OESF Portables Forum
Model Specific Forums => Sharp Zaurus => Zaurus - pdaXrom => Topic started by: danboid on August 18, 2006, 11:23:28 am
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I'm back to running Cacko on my C3000 at the moment but I can't stand it- last time I installed pdaXrom I got to see what my Z is truly capable of and I want that power back. I had gnumeric, abiword, bvdd mplayer, amule, zpsx, mame- cacko couldn't compare! Of course sash is working on a new 2.6 based pdaX and OZ/GPE is starting to come together but it could easily be another 6 months or more until they can compete with 2.4 based pdaX in terms of features and stability (barring that annoying suspend problem) and with a bit of effort us c3k users could put together a great pdaXrom distro now.
The base would of course be Thc's pdaXromb2 release but with all the fixes mentioned on Meanies site here:
http://www.users.on.net/~hluc/myZaurus/custom-pdaxrom.html (http://www.users.on.net/~hluc/myZaurus/custom-pdaxrom.html)
Sharp's updated SD driver
https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=20905 (https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=20905)
and any relevant fixes/tweaks mentioned here
http://www.thesounddesign.com/zaurus/beta3.htm (http://www.thesounddesign.com/zaurus/beta3.htm)
If I got to choose then ROX desktop would be the default.
As I already mentioned, the one big downer I experienced with pdaXromb2 on my c3k was that the HDD led would stay on when I pushed suspend but if I resumed and then suspended again straight after the HDD light would go out and it would suspend OK. Is this a problem that applies to all pre-beta4 pdaXrom releases on c3x00? Has it been fixed? If pdaXrom < b4 uses the same kernel as cacko then why does cacko suspend fine?
The other problem I had was that desktop shortcuts and icons under ROX would just disappear- nobody else have this problem?
Finally, as I remember the c3k pdaxb2 installer required that you had standard partitioning on your MD but it would then re-partition you drive before installation. Is it not possible to custom partition/format the MD yourself and then install pdaXrom on top of that as is the case with OZ? That is how I'd like things to be in b3.
So, is anyone up for this?
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I should've really included a link to the b2 thread as well
https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=17070 (https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=17070)
The pdaXromb2 for c3k image is linked in the first posting on that thread
It would of course be of great help to have Thc in on this but I have a nasty feeling that he somehow lost all his code for this but this might've happened just after he did b1, I can't remember.
Other than what I mentioned in the first post in this thread, is there anything else anyone would like to see fixed, changed or added? I think gpe-calendar would be a good addition to the standard rom that most people would use.
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Well, I could try it anyway... Where can I find it?
Actually, this weekend I'm going to try to upgrade my NAND to 128 Mb (just imagine - snow-white C3100! ). But I can try this ROM before upgrading.
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First step If u make it, please write how-to
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Reaper- see post #2 in this thread. Please share your pdaxrom/c3000 and then your NAND upgrade experiences with us.
Glorin- in effect b3 has already been made, kind of. The HOWTO is there already, see post #1. I want B3 so that new c3k/pdax users don't have to spend a full weekend applying fixes and patches to get it running properly- there should be no need for lengthy howtos or guides- and hopefully we can get rid of that nasty suspend problem. Thats the biggest problem I think and will probably require someone with much more knowledge of the kernel than I possess. Of course, if that bug has been there for years now then it may never get fixed
I'm most interested to hear what Thc, Meanie and sash have to say about this seeing as they all know more about this than I do.
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Oh, this version... It seems that I have this one already, and replaced SD driver with Sharp's one, so it suits me, more or less. I just thought there was something REALLY new... Sorry for my inaccuracy...
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Actually, this weekend I'm going to try to upgrade my NAND to 128 Mb (just imagine - snow-white C3100! ).
I didn't know that this was possible.
Are you going to share your experiences in these forums? TIA!
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Well, here's my first experience, unfortunately, negative one: IC programmers don't work with NAND memory at all. That leaves me to tricky and dangerous experiments with U-BOOT. I don't know any other way around - usual bootloader doesn't recognise clean NAND chip and refuses to do anything with it.
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Danboid,
I'm running Cacko 1.23b1 on my C3000 and I'm considering the move to pdaXrom beta 2. One reason I'm holding back is this suspend bug - even when your HDD light stayed on, do you think your HDD was constantly spinning or was this more of an annoyance?
Also, did your desktop shortcuts and icons disappear when you were running a file manager other than Rox?
Reaper- see post #2 in this thread. Please share your pdaxrom/c3000 and then your NAND upgrade experiences with us.
