Messages

1

Zaurus - Other distros support / games and emulators on the SL-5500

« on: April 09, 2020, 01:39:25 pm »

Just had a thought, the boot.cfg syntax had changed with newer kexecboot kernels. so best to check the boot.cfg included with zgrom and adjust to syntax present in newer kexecboot kernel (voidz, alarmz or oe)

ok, I'm using the arch 3.10 kexecboot linked in the Void Linux install thread.  It works fine with void and zubuntu, but I still get a messed up screen after some text scrolls by too quickly to read with zgrom. zgrom makes it to the login: prompt but I get errors saying something   about deleted inode and ext2fs_lookup. fsck.ext2  finds nothing wrong   with /deb/mmcblk0p1. It mounts and seems normal with the card in my PC.    You can type, but nothing happens when you press enter.
zgrom and zubuntu partitions are formatted ext2.


mmcblk0p1 is zgrom

/boot/zImage is the spitz zImage. (I'm using SL-3100.)
/boot/boot.cfg says this:

Code: [Select]

# First kernel stanza.          # Show this label in kexecboot menu.
           LABEL=ZGrom-0.1
           # Specify full kernel path on target.
           KERNEL=/boot/zImage
           #
           # Append this tags to the kernel cmdline.
           APPEND=console=ttyS0,115200n8 console=tty1 fbcon=rotate:1/etc/fstab says:

Code: [Select]

# stock fstab - you probably want to override this with a machine specific one
      
       #rootfs               /                    auto       defaults              1  1
       /dev/mmcblk0p1        /    auto    rw,noatime    1  1
      
      
       proc                 /proc                proc       defaults              0  0
       devpts               /dev/pts             devpts     mode=0620,gid=5       0  0
       usbdevfs             /proc/bus/usb        usbdevfs   noauto                0  0
       tmpfs                /var/volatile        tmpfs      defaults              0  0
       tmpfs                /media/ram           tmpfs      defaults              0  0
      
       # uncomment this if your device has a SD/MMC/Transflash slot
       #/dev/mmcblk0p1       /media/card          auto       defaults,sync,noauto  0  0

zubuntu is mmcblk0p2. There is no /boot/boot.cfg, but /boot/kernel-cmdline.
kernel-cmdline says:

Code: [Select]

console=ttyS0,115200n8 console=tty1 noinitrd rootfstype=ext2 fbcon=rotate:1 dyntick=enable debug psplash=true quiet

Void is mmcblk0p3, and it is ext4.
/boot/boot.cfg says:

Code: [Select]

LABEL=VoidLinux
     KERNEL=/boot/zImage
     APPEND=root=/dev/mmcblk0p3 rootfstype=ext4 fbcon=rotate:1 noinitrd quietI use the same syntax with Void in mmcblk0p3, so I don't understand what is wrong with zgrom.

2

Zaurus - Other distros support / games and emulators on the SL-5500

« on: April 07, 2020, 04:42:25 pm »

...
...slightly off topic as not for the SL-5500, but zgrom is still a good ROM for emulation and gaming on Sharp Zaurus Cxx00 series. https://code.google.com/archive/p/zgrom/
it uses a modified SDL version that uses iwmmxt optimized rotation and blitting directly to the framebuffer.
sadly the source was lost...

I can't find a version of kexecboot which will boot zgrom. The zgrom root filesystem has kernel 3.2.30 zImage, so I'm guessing I need a kexecboot kernel close to that version for it to work?  Could someone who has zgrom working upload the kexecboot "installkit".  By installkit, I mean the file containing gnu-tar, updater.sh, zImage. It might also be interesting to see what is in your boot.cfg.

I tried 3.2.18 and a few other versions from https://github.com/LinuxPDA/linux-kexecboot...e/master/zaurus but it is always a black screen. The zgrom rootfs is on the first 4GB partition of an SD card in SL-C3100.  

