on December 08, 2004, 05:42:34 am
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Is there somewhere a status update about kernel 2.6 for Zaurus?
I know some people in OpenZaurus are working on it, it still seems active since patches continue to be applied, but after spending some time looking for information I have no clue what is the current status.
If I remember correctly there was problems with some binary-only drivers, for SD card amongst others, has it been solved?
The project in which I work (http://www.nautilus6.org) is very interested by what we could do with 2.6 on Zaurus, that's why I ask
I also have contacts with people working in Sharp, on the Zaurus or not, and I just asked them if there was a chance Sharp was working on it or not, waiting for their answers...
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Quick status:
It's progressing but sloooooooooooooowly, since there are only two people (John Lenz and Richard Purdie) working on it. At the moment, core support, framebuffer, mtd, are working. Richard Purdie just got pcmcia starting to work yesterday.
More help would be needed. Contact openzaurus-devel@lists.sf.net, if you want to participate.
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I just had an answer from somebody from Sharp, saying he was developping a patch for kernel 2.6.8.1 for Zaurus SL6000, which was also working with C860.
There are still problems, since Sharps' QT does not work for the moment (Trolltech's free original QT does apparently), and that there are some licence problems.
It would be nice if you could join your efforts, I will see what I can do ^^
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Very interesting. If you speak to this guy again, ask him if that is an official mission or if he does that on a volunteer/geek basis. If it is an official thing, then I give up hope that he cooperates with mainstream. Neither Lineo Japan nor Sharp has ever cooperated with mainline and I don't see that changing anytime soon. In the moment they realize that they will have to rewrite most drivers because their quality is inacceptable for mainline, they would probably give up saying it's not worth it. If on the other hand it's a geek job from someone "inside", I have high hopes. Please point this guy to our openzaurus-devel mailing list, where all Zaurus kernel development discussion is happening.
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This is turning out nicely ^^
Just a side note, for the moment he said he could only have me try the patch...
>>Are you doing this as an official job for Sharp or not? Which gcc do you
>> use to cross-compile?
We use arm-linux-gcc-3.4.3 and binutils-2.15.92.0.2. I can put it with
kernel patch.
>> I am interested in testing it, even if there is no graphical interface
>> for the moment. And if Trolltech's QT works that would be great, they
>> are about to release Qtopia 2.1 which looks very nifty
I guess I can give you initrd.bin including Trolltech's QT binary file,
but without SD modules.
>> BTW, are you aware that people from the OpenZaurus community are also
>> working on this? They told me it was not going very fast since only two
>> persons where working on it, but now core support, framebuffer, mtd,
>> pcmcia are working.
Great. Our plan is just for 2.6.8.1 and 2.6.9. Can we get a next version
further thanks to their efforts? right?
Some informations are missing but I guess you can ask him if I get him to subscribe to openzaurus-devel ml.
Last thing, it is a geek, but who managed to do real geek stuff inside an official job He works sometimes in the office next door, but I don't know him too much
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Did he contact you ?
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Me? No - if I recall correctly, nothing like that appeared on openzaurus-devel yet.
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I just received the ROM and the programming tools from him, I will now test it, but I don't have the rights to distribute it or anything.
BUT, according to him, 2.6 port should be made available by Sharp in a "not very long time", even if I'm not sure what it means
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Hmm... I can't follow the restriction not to redistribute GPLed source code, but anyway I hope it comes sooner than later. Which model support code is their 2.6 supposed to contain?
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You're only supposed to redistribute GPLed code if you make the binary public, they have the right to do their development stuff secretly ^^ (not that I approve it)
And it's targeted to 860 and 6000.
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One more thing... If you knew how Japanese are used to work, you would stop trying to make them collaborate with somebody else, usually it's Mission Impossible
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Very unfortunate. Let's see how far they get with that attitude and what happens when 0% of their stuff gets accepted by mainstream. Ah right... they will probably just don't care. Very unfortunate and narrow minded.
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Yes, I think that's the point ! They release the source because they have to, but if it is useless, well... they don't care, that's all, no need to try to understand Sharp's philosophy with complex concepts ^^
Not that I even blame them by the way: some engineers are just told to have a Linux running on the platform they plan to sell, they manage to hack through it, and then they just forget about it.
Because you are working on a Linux kernel in Sharp does not necessarily mean you are an open-source geek or that you plan to broaden the view of your society. And even if you are, you may not have the possibility to do so.
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Ashitaka, will they put softfloat in the kernel 2.6 + qtopia 2.1 batch?
Since 2.6/2.1 will most certainly break compatibility anyway, why bother keeping something slow.
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Yes that would be great, but I have no information about that.
But sf is supposed to be integrated in GCC 3.4, so I think there is...
Anyway I'm just starting vacations till next tuesday, and I did not bring back any Zaurus home (yes that's possible !), so more info next week. If anyone knows how to detect if softfloat is used (compile and try a test program?)...
Happy New Year !
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Hi,
I'm one of the people working on the 2.6 kernel (I'm tackling the SL-C7xx support).
I'd be very interested to talk to people related to the Zaurus Kernel in Sharp for a variety of reasons.