Glorin- in effect b3 has already been made, kind of. The HOWTO is there already, see post #1. I want B3 so that new c3k/pdax users don't have to spend a full weekend applying fixes and patches to get it running properly- there should be no need for lengthy howtos or guides- and hopefully we can get rid of that nasty suspend problem. Thats the biggest problem I think and will probably require someone with much more knowledge of the kernel than I possess. Of course, if that bug has been there for years now then it may never get fixed
I'm most interested to hear what Thc, Meanie and sash have to say about this seeing as they all know more about this than I do.
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Dunno about the HD LED.
Rox was the only other desktop/wm I tried except for the default matchbox one, which doesn't support icons on the desktop. If I was to try pdaX again I'd be trying the pcman filemanger maybe. I wonder if Thunar does icons on the desktop too?
There's a whole load of fixes to pdaXb2 on Meanies site. Does everybody apply these after each install? Are they all neccessary? If so we should turn it into a script or update the b2 image instead
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Danboid,
I'm running Cacko 1.23b1 on my C3000 and I'm considering the move to pdaXrom beta 2. One reason I'm holding back is this suspend bug - even when your HDD light stayed on, do you think your HDD was constantly spinning or was this more of an annoyance?
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The HDD isn't spinning constantly.
I had it often, also with Cacko ROM, that on suspend, the HDD LED did not turn off.
But this does no hard, except for a few milliamps more power drain in suspend.
Another question:
C3000 pdaXrom beta2: Is it fully compatible with all the 1.1.0beta3 (for 3100 etc.) feeds and packages?
In other words: Can I use the C3000 beta2 version as a basis for a system I have now built upon 1.1.0beta3 on a C3100?
Thanks
daniel
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I believe that C3000 pdaXrom beta 2 is actually based on 1.1.0beta1. The fact that it is "beta 2" is because ThC released a beta based on 1.1.0beta1, and then he fixed some bugs so he released another beta (also based on 1.1.0beta1).
I also believe that 1.1.0beta1 uses hard float so any pdaXrom applications that use soft float will not be compatible. I don't know when pdaXrom switched over to soft float from hard so I can't say when the cutoff point is for application compatibility.
In people's opinion, how reliable or flakey is the suspend feature in pdaXrom? I have heard some people say that as long as you use the menu feature (as opposed to using the on/off button) and you suspend when there isn't heavy disk activity then the feature is pretty reliable. But I have heard nothing definitive one way or the other.
Danboid,
I'm running Cacko 1.23b1 on my C3000 and I'm considering the move to pdaXrom beta 2. One reason I'm holding back is this suspend bug - even when your HDD light stayed on, do you think your HDD was constantly spinning or was this more of an annoyance?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=144750\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
The HDD isn't spinning constantly.
I had it often, also with Cacko ROM, that on suspend, the HDD LED did not turn off.
But this does no hard, except for a few milliamps more power drain in suspend.
Another question:
C3000 pdaXrom beta2: Is it fully compatible with all the 1.1.0beta3 (for 3100 etc.) feeds and packages?
In other words: Can I use the C3000 beta2 version as a basis for a system I have now built upon 1.1.0beta3 on a C3100?
Thanks
daniel
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In 1.1.0beta3, the suspend/resume is very reliable, as long as you give it the time it needs:
On suspend, no matter if via menu or OnOff, give it 10 seconds until you do anything else (close screen, resume...).
On resume via OnOff, don't bother that the screen is still dark. Backlight will switch on after a few seconds. Resume will take 10-20 seconds, depending on how many applications are running (the window manager reinitializes all windows on resume which takes some time... any way around this?)
The worst error (and the most "intuitive" one) is on resume, when the screen remains dark, to repeadetly hit OnOff because you think it hasn't recognized the keypress. This will confuse the system and may lead to lockups.
As long as you give it the time it needs, it will be stable.
daniel
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In 1.1.0beta3, the suspend/resume is very reliable, as long as you give it the time it needs:
On suspend, no matter if via menu or OnOff, give it 10 seconds until you do anything else (close screen, resume...).
On resume via OnOff, don't bother that the screen is still dark. Backlight will switch on after a few seconds. Resume will take 10-20 seconds, depending on how many applications are running (the window manager reinitializes all windows on resume which takes some time... any way around this?)
The worst error (and the most "intuitive" one) is on resume, when the screen remains dark, to repeadetly hit OnOff because you think it hasn't recognized the keypress. This will confuse the system and may lead to lockups.
As long as you give it the time it needs, it will be stable.
daniel
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My exact experience as well.
Well put.
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The problem is that this thread is specifically about the C3000. The last time I checked, the best that we had for the C3000 was the 1.1.0beta1-based Beta 2 version. When I ran this, I essentially had to restart the zaurus every day due to file system problems. I thought that my microdrive may have been going out, but I switched to OZ and it's been very stable ever since.
The responses to the stability were referring to the 1.1.0beta3, which, as far as I know, isn't really running on the C3000 yet, which is the original purpose of this thread. I am aware of the people trying to get the newest version of Pdaxrom up on the C3000, but this version is based on the 2.6 kernel and has its own set of problems.
