Messages

1

Zaurus - pdaXrom / Who All Is Currently Working On C3000 Devel?

« on: February 24, 2005, 10:59:38 am »

I'm currently hacking the c3000 - the pdaxrom build system seems to be broken (and support seems to be nonexistent), so I'm currently just stripping the pdaxrom initrd.bin image in such a way that it fits in the tiny c3000 flash (and the rest on the microdrive)

I'll keep you posted. You can always contact me on irc (VladDrac @ FreeNode)

2

Zaurus - pdaXrom / Build Pdaxrom From Scratch

« on: February 02, 2005, 04:58:19 am »

This means I have to create my own root 'initrd.bin' with a subset of what's currently in pdaxrom, and I probably need to do this from scratch. The SDK on pdaxrom.org is mostly about crosscompiling packages/building ipk's, not the entire system including the jffs2 rootimage. How do I build this myself?

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Ok, I found 'pdaXrom-builder' which seems like something that could help me build pdaxrom  BBut I could still use some help on how to use this to build the rom.

I copied config-sys/corgi-xscale-softvfp-3.3.2-2.2.5-2.4.18/config_xtools as a base for my c3000 config (what's the use of config_rom btw? Other configs don't seem to have this).

This config has options such as:

PTXCONF_PREFIX="/opt/cross/arm/3.3.2-xscale-softvfp"
PTXCONF_NATIVE_PREFIX="/opt/native/arm/3.3.2-xscale-softvfp"
PTXCONF_ROOT="/tmp/roots/root-corgi"

I assume one of them is the crosscompiler, what is meant by 'native prefix'? Is that /usr for my i386 gcc?

What is PTXCONF_ROOT? Should I create a basic root filesystem from my current default rom image?

Cheers

  Ivo

3

Zaurus - pdaXrom / Build Pdaxrom From Scratch

« on: February 01, 2005, 06:05:49 pm »

Hi All,

I've mostly figured out what's involved in getting pdaxrom working on the c3000. It boils down to:

- a small root filesystem (jffs2) - there's only 5mb available in mtd2, the rest can be stored on the microdrive (this is basically what sharp does as well with Qtopia) or optionally mtd3 ('home'), but that's relatively small as well. This means pdaxrom has to be split into two parts - a rootfilesystem to get the basics running (pcmcia, rc stuff). All applications (/usr basically) can be stored on the microdrive.

- a working pcmcia subsystem before pdaxrom boots, to access the microdrive (which is a pcmcia device, of course). The existing c3000 rc.rofilesys should be usable for this (along with some mounting magic to modify /etc after pcmcia comes up, basically like the default sharp rom already does)

- some re-compiled binaries, most importantly the Xserver without ati (?) accelleration (I don't even know at this point if this accelleration breaks anything though - perhaps it'll just work?)

This means I have to create my own root 'initrd.bin' with a subset of what's currently in pdaxrom, and I probably need to do this from scratch. The SDK on pdaxrom.org is mostly about crosscompiling packages/building ipk's, not the entire system including the jffs2 rootimage. How do I build this myself?

Cheers

  Ivo

4

C1000/3x00 General discussions / Trying To Understand The C3000 Bootprocess

« on: January 30, 2005, 07:39:36 am »

I'm trying to figure out how exactly the c3000 (normally) boots.


As far as I know, the root filesystem is on mtd2, the home is on mtd3, /etc is a symlink to /home/etc, and the original (?) etc is in /root/etc

How can the system boot if (initially) /home (and therefore, /etc) isn't mounted? How does the system (init?) know that /root/etc is to be used?

I suspect that /root isn't related to root's homedirectory (as on many linux systems) but that it's an alternative, temporary rootfilesystem, somehow. I just can't find where the switch takes place to the normal environment
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=64490\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Ok, I figured it out myself eventually - here's an explanation for anyone who's interested.

Upon initial boot, /etc is a link to /home/etc. /home isn't mounted at this point, and contains a symlink /home/etc to /root/etc. So effectively, /etc is /root/etc.

In /root/etc, rc.rofilesys does the interesting stuff, such as mounting /dev/mtdblock3 as /home  and, eventually, starting the pcmcia system to detect and mount the microdrive.

Once /home is mounted from /dev/mtdblock3 and rc.rofilesys is finished, execution returns to rc.sysinit, which will do the appropriate runlevel stuff in rc5.d. By now, this will be a new, 'filled' directory (because home, and therefore the new /etc, was mounted)

5

C1000/3x00 General discussions / Help Bricked C3000

« on: January 29, 2005, 07:06:14 pm »

Yep, even without the wlan card, same thing.

During my hacking session today I ran into the following code, in /root/etc/rc.d/rc.rofilesys:

get_dev_pcmcia()
{
while read SOCKET CLASS DRIVER INSTANCE DEVS MAJOR MINOR;
do
    echo $DEVS
done
}
get_dev_pcmcia_slot()
{
    grep "^$1" /var/lib/pcmcia/stab | get_dev_pcmcia
}


which is used to determine (in a loop) which /dev device your disk is on:

# mount HDD
/etc/rc.d/init.d/pcmcia start
while [ "$IDE1" = "" ]; do
        IDE1=`get_dev_pcmcia_slot 1`
done


For some reason, this fails. There might be a problem with /var, which is a symlink to /home/system/var (and /home is a separate mtd device, mtd3), pcmcia might be failing (due to misconfiguration?)