I could really use some documentation. At the moment I don't even have datasheets for some of the key chips. Working blind slows me down a lot. I'd also like to try and work together with anything they're doing/planning rather than against them.
I'm concious of your comments on how Sharp and the people who wrote the code weren't neccessarily keyed into the Linux world or had "geek" objectives. I did wonder if Sharp would consider paying someone to work with the objective of making mainline linux kernels support their products? There would be benefits all around (Sharp and the comminity) to doing something like that.
Any information you could give us (or just me) on people to talk to at Sharp would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Richard
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I have an official meeting planned with Sharp on Friday, with the guy working on 2.6 and one commercial. I don't know if it will be very useful, but I will try to do what I can...
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I have an official meeting planned with Sharp on Friday, with the guy working on 2.6 and one commercial. I don't know if it will be very useful, but I will try to do what I can...
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=62827\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
For reference, very basic support for the SL-C7xx models has now made it into the 2.6.11-rc1 mainline kernel. Further support has been added in 2.6.11-rc1-bk4.
The most complete support is still in openembedded as certain drivers still need some work to make them acceptable to mainline.
I'm not sure how Sharp are going to view this.
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The meeting has just been postponed
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If a SL-5500 MMC driver ends up in kernel 2.6, OZ gets a donation from me.
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Yeah, a 100%open source zaurus would be a whole new ballgame. Sorry i only have the skill to cheer on the folks working at it.
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Anyone have an update on the progress of the 2.6 kernel?
Also, will the 2.6 kernel significantly improve the Zaurus experience and in what way?
The one area I'd really like to see an improvement in is video playback. The new Archos PMA device has me drooling for that type of performance on my C760. Is the Z's video performance limitations mainly a hardware issue or can it be greatly improved through software and possibly the 2.6 kernel?
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udev.
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Anyone have an update on the progress of the 2.6 kernel?
Also, will the 2.6 kernel significantly improve the Zaurus experience and in what way?
The one area I'd really like to see an improvement in is video playback. The new Archos PMA device has me drooling for that type of performance on my C760. Is the Z's video performance limitations mainly a hardware issue or can it be greatly improved through software and possibly the 2.6 kernel?
[div align=\"right\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=72263\")
Current status is at: [a href=\"http://www.rpsys.net/openzaurus/]http://www.rpsys.net/openzaurus/[/url]
Support under 2.6 for the c7x0 is just about complete. The 2.6 kernel feels faster and much more stable. It also provides an excellent development platform for future work.
The c7x0's have an ati w100 graphics chip in them which is capable of acceleration so video performance can probably be improved. Certain video players use atilib (a closed source ati accecleration library). We have some idea of how this works but no official documentation. Any video players using this library are going to be faster. The 2.6 kernel has various sheduling tweaks which should help this kind of thing and all the system drivers are better written.
So, yes, 2.6 should help and by fully utilising the hardware, video can be improved. Documentation is a problem though.
OZ 3.5.3 will ship with a 2.6 kernel.
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The one area I'd really like to see an improvement in is video playback. The new Archos PMA device has me drooling for that type of performance on my C760. Is the Z's video performance limitations mainly a hardware issue or can it be greatly improved through software and possibly the 2.6 kernel?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=72263\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
No, you won't get video performance of Archos PMA on Zaurus with any kernel. Archos uses DSP processing support in TI Omap processor.
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What about battery performance with new kernel? Is any improvement possible in this area?
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Thanks rpurdie and maslovsky, glad to see you are nearing completion and that the 2.6 will mean better performance. I was hoping for a significant video boost, but I can make due for now til Sharp includes a better chipset in a future model.
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What about battery performance with new kernel? Is any improvement possible in this area?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=72365\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
I've done no tests on this. The charging/battery code is still roughly Sharp's 2.4 code but 2.6 has a much better power infrastructure which we use.
The biggest different will come from using cpufreq in ondemand mode but I've not had time to add that to 2.6 yet - its is planned.
We did have a bug where suspend/resume turned off turbo mode and I'm told this made a massive difference to battery life.
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2.4 to 2.6 benefits
in my experiencem when I used SuSE 8 and I switched from kernel 2.4 to 2.6, and turned on pre-emptive kernel, it made a big difference to the usability of a slower machine.
2.6 also has bluetooth built-in, improved USB, and a lot of extra niceties which should make the Z run better.
can't wait till there's a new 2.6 Cacko ROM!
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Very nice job so far, guys
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What about bluetooth in the new kernel?
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What about bluetooth in the new kernel?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=73747\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
All the standard 2.6 kernel BT support is available (although c7x0 doesn't have any built in BT).
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All the standard 2.6 kernel BT support is available (although c7x0 doesn't have any built in BT).
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=73752\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
but presumably that BT support will work happily with CF bluetooth cards like the socket/symbol device?
will the newest/latest QT be rolled up with the new kernel, with gcc3-latest and all that?
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All the standard 2.6 kernel BT support is available (although c7x0 doesn't have any built in BT).
Great I'm going to flash my SL-5500 with OZ3.5.3...........