I'd like to return to Pdaxrom sometime, but I don't think I have the time/experience to get it up and running without a how-to, which is why I've been following this thread in the hopes that someone gets it working.
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In my experience, all linux distros area about tweaking around until you get a useable OS, pdaxrom beta 3 is just another distro in the same way.
I realise it may take some people quite a while to get it working properly, but that's only because it's so highly customisable.
Things I would add to make beta3 more usable:
I would recommend using fluxbox for speed.
Ensure the Latest hostap drivers are installed by default (for Planex CF wifi and maybe others)
Get a decent keymap in there, like meanies.
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I have heard some people say that as long as you use the menu feature (as opposed to using the on/off button) and you suspend when there isn't heavy disk activity then the feature is pretty reliable.
Really?
Can any c3000 owners running pdaXb2 confirm that you can reliably suspend on 1st attempt without the HD LED staying on by clicking on a menu (menu? Where? Is this a matchbox app you're referring to?) option instead of pushing the on/off button? If this is true I'll likely give pdaXrom another go as I'm sick of waiting for OZ to catch up in functionality, although as has been mentioned it is faster and stabler in some respects thanks to the 2.6 kernel.
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I tried flashing to pdaXrom 1.1.0beta1 for C3k (beta 2). I tried it out for about 1-2 hours and then decided to switch back to Cacko. I applied Meanie's fixes but I could never get my Z to properly restore. I suspended by using the menu function or the on/off button. Then I waited about a minute or so for everything to settle down.
When I hit the on/off button to restore the Z, I saw the HDD light go on for a few seconds but after I waited, nothing else happened for at least a minute. Then I hit the on/off button again. Sometimes nothing happened but other times the screen would appear again but everything was frozen. The only way to get the Z working again was to hit the reset button in the battery compartment.
I use a CF Ethernet card with my C3000. Someone else reported a similar problem with suspend/restore, reported here. (https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=17070&st=60&p=112687&#entry112687) I think I may have tried it with my CF Wifi card with similar results. But I gave up because even though the Sharp/Cacko ROM is old, at least I can get it to work without too much hassle.
I was sorry to see this because I've read a lot about pdaXrom and I really wanted to use it. But at least for me, suspend/restore was a showstopper.
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I'd love to see a stable pdaxrom for the 3000. I just wiped THCs beta 2 off my 3000 in favour of the Sharp Rom. (To be used for Kanji study..) If a stable version could be made I'd be very happy to have firefox back again
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A very experienced programmer (says he's been using emacs for 20 years!) has been in touch with me. He owns a C3000 and is very keen to help out in the development of pdaXrom for our platform but he's been having problems registering with OESF. I told offroadgeek about his problems but Ian still hasn't heard anything and still isn't registered.
If anyone is able to help him with getting registered or wants to discuss what he might be able to do in improving pdaX on c3k then you can get in touch with Ian at tanjianenator@googlemail.com
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Great that someone else is interested in contributing. I saw a post from InSearchOf mentioning he was interested in working on some pdaxrom development, I'd volunteer myself but I'm rather inundated with Windows development (boo hisss )
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Well, I had a little bit of time today, so I took a look at the kathrin-1.1.0beta3-akita zip file and started comparing it to ThC's pdaXrom-c3000beta2 release to see what would need to be done to get a nice stable version of pdaXrom running on the c3000. Personally, pdaXrom did exactly what I needed to, but I couldn't stand the instability of it (when I used beta2, I would have to reboot my zaurus constantly due to FS errors), which got me to switch to OpenZaurus, where I had no stability problems except if I didn't touch my zaurus for a while.
Looking through the initrd files, we should be able to use the same root structure without too much hassle. We'd just have to figure out the bare minimum we'd want flashed onto the ROM in order to pivot to the hard drive and go from there. We could also probably use the same initrd file, if I'm not mistaken, as all it does is pivot the root to the hard drive. I may have a go at flashing the pdaXrom-c3000beta2 with only replacing the hdimage1.tgz with the beta3 ripped root directory.
The main problem is that we'd still be using the same kernel that ThC compiled for beta2, in the tools.tar file. I've compiled kernels before, but never for the zaurus, so I don't really have an environment setup to do it, nor do I know anything about the pdaXrom build tools or where the proper patches are to patch the kernel with what is necessary. Is anyone still even interested in this at all? I guess I got kind of tired of no one really taking any initiative in getting proper C3000 support. I'm really rather busy though, so I'll help when I can, but we need as much help as we can. Let's also document everything we do as much as possible so future people can take over as necessary.