I tried downgrading to the Omegamoon kexecboot 2.6.? (found in Wayback Machine) and it still gives a black screen when I try to boot zgrom.
 I tried zubuntu jaunty in the second partition and it boots fine using that kexecboot. The speed is amazing. Too bad you can't find any packages for it anymore.....Maybe a mirror of the package repo is someplace in the Wayback Machine?

3

Zaurus - Other distros support / games and emulators on the SL-5500

« on: April 04, 2020, 01:17:21 pm »

...
On my C1000, pdaxrom was quite fast and snappy, I liked it more than the stock ROM/Cacko, though I remember having issues with suspend/resume, I don't know if later releases fixed that. As for the current status of the ROMs: Pdaxrom was eventually discontinued, as many other ROMs too, though its author was recently toying with the idea of resuming its development, although he has later stated that the interest for a new version was too low. Angstrom was still supporting the Zs until a couple of years ago when they stopped releasing nightly builds, I read it was because of a lack of testers. OpenBSD AFAIK still supports Zauruses. Kexecboot was in active development until last year, too. Then we have the recent releases for Cx000 of Arch Linux ARM and Void Linux and the release of the Linux kernel 5.0. Both Arch and Void are shell-only distros.

I forgot to mention that the old wiki is still up, quite messy but still with a lot of useful information, though I have seen that some sections cannot be loaded anymore: http://www.oesf.org/old_wiki/index.php/Main_Page (note that it cannot be accessed via https).

Varti

I got some cheap "junk" SL-C700 and SL-C3100 Zaurus clamshells to play with from FromJapan. Thanks for the great suggestion, as I probably would not have thought of using a proxy site. Anyway, after a huge long wait--order placed in Jan., arrived end of March--I've got more Zaurus than I know what to do with.

Neither Zaurus was completely unusable: the C700 had messed up flash partitions because someone tried (and failed) to install pdaxrom and the C3100 has a failing microdrive, which I'll replace one of these days.

Further experimentation with cacko, then pdaxii3 on C3100 and Kathrin1.1.0beta1 on C700 so far leads me to think that pdaxrom(s) are the least broken option on these models. I mostly want to do hazardous things like play SDL games on these, and it seems pdaxom SDL is less crashy than those in Qtopia. It's also nice to be able to easily exit X11.

 I have not played with kexecboot and newer Linuxen like Void and Ubuntu because I can't find clear documentation on how to set up kexecboot for multiboot configurations. I'm guessing this new stuff is going to be slow and there will probably be unforseen complications to putting old sharp-based roms on SD partitions and booting them  from kexecboot.  I imagine these problems have already been solved, but it's hard to find information.

4

Zaurus - Hardware discussion / Cameron Sino replacement batteries don't work in SL-5500?!

« on: January 25, 2020, 02:48:39 pm »

This might be a problem with bad battery contacts, try to follow the instructions on this thread (from post #9 onwards): https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showto...=24784&st=0
...

That was it: the plastic surrounding the 3 contacts is off center so that the + and - terminals were touching plastic instead of the metal contact area. Fortunately, the metal contacts extend a few mm under the plastic so you can easily nip off the plastic that is in the way. Flush cutters work well for this.

 I never would have noticed this: you can just barely see how they miss if you take a bright flashlight and shine it in there with the battery about 1 mm away from the contacts.
Thanks Varti!!

5

Zaurus - Hardware discussion / Cameron Sino replacement batteries don't work in SL-5500?!

« on: January 16, 2020, 08:34:50 am »

Is there something strange about the original SL-5500 battery?
I bought two replacement batteries that are supposed to be for the SL-5500 and it acts like it has no battery in it when I insert them: the battery LED just flashes forever and the battery does not charge.
I checked them with a mutimeter and they both have about 4.0V across + and - so they're not dead.I notice the voltage across the middle terminal and + is a little less? What's the middle terminal do anyway? I assume it is connected to some temperature sensor...

I booted the Zaurus into the service menu to check battery voltage and it looks like there is no battery inserted.  If I force it to try to charge the battery in the "Charge" menu, the yellow LED comes on but the battery does not charge: after leaving it in there for a few hours, I checked the battery with the meter and it still reads about 4V and it is not even slightly warm.