Hard to say from here - any more info you can give from your current environment?

Cheers

  Ivo

6

C1000/3x00 General discussions / Trying To Understand The C3000 Bootprocess

« on: January 29, 2005, 06:55:34 pm »

I'm trying to figure out how exactly the c3000 (normally) boots.


As far as I know, the root filesystem is on mtd2, the home is on mtd3, /etc is a symlink to /home/etc, and the original (?) etc is in /root/etc

How can the system boot if (initially) /home (and therefore, /etc) isn't mounted? How does the system (init?) know that /root/etc is to be used?

I suspect that /root isn't related to root's homedirectory (as on many linux systems) but that it's an alternative, temporary rootfilesystem, somehow. I just can't find where the switch takes place to the normal environment

Oh, and does anyone know what 'smf' means? (It's the name of the system on mtd1, I expect it's the standalone flash linux environment)

Is there anyone who can shed some light on this?

Cheers

  Ivo

7

C1000/3x00 General discussions / Help Bricked C3000

« on: January 29, 2005, 05:25:56 pm »

The quickest fix is probably to reinitialize the device. There is somewhere some menuoption to do this (I think it's in the same menu as the flashupgrade - i.e. hold 'ok' while booting)

Alternatively, you could use a 'hacked' updater.sh to boot into the flash linux environment and try to fix things from ther (or disable qpe, get a simple loginprompt and have a look at what exactly is wrong)

Does this problem also occur when no wlancard is inserted?

Cheers

  Ivo

8

Zaurus - pdaXrom / Pdaxrom (rc8) Initrd.bin Contents

« on: January 16, 2005, 04:16:16 pm »

Hi All

For an experiment on my c3000 I need the contents of the initrd.bin image. the c3000 no longer works with flash ramdisks (it has a 4gbdisk for this purpose), and extrackting the contents from the initrd.bin is non-trivial for me at this moment (though not impossible). If someone could somehow copy this, I'd be very happy (and I might be able to get some sort of functional pdaxrom on the c3000)

Cheers

  Ivo

9

C1000/3x00 General discussions / Full Debian On The Sl-c3000

« on: January 15, 2005, 01:06:55 pm »

So, if you didn't use it, then you wouldn't be able to tap items on the screen?

And you're connecting to fbvnc as local loopback?

Correct, You'd have no mouse, basically (which tends to be usefull with X apps

10

C1000/3x00 General discussions / Full Debian On The Sl-c3000

« on: January 15, 2005, 06:17:02 am »

Why are you guys using fbvnc?

m

Because, as epxlained, calibration does not work with the standard X server

11

C1000/3x00 General discussions / Full Debian On The Sl-c3000

« on: January 14, 2005, 05:30:44 am »

In fact it it's not so difficult to get pdaxrom running on c3000.
(..)

The only problems I found so far are:

1. screen calibration doesn't work. The pdaxrom calibration utility doesn't work with c3000 frame buffer driver anymore...




Milan

You could work around this using the fbvncserver setup (server+client) used by pocketworkstation. At least it will give you a working X setup

12

C1000/3x00 General discussions / Full Debian On The Sl-c3000

« on: January 14, 2005, 05:24:57 am »

In fact it it's not so difficult to get pdaxrom running on c3000. I have it on my c3000 after a great time of hacking/tweaking. You have to get C3000's hard drive initialized. It's not like a PC PCI HD, it's connected as a PCMCIA device so you have to get up and running the whole PCMCIA susbsystem prior the booting from the HD. The rest is pretty straightforward, I would say even easier than with cx00 series, because you can forget about different flash rom sizes etc.

Could you provide more details what you had to do to get pdaxrom to work? How did you get the pcmcia subsystem started?

I'm considering doing some hacking myself, but any headstart you can give me would be nice

What will happen if I just install pdaxrom on my c3000? Restoring shouldn't be a problem, right?

13

C1000/3x00 General discussions / Full Debian On The Sl-c3000

« on: January 01, 2005, 06:44:26 pm »

What is the benefit of Debian on the C3000?  Sorry, I'm not a Linux user, and I don't have the C3000 'yet'...

Most of the other roms don't work (yet) on the c3000, and the standard qtopia rom is a bit too limited for me. I run debian everywhere and it's great to be able to simply apt-get install software (though the ipkg system offered by most other systems is a very good alternative)

14

C1000/3x00 General discussions / Full Debian On The Sl-c3000

« on: January 01, 2005, 12:43:46 pm »

Hi,
Thanks for this great howto - debian runs smoothly now. I have some remaining issues though:

- the on/off button does not work. Pressing it does not suspend the device, but rrunning zsuspend does (and after that, the on/off switch *does* unsuspend!)

- has anyone looked into screenflipping? I'm going to have a look at how pdaxrom does this and see if this can be reused.

Lastly, does anyone have any mplayer tips/tricks for this setup? (I must admit that I haven't even istalled mplayer yet - can I expect problems with the vnc setup? Will mplayer bypass vnc and use the framebuffer directly?)

Cheers