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Well, I had a little bit of time today, so I took a look at the kathrin-1.1.0beta3-akita zip file and started comparing it to ThC's pdaXrom-c3000beta2 release to see what would need to be done to get a nice stable version of pdaXrom running on the c3000. Personally, pdaXrom did exactly what I needed to, but I couldn't stand the instability of it (when I used beta2, I would have to reboot my zaurus constantly due to FS errors), which got me to switch to OpenZaurus, where I had no stability problems except if I didn't touch my zaurus for a while.
Looking through the initrd files, we should be able to use the same root structure without too much hassle. We'd just have to figure out the bare minimum we'd want flashed onto the ROM in order to pivot to the hard drive and go from there. We could also probably use the same initrd file, if I'm not mistaken, as all it does is pivot the root to the hard drive. I may have a go at flashing the pdaXrom-c3000beta2 with only replacing the hdimage1.tgz with the beta3 ripped root directory.
The main problem is that we'd still be using the same kernel that ThC compiled for beta2, in the tools.tar file. I've compiled kernels before, but never for the zaurus, so I don't really have an environment setup to do it, nor do I know anything about the pdaXrom build tools or where the proper patches are to patch the kernel with what is necessary. Is anyone still even interested in this at all? I guess I got kind of tired of no one really taking any initiative in getting proper C3000 support. I'm really rather busy though, so I'll help when I can, but we need as much help as we can. Let's also document everything we do as much as possible so future people can take over as necessary.
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i've just been doing the same thing.
my findings is that we can use the pdaXrom-c3000beta2 to create a beta3.
there would be 3 things we need to update/fix
hdimage.tgz contains the rootfs for the c3000 so we can easily customise/update this file. i would overlay it with the root image of akita and then apply some fixes and add more pre-installed apps.
update the kernel. since it is a 2.4.20 kernel i was thinking to replace the zImage file inside tools.tar with the latest Tetsu zImage and extract the corresponding tetsu modules ipk over the lib directory inside hdimage.tgz
finally, i would fix initrd.bin up a bit. all it does is load a minimal oz rootfs image onto the flash which then pivots to the microdrive. it basically works, but has a few minor bugs such as trying to boot off the external CF if its inserted instead of the microdrive. i would also want to add some tools like fsck onto there so it can do some sanity checks on the microdrive before mounting it. some boot menu ala altboot could also be added there to allow optional booting off the external CF or SD card.
i probably could do all that given time, except i have no idea how to extract the initrd.bin file from a Z directly. i think it needs to be done from a linux pc.
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Sounds good. For the fixes, do you basically mean the fixes you have here:
http://www.users.on.net/~hluc/myZaurus/custom-pdaxrom.html (http://www.users.on.net/~hluc/myZaurus/custom-pdaxrom.html)
or are there other fixes that need to be applied? Customizing hdimage.tgz is probably the last thing we need to do, as it's simply a matter of providing the root fs that will be booted (like you said, changing default programs and such).
Your kernel idea sounds good. I didn't think about using the Tetsu kernel as I've never used it before.
In terms of initrd, couldn't we just modify the initrd provided in beta2 with the fixes listed on your site to provide the fsck, and the external CF card fixes? We can work on improving the initrd with a boot menu and such after we get a booting system, I think, with the improved kernel and updated root fs.
Why do you need to rip the initrd.bin from a Zaurus file? If we're just applying fixes to an existing initrd, couldn't we just mount it, fix it, unmount it, and re-rip it from the /dev/mtdblock0? I'm not terribly familiar with the whole process yet, so I'm not exactly sure.
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Sounds good. For the fixes, do you basically mean the fixes you have here:
http://www.users.on.net/~hluc/myZaurus/custom-pdaxrom.html (http://www.users.on.net/~hluc/myZaurus/custom-pdaxrom.html)
or are there other fixes that need to be applied? Customizing hdimage.tgz is probably the last thing we need to do, as it's simply a matter of providing the root fs that will be booted (like you said, changing default programs and such).
Your kernel idea sounds good. I didn't think about using the Tetsu kernel as I've never used it before.
In terms of initrd, couldn't we just modify the initrd provided in beta2 with the fixes listed on your site to provide the fsck, and the external CF card fixes? We can work on improving the initrd with a boot menu and such after we get a booting system, I think, with the improved kernel and updated root fs.
Why do you need to rip the initrd.bin from a Zaurus file? If we're just applying fixes to an existing initrd, couldn't we just mount it, fix it, unmount it, and re-rip it from the /dev/mtdblock0? I'm not terribly familiar with the whole process yet, so I'm not exactly sure.
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yep, basically those fixes as a minimum. there probably are more fixes others could suggest.
as for the initrd.bin file, i agree we should first get a stable working one first before adding extra features. the problem is that its a mtd block and jffs2 file formatted image. its not so straight forward to extract, modify and rebuild, at least not from Sharp ROM.