If I put the original Sharp-branded battery in, it is detected and charges normally. Before I send back both of these for a refund, am I doing something wrong? Is there some kind of voodoo battery detection going on involving that middle terminal? i.e. Sharp trying to prevent third party batteries from working, so they could rip people off with outrageously overpriced batteries? (I've heard of such shenanigans from Lenovo with their expensive thinkpad batteries....)

6

Zaurus - Other distros support / games and emulators on the SL-5500

« on: January 10, 2020, 10:24:39 am »

Just for fun, I got suhami's wonderswan working with zemufe on the SL-C1000 with zemufe in Cacko.
This is still using the same libSDL_1.2.5-slzaurus20041025-j included in the cacko feed.

Content of zemufeex_ws.sh


export SDL_QT_FB_SIZE=320x480
export SDL_QT_INVERT_ROTATION=1
cd $1
     wonderswan -E 0 "$2"
     exit 0


Wonderswan will also run on SL-5500, but there is no way to exit presumably because the "Cancel" button does not send the same key code as the one on the SL-C1000. I only tested out Chocobo no fushigi (Chocobo's  mystery dungeon(?) ) and while a little slow, it is playable. Assuming, that is, you only need 2 buttons to finish the game:

Suhami also says that  buttons A, B are x,c and enter is Start on the zaurus keyboard. Obviously, he never owned a Wonderswan handheld: it has 12 buttons and there is no mention of where the other 9 are on the Z.

If only the source code to the zaurus port of oswan were available somewhere. It would probably be easy to at least change the cancel key for the SL-5500.

7

Zaurus - Other distros support / can't link x86 binaries for testing in qvfb

« on: January 09, 2020, 11:03:16 am »

Just a quick check: are you switching to the x86 environment variables with the dev-x86-qpe.sh script, and running again tmake to rebuild the Makefile before attempting to compile the binary?

It would be great if you could release any package you manage to compile, in case anyone would need them. I can setup on the OESF's server a public feed with all the stuff you'd like to share, just let me know.

Varti

Yes, I read the directions and followed them. It looks like someone else--using a distro from around the same time--has had this problem:
https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=2045

It is probably because the distro's x86 gcc 3.2 is too new. The arm-linux-gcc is 2.92.2. It is suggested in the post above that upgrading to qtopia-free 1.7 will fix things for gcc 3.x.
Unfortunately, qtopia-free-1.7.0-2rh9.i386.rpm is noplace. Everyone just has a broken link to ftp.trolltech.com.

Ok, it definitely is the compiler. The problem is in dev-x86-qpe.sh.  It is assuming you have gcc 2.9XXX installed in /usr/local/x86and putting this path at the beginning of $PATH. Since I don't have that, it just picks up the distro's gcc 3.3 farther down in the PATH list.

I guess /usr/local/x86 was where RedHat put it's "compat" version of gcc2.

Fortunately, I found binaries of gcc 2.96.3  in here https://feed-zaurus.dahwa.fr/zaurusfr/sdk/Embedix.tgz .To get things working, I just extracted the archive and put ~/Embedix/native/bin at the beginning of the PATH= line in dev-x86-qpe.sh.

8

Zaurus - Other distros support / can't link x86 binaries for testing in qvfb

« on: January 09, 2020, 10:18:00 am »

Just a quick check: are you switching to the x86 environment variables with the dev-x86-qpe.sh script, and running again tmake to rebuild the Makefile before attempting to compile the binary?

It would be great if you could release any package you manage to compile, in case anyone would need them. I can setup on the OESF's server a public feed with all the stuff you'd like to share, just let me know.

Varti

Yes, I read the directions and followed them. It looks like someone else--using a distro from around the same time--has had this problem:
https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=2045

It is probably because the distro's x86 gcc 3.2 is too new. The arm-linux-gcc is 2.92.2. It is suggested in the post above that upgrading to qtopia-free 1.7 will fix things for gcc 3.x.
Unfortunately, qtopia-free-1.7.0-2rh9.i386.rpm is noplace. Everyone just has a broken link to ftp.trolltech.com.