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Just for fun, I played around with the initrd and tried to build my own with the beta2 initrd and applying your fixes. I used the instructions here:
https://www.oesf.org/index.php?title=C3000_Device_Specifics (https://www.oesf.org/index.php?title=C3000_Device_Specifics)
to extract, modify, and rebuild the initrd, including the SHARP header. Unfortunately, when I tried to boot with this initrd, I got these errors:
CLEANMARKER node found at 0x00280000 has totlen 0xc != normal 0x0
VFS: Mounted root (jffs2 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing init memory: 80K
and then it just hung, so I'm assuming there's something I don't know about building an initrd file (quite likely). I also tried to use a new tools.tar file with Tetsu's kernel and new hdimage.tgz with the beta3 files and also the /lib/modules/2.4.20 folder replaced with the one provided with Tetsu's modules ipk then tried to boot with ThC's original initrd, but this also gave me problems. It said that it couldn't parse the modules.dep file (which has a file length of 0) and also it couldn't find the pcmcia/ide-cs.o file, which doesn't exist. I've never used Tetsu's kernel before... are these modules possibly built into the kernel and we need to modify the initrd to not require that module?
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Just for fun, I played around with the initrd and tried to build my own with the beta2 initrd and applying your fixes. I used the instructions here:
https://www.oesf.org/index.php?title=C3000_Device_Specifics (https://www.oesf.org/index.php?title=C3000_Device_Specifics)
to extract, modify, and rebuild the initrd, including the SHARP header. Unfortunately, when I tried to boot with this initrd, I got these errors:
CLEANMARKER node found at 0x00280000 has totlen 0xc != normal 0x0
VFS: Mounted root (jffs2 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing init memory: 80K
and then it just hung, so I'm assuming there's something I don't know about building an initrd file (quite likely). I also tried to use a new tools.tar file with Tetsu's kernel and new hdimage.tgz with the beta3 files and also the /lib/modules/2.4.20 folder replaced with the one provided with Tetsu's modules ipk then tried to boot with ThC's original initrd, but this also gave me problems. It said that it couldn't parse the modules.dep file (which has a file length of 0) and also it couldn't find the pcmcia/ide-cs.o file, which doesn't exist. I've never used Tetsu's kernel before... are these modules possibly built into the kernel and we need to modify the initrd to not require that module?
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not sure about the initrd.bin bit, but if you send me a tarball of its content, then I could give it a go also.
as for the modules, did you replace the existing lib directory with the lib directory of tetsu's modules? it does not contain everything, but rather is a set of updatede modules so you would need the existing module files and just copy the tetsu ones on top to overwrite and replace some of them.
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not sure about the initrd.bin bit, but if you send me a tarball of its content, then I could give it a go also.
as for the modules, did you replace the existing lib directory with the lib directory of tetsu's modules? it does not contain everything, but rather is a set of updatede modules so you would need the existing module files and just copy the tetsu ones on top to overwrite and replace some of them.
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Oh, I thought Tetsu's ipk provided all the necessary modules. I'll try that again. I've attached a tar.gz of the modified initrd I tried. It's got the two fixes you have on your website applied (to provide fsck and to boot even with an external CF card inserted), but it didn't work for me.
Well, I just tried it with Tetsu's module ipk overlaying the original beta 3 hdimage.tgz's modules and I still get the same error. Sure enough, even after not replacing, but overlaying Tetsu's modules, there is still no ide-cs.o module. Maybe ThC's compiled kernel had that built in (so that he wouldn't need the module in the initrd), but Tetsu's kernel does not. I'm not sure.
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Another way you can run whatever distro you want on your 3k i described in my post here:
https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=21540&hl= (https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=21540&hl=)
The nice thing about just using the Oz kernel and installer to install pdaxrom is you can run any version of pdaxrom, because the oz kernel boots from the c3k hard drive, so its transparent to pdaxrom. there is a SMALL probability that because the modules and kernel could have been compiled with different options of a problem coming up, but i use the hostap driver, hid for a usb kb, and usb-storage for a hd and never had any stability issues.
Using the oz kernel to boot a standard pdaxrom install also helps keep us from making a c3k fork of pdaxrom, more effort can then be focused on pdaxrom itself, and not workaround hacks. the only thing that should be put in place for pdaxrom in reguards to the 3k is change the kernel option on the 3k distro to boot from (names here may be wrong, i'm going from memory) /dev/hda1 instead of /dev/mtblock1.
on the suspend issue i always suspend with apm --suspend, and never have any problems, the button just seems to give me issues, so i don't use it.
I hope this helps some ppl, enjoy
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Another way you can run whatever distro you want on your 3k i described in my post here:
https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=21540&hl= (https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=21540&hl=)
The nice thing about just using the Oz kernel and installer to install pdaxrom is you can run any version of pdaxrom, because the oz kernel boots from the c3k hard drive, so its transparent to pdaxrom. there is a SMALL probability that because the modules and kernel could have been compiled with different options of a problem coming up, but i use the hostap driver, hid for a usb kb, and usb-storage for a hd and never had any stability issues.
Using the oz kernel to boot a standard pdaxrom install also helps keep us from making a c3k fork of pdaxrom, more effort can then be focused on pdaxrom itself, and not workaround hacks. the only thing that should be put in place for pdaxrom in reguards to the 3k is change the kernel option on the 3k distro to boot from (names here may be wrong, i'm going from memory) /dev/hda1 instead of /dev/mtblock1.
on the suspend issue i always suspend with apm --suspend, and never have any problems, the button just seems to give me issues, so i don't use it.
I hope this helps some ppl, enjoy
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Well, I think using the OZ kernel works just fine for maybe Beta 4 and 1.10r121 because they run on a 2.6 kernel. Beta 3 runs on a 2.4 kernel, so I don't think it'd work. Out of curiosity, I just tried it and it wouldn't boot up with the Beta 3 hdimage1.tgz at all (froze after displaying the OpenZaurus logo).
One of the main reasons I'd like to use a pdaXrom-based kernel is for the BVDD support, which OZ doesn't support. They're working on their own method of acceleration, but that will take some time to get out. Being able to have an accelerated Mplayer and to use psx4zaurus is a major plus for me.
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i have booted both pdaxrom beta3 and beta4 using the oz 2.6 kernel and altboot.
it took some hacking to boot beta3 since it requires a 2.4.20 kernel and thus looks for certin modules in the 2.4.20 lib directory as well as requiring a different /proc and /dev so I copied it over as well and was able to boot beta3. but since some of the matchbox applets in X interrogate /proc and the keymap format is different between 2.4 and 2.6 kernel, starting X was problematic and I ran out of time and patience.
booting pdaxrom beta4 was much simpler. actually, it just worked.
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I am trying to rebuild initrd.bin and its turning out to be a major headache
It just won't want to work.
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i have booted both pdaxrom beta3 and beta4 using the oz 2.6 kernel and altboot.
it took some hacking to boot beta3 since it requires a 2.4.20 kernel and thus looks for certin modules in the 2.4.20 lib directory as well as requiring a different /proc and /dev so I copied it over as well and was able to boot beta3. but since some of the matchbox applets in X interrogate /proc and the keymap format is different between 2.4 and 2.6 kernel, starting X was problematic and I ran out of time and patience.
booting pdaxrom beta4 was much simpler. actually, it just worked.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146108\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Does that mean one could boot pdaxrom from the harddrive?
cycle_55
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i have booted both pdaxrom beta3 and beta4 using the oz 2.6 kernel and altboot.
it took some hacking to boot beta3 since it requires a 2.4.20 kernel and thus looks for certin modules in the 2.4.20 lib directory as well as requiring a different /proc and /dev so I copied it over as well and was able to boot beta3. but since some of the matchbox applets in X interrogate /proc and the keymap format is different between 2.4 and 2.6 kernel, starting X was problematic and I ran out of time and patience.
booting pdaxrom beta4 was much simpler. actually, it just worked.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146108\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Does that mean one could boot pdaxrom from the harddrive?
cycle_55
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146220\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
ooooops sorry guys I see this discussion is about the C3000 and not the C3100, I apologize.
cycle_55
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ooooops sorry guys I see this discussion is about the C3000 and not the C3100, I apologize.
cycle_55
Even so I wouldn't mind booting from the internal microdrive even on my 3100, worked great with OZ.
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ok, I got it working. pdaXrom 1.1.0 beta3 on C3000 using Tetsu special kernel 18h, ie 2.4.20
I am going to polish up the installer a bit more. Then I am going to apply all the customisations and create the base hdimage.tgz file
The installer allows you to repartition the MicroDrive, either one partition of 4GB, my custom paritioning which is 1.5GB root, 512MB swap, 2.0GB data
it also allows you to restore the default Sharp partition layout
what I want to do is make this the universal installer for C3000 and allow it to flash pdaXrom beta3, r121 and OZ
anyway, there's still a lot of work to be done...
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ooooops sorry guys I see this discussion is about the C3000 and not the C3100, I apologize.
cycle_55
Even so I wouldn't mind booting from the internal microdrive even on my 3100, worked great with OZ.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146328\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
I agree totally and I wouldn't mind being able to have just one partition on the drive.
cycle_55
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ok, I got it working. pdaXrom 1.1.0 beta3 on C3000 using Tetsu special kernel 18h, ie 2.4.20
I am going to polish up the installer a bit more. Then I am going to apply all the customisations and create the base hdimage.tgz file
The installer allows you to repartition the MicroDrive, either one partition of 4GB, my custom paritioning which is 1.5GB root, 512MB swap, 2.0GB data
it also allows you to restore the default Sharp partition layout
what I want to do is make this the universal installer for C3000 and allow it to flash pdaXrom beta3, r121 and OZ
anyway, there's still a lot of work to be done...