9

Zaurus - Other distros support / can't link x86 binaries for testing in qvfb

« on: January 07, 2020, 11:31:08 am »

So I set up SuSE 8.2 in VirtualBox and installed the RPMs located here:
http://www.ossh.com/zaurus/mirrors/docs.za...tup_howto.shtml

No funny errors or warnings; they just installed.

I can build the example for arm and I was able to compile Frotz 2.50 (dumb version; ncurses is a mess).
I tested and the arm dfrotz binary works fine on my Zaurus.

However, I when I try to build the x86 example binary for testing in qvfb, I get a bunch of undefined symbols when gcc tries to link it.

Am I missing some RPMs?

qvfb works with the prebuilt binaries in /opt/Qtopia/bin and it would sure speed things up to be able to build things and test them without having to transfer them to the Zaurus.

Here is some of the output:

Code: [Select]

ld: warning: cannot find entry symbol _start; defaulting to 0000000008048270
main.o(.text+0x1e): In function `main':
: undefined reference to `QPEApplication::QPEApplication(int&, char**, QApplication::Type)'
main.o(.text+0x3f): In function `main':
: undefined reference to `QPEApplication::showMainWidget(QWidget*, bool)'
main.o(.text+0x47): In function `main':
: undefined reference to `QPEApplication::exec()'
main.o(.text+0x5a): In function `main':
: undefined reference to `QPEApplication::~QPEApplication()'
main.o(.gnu.linkonce.t._ZN7QGArrayaSERKS_+0x5): In function `QGArray::operator=(QGArray const&)':
: undefined reference to `QGArray::assign(QGArray const&)'
main.o(.gnu.linkonce.t._ZN7QGArray6detachEv+0xc): In function `QGArray::detach()':
: undefined reference to `QGArray::duplicate(QGArray const&)'
main.o(.gnu.linkonce.t._ZN11QStringDataD2Ev+0x35): In function `QStringData::~QStringData()':
: undefined reference to `operator delete[](void*)'
main.o(.gnu.linkonce.t._ZN11QStringDataD2Ev+0x28): In function `QStringData::~QStringData()':
: undefined reference to `operator delete[](void*)'
main.o(.gnu.linkonce.t._ZN11QStringDataD1Ev+0x35): In function `QStringData::~QStringData()':
: undefined reference to `operator delete[](void*)'
main.o(.gnu.linkonce.t._ZN11QStringDataD1Ev+0x28): In function `QStringData::~QStringData()':
: undefined reference to `operator delete[](void*)'
main.o(.gnu.linkonce.t._ZNK7QString8containsEcb+0x1f): In function `QString::contains(char, bool) const':
: undefined reference to `QString::contains(QChar, bool) const'
main.o(.gnu.linkonce.t._ZN7QString6insertEjc+0x1d): In function `QString::insert(unsigned, char)':
: undefined reference to `QString::insert(unsigned, QChar)'
main.o(.gnu.linkonce.t._ZNK7QString2atEj+0x13): In function `QString::at(unsigned) const':
: undefined reference to `QChar::null'
main.o(.gnu.linkonce.t._ZN7QString3refEj+0x18): In function `QString::ref(unsigned)':
: undefined reference to `QString::subat(unsigned)'
main.o(.gnu.linkonce.t._ZNK7QStringcvPKcEv+0x5): In function `QString::operator char const*() const':
: undefined reference to `QString::latin1() const'
main.o(.gnu.linkonce.t._ZN7QString7compareERKS_S1_+0x5): In function `QString::compare(QString const&, QString const&)':

10

Zaurus - Other distros support / games and emulators on the SL-5500

« on: January 05, 2020, 11:12:25 am »

May I ask you if you could paste here the URLs of suhami's site on the Wayback machine and the FTP site you found? I'm making local copies of older sites for preservation purposes, especially the ones on archive.org, before they disappear from there too (like http://www.oesf.org/repository/websites/cacko-crow/). Thanks!