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146402\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Sounds good. What exactly did you have to do to get it work? Mainly, how did you build a working initrd? I think some good documentation would be good so that everyone could benefit. Unfortunately, I've been pretty busy so I haven't gotten to play with it any since my last post.
Do you need any help working through any of it?
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ok, I got it working. pdaXrom 1.1.0 beta3 on C3000 using Tetsu special kernel 18h, ie 2.4.20
I am going to polish up the installer a bit more. Then I am going to apply all the customisations and create the base hdimage.tgz file
The installer allows you to repartition the MicroDrive, either one partition of 4GB, my custom paritioning which is 1.5GB root, 512MB swap, 2.0GB data
it also allows you to restore the default Sharp partition layout
what I want to do is make this the universal installer for C3000 and allow it to flash pdaXrom beta3, r121 and OZ
anyway, there's still a lot of work to be done...
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146402\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Wow! That is fantastic news Meanie! I can't wait!
Does this new Tetsu kernel solve the suspend issue present in the last c3k pdax beta? Even more importantly, despite applying the fixes on your pdax customisation page straight after install every time I have suffered major file corruption of my MD with this current beta. Do you think the old kernel and its flakey suspend code was the cause of this? There's nothing wrong with my MD.
If possible, I would very much like to see
The updated Sharp SD driver
gpe-calendar and gpe-announce pre-configured to just work
the updated usbfuntion.py with MD support
your tweaked openbox/xmms configs
Thunar - makes for a great pdax filemanager
zxgv - much better suited as an image viewer on pdax than gqview, shame it lacks a slideshow
and maybe xorg unless this will stop all the b3 feeds working with it or is too much trouble
Just a 'few' things to consider
Go Meanie!
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I would also like to highly recommend the inclusion of
libogg / vorbis
mplayer - the mplayer2 version seemed to work better for me
gnumeric
aspell english dictionaries
but maybe we're starting to make it a bit bloaty now eh? Maybe not- almost everybody inevitably installs mplayer- pretty much everyone who isn't solely console -I think most of them are using OZ for that now anyway. People will be wanting this especially for its bvdd video accel and speedier X11 or for more normal PDA like use and that crowd would expect a wp with spell check, a decent spreadsheet app, calendar w/alarm (as already requested) and file manager (latest Thunar please!) so I'd vote these apps in too.
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ooooops sorry guys I see this discussion is about the C3000 and not the C3100, I apologize.
cycle_55
Even so I wouldn't mind booting from the internal microdrive even on my 3100, worked great with OZ.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146328\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
I will probably make it work for 3100 as well since it got the same size HDD as the C3000
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a question and a comment
tetsu kernel? did you recompile for softfloat? I was just glancing over this thread and the Tetsu&pdaxrom combo caught my eye
also emelfm might be lighter than thunar...works fine as a default file manager--but don't place anyweight on my views, since I probably won't reflash and redo beta 3 just to run it off the micriodrive.
though a distro agnostic install/boot method it would be amazing to put different distros on sd cards and boot to any given one at a moment's notice.
edit: I seee altboot kinda fits the bill. how did you do beta4 with altboot? how was performance with the OZ kernel?
on a 3100, might it be possible to loadd OZ for the 1000 and then have the various OZ's and pdaxrom rc121on different sd cards?
Sorry if I wandered off the 3000 boot issue...... your solution was pretty interesting
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a question and a comment
tetsu kernel? did you recompile for softfloat? I was just glancing over this thread and the Tetsu&pdaxrom combo caught my eye
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146488\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
You don't need to recompile the kernel for softfloat, since softfloat is a userspace thing.
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ok, I got it working. pdaXrom 1.1.0 beta3 on C3000 using Tetsu special kernel 18h, ie 2.4.20
I am going to polish up the installer a bit more. Then I am going to apply all the customisations and create the base hdimage.tgz file
The installer allows you to repartition the MicroDrive, either one partition of 4GB, my custom paritioning which is 1.5GB root, 512MB swap, 2.0GB data
it also allows you to restore the default Sharp partition layout
what I want to do is make this the universal installer for C3000 and allow it to flash pdaXrom beta3, r121 and OZ
anyway, there's still a lot of work to be done...
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146402\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Sounds good. What exactly did you have to do to get it work? Mainly, how did you build a working initrd? I think some good documentation would be good so that everyone could benefit. Unfortunately, I've been pretty busy so I haven't gotten to play with it any since my last post.
Do you need any help working through any of it?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146405\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
there was quite a bit of investigation involved to figure out how everything worked. i will document everything once i get it working the way I like. unfortunately, i am quite busy myself as well. hunting for new furniture, etc...
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a question and a comment
tetsu kernel? did you recompile for softfloat? I was just glancing over this thread and the Tetsu&pdaxrom combo caught my eye
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146488\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
You don't need to recompile the kernel for softfloat, since softfloat is a userspace thing.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146489\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Yep, as koen says, it is not necessary to recompile. that's why pdaXrom has two toolchains, gcc 2.95 for the kernel and gcc 3.4.x for the apps.
I chose Tetsu kernel since it is the fastest one for 2.4.20 and has all the latest patches. This way, I can just reflash the kernel whenever Tetsu upgrades his kernel build. The previous beta had a custom kernel afaik because it was using an old shrink down oz initrd as the boot image and required a custom kernel for that image. With my initrd which I ripped from the emergency boot image, I can just use Tetsu's special kernel and not worry about applying kernel patches and doubling effort in building and maintaining my own kernel build.
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a question and a comment
tetsu kernel? did you recompile for softfloat? I was just glancing over this thread and the Tetsu&pdaxrom combo caught my eye
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146488\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
You don't need to recompile the kernel for softfloat, since softfloat is a userspace thing.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146489\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Yep, as koen says, it is not necessary to recompile. that's why pdaXrom has two toolchains, gcc 2.95 for the kernel and gcc 3.4.x for the apps.
I chose Tetsu kernel since it is the fastest one for 2.4.20 and has all the latest patches. This way, I can just reflash the kernel whenever Tetsu upgrades his kernel build. The previous beta had a custom kernel afaik because it was using an old shrink down oz initrd as the boot image and required a custom kernel for that image. With my initrd which I ripped from the emergency boot image, I can just use Tetsu's special kernel and not worry about applying kernel patches and doubling effort in building and maintaining my own kernel build.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146492\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
sounds very very promising Meanie, thanks a lot for all this! Can't wait to fit pdaXrom back into my C3000
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a question and a comment
tetsu kernel? did you recompile for softfloat? I was just glancing over this thread and the Tetsu&pdaxrom combo caught my eye
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146488\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
You don't need to recompile the kernel for softfloat, since softfloat is a userspace thing.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146489\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Yep, as koen says, it is not necessary to recompile. that's why pdaXrom has two toolchains, gcc 2.95 for the kernel and gcc 3.4.x for the apps.
I chose Tetsu kernel since it is the fastest one for 2.4.20 and has all the latest patches. This way, I can just reflash the kernel whenever Tetsu upgrades his kernel build. The previous beta had a custom kernel afaik because it was using an old shrink down oz initrd as the boot image and required a custom kernel for that image. With my initrd which I ripped from the emergency boot image, I can just use Tetsu's special kernel and not worry about applying kernel patches and doubling effort in building and maintaining my own kernel build.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146492\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
sounds very very promising Meanie, thanks a lot for all this! Can't wait to fit pdaXrom back into my C3000
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146497\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
I will start a new thread on this later. I am currently building a generic installer/flash utility for the C3000 (and partly the C3100 as well) which can install distros to the internal MicroDrive. I can install pdaXrom beta1/beta3 with it already. I also want it to be able to install pdaXrom beta4/r121. With this installer and the appropriate tarball of the rootfs image, new releases can be much easier ported/installed to the C3000.
I am also planning on building something like altboot in OZ, but without the fancy menu, that can run another distro off an external cf card. so for example, the main distro is running on the microdrive, and for testing you put a test image onto a cf card and it will load the distro from the cf card instead of the microdrive if it detects a distro on the cf during boot. ultimately, i want to get kexec working as well, then you can easily switch between 2.4.20 and 2.6.x kernel based distros.
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Dear Mr Meanie
Personally, I'm only interesed in using this to install beta3 so as long as that works well then I'll be overjoyed!
My Z is in a state of flux at the mo and I have to perform an extended recovery op to go back to cacko which I try to avoid but that's what I might have to do if a release of this installer is weeks away.
Meanie- are you planning on making some kind of release of the b3 installer in the next day or two or could we be waiting a while yet? Seeing as I'm so keen I can act as a tester if you want?
Thanks!
dan
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Dear Mr Meanie
Personally, I'm only interesed in using this to install beta3 so as long as that works well then I'll be overjoyed!
My Z is in a state of flux at the mo and I have to perform an extended recovery op to go back to cacko which I try to avoid but that's what I might have to do if a release of this installer is weeks away.
Meanie- are you planning on making some kind of release of the b3 installer in the next day or two or could we be waiting a while yet? Seeing as I'm so keen I can act as a tester if you want?
Thanks!
dan
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=146537\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
same here, can't wait to get my hands on Pdaxrom...please let us know if we can beta test anything!