Sumhami is here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20060614142338/...x.cgi?FrontPage

It was a while ago and I can't find the ftp now. However, all it had was zstella.
I'll attach the binary because that's all there was. This binary works on my SL-5500 with cacko and it is not too hard to make a zemufeex launcher shell script. Thing is, most Atari2600 games end in .bin, so I renamed them to a26 to make them distinct.  Maybe try and see if it works on newer Zaurus systems. I'm using it with the cacko default(?) libSDL_1.2.5-slzaurus20041025-j

btw, are there any roguelikes besides nethack for the Zaurus? Seems like the ideal handheld for it since it has a keyboard. Has anyone ported powder?

I'm also curious about how things finished up with all the ROMs on the clamshells? Is pdaxrom as fast/usable as cacko 1.23? Back in 2003, I got frustrated with pdaxrom because it was slow and awkward to move (always too big) windows around and brightness/suspend problems. Seems like there was a lot of improvement in speed and usability, based on how much people were talking about it well beyond 2004. I'm still catching up on archived forums....

11

Zaurus - Other distros support / games and emulators on the SL-5500

« on: January 02, 2020, 11:08:03 am »

I had a SL-5000D around 2002 and upgraded to SL-C-850 in 2003.  Got busy with school and life and sold them in 2005. I kind of regret that. Anyway, I bought meself a SL-5500 for xmas on eBay and it came with (completely unusable) OZ 3.5.4.

I found some feeds at https://feed-zaurus.dahwa.fr and decided that  cacko crow was probably best all around, given Collie's limitations. It seems like the libSDL_1.2.5-slzaurus20041025-j in the cacko feed is pretty good:

znester, zgnuboy (directly from the cacko feed)
snes9x (had to mine the wayback machine and find suhami's binary, all others fail with "illegal instruction")
zstella (buried in some FTP site)
zmamefull works a little slow, but tolerably, keys all perfect in portrait orientation

all seem to work with decent speed and the key mappings are tolerable (directions correct, cancel exits) if not perfect.

dgen117, however, is very slow and it seems like suhami only released v1.23 for pdaxrom? Can't find it for Sharp-based ROM. Is there some trick to speed it up? Turning off sound and autoframe skip (settings in ~/.dgen/dgenrc) don't help.

zcpe and sms_sdl (in cacko feed ) do not run at all. The binary gives the "Illegal instruction" error. Perhaps they only work on clamshell C-XXXX devices?

visualboy advance 1.6a is very slow and nothing seems to help.

v1.7 (from suhami) gives a strange error about a bad elf header?
Maybe it is for a different distro? pdaxrom?

Is gpsp only for clamshell bvdd devices?

No version of SCUMMVM newer than 0.4.1 will work for me; after hunting down all the missing libs, I got some strange Qtopia error about not being able to create a Qpaint_something without first creating a Qsomething_else. (I don't have the Zaurus handy at the moment.)

I'm using zemufe and its associated scripts to launch the emulators. I guess zemefe assumes a clamshell device because the most emulators have horrid button mappings: A,B, X,Y, Start, Select are all mapped to strange keyboard keys. Since all the (usable) emulators run sideways with D-pad on left, wouldn't it make the most sense to map A,B,X,Y, Start, Sel, to the (big and obvious) PIM buttons on the SL-5500?

What are the key numbers for those 5 buttons above the D-pad and the centre button?

Is there a mirror of Zaurus Software Index (killefiz.de) ? Wayback has it, but it is just a collection of broken links. I'm surprised it seems to be completely gone, as there wasn't that much software; it would probably all fit in one person's Mega or dropbox. At least all the sharp/cacko stuff that works well on SL-5x00 would.....

The most frustrating thing I remember about the zaurus back in 2003-2005 was that you often couldn't tell which ZAURUS people are talking about when they document how something works. Is there any archive/feed of apps/games JUST FOR SL-5x00, no clamshells, no bvdd?

What about cross compiling for Sharp/Cacko? Is there a particular antique linux distribution I should use in VirtualBox to host the tools?