Topics

1

Gemini PDA - Linux / Linux mali graphics acceleration

« on: March 14, 2018, 07:09:13 am »

While going through my RSS feeds this landed in my lap

MALI Driver

the TL;DR is that someone is working on mali GPU drivers for linux

It would appears that there is ongoing work (Post-lima) to have OSS graphics drivers. this is for the T860 and not the T880 as is in the x25/X27 however the difference between these chips is mainly the amount of cores and should just be a simple a matter of testing and perhaps updating a constant or two

Based on the authors blog posts work seems to be happening at a quick pace and so i am hopeful there should be something usable in the coming months

cant wait till there is something i can run on my chromebooks and phone

2

Off Topic forum / Old Timer Checking back in

« on: February 17, 2018, 12:54:58 pm »

Hi

It has been many years but after looking further into the technical information around the gemini i found that not only is oesf.org back up and running, but it seems to  be the center for a lot of gemini discussion

For those who don't remember me, i (attempted) to kick off the pocket penguin (gemini like and beyond my skill level) and posted continuously (Looks like i am still in the top #10 highest posters)

The last couple of years has seen me compiling bleeding edge linux kernels and patching them to get kernel.org/Mainline kernels running on chromebooks and documenting this where appropriate. I plan to do similar things for the gemini.

Looking forward to getting everything working.

3

New products and alternatives / Foleo Info

« on: August 11, 2007, 09:31:27 am »

http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=13249

looks like some nice features, 128MB of ram, wifi bluetooth, CF SD video out and a 2700G coupled to an intel pxa270 @ 416Mhz

i know i am getting one, its intresting that they say that it wont support bluetooth file trasfers, i hope they are not reinventing the wheel instead of using the bluez stuff.

4

General Discussion / New Usb Cf Card

« on: May 31, 2007, 09:37:31 am »

saw this today and thought someone with an older Z might be intrested

http://www.everythingusb.com/solarexpress_pda_ii_12664.html

5

General Discussion / Wierd New Kernel Options

« on: April 20, 2007, 12:26:42 am »

THere have been a couple of new kernel options that have been introduced latley and i am wondering if any one else knows about them or wants to comment

the first is the "tickless kernel" which does away with "switch tasks every 1000hz" and changes it to "go to sleep until somthing needs the cpu. as we all know doing a hlt or simmilar saves power and it allows for great power savings when put together with other things

the other new one in the next kernel is compleatly fair queing (http://kerneltrap.org/node/8059), sounds intresting to me but from what i can see this will play very nicly with the above tickless kernel. the advantages of this squedular is better responsivness, faster and less relinace on ticks and jiffies (i belive it uses nano second tracking of execution time)

i should mention laptop mode here for compleatness, its been around for awhile but afaik it is very rarely enabled. what it does is only spin up the hard drive when somthing needs to be read OR a ceritn amount of time has elapsed. it stores all the writes and writes them together to help avoid the "power dump" on hard drive spin up and makes the drive idle longer

one of the more obvios ones is cpufreq scaling which explains its self, combined this with policies (cpufreqd anyone, powernowd or others dont really have the same featureset as it can ramp up the speed when you launch mplayer rather on the load as to avoid ossiclations where you go from 100% to 75% and repeat

well those are some of the options, now for the question. has anyone done some power testing with diffrent kernel options? i blew the power supply on my last Z (about to get a new one) but it still works so i was planning to hook up a multimeter with datalogging via rs232 and do some automated powertesting with the dead unit.

any intrest in doing so? what do you want tested. in an ideal world i would love to see what an arch optimised vs processor optimised kernel/userspace does and EABI vs the normal stuff

i dont belive it would be too hard to set it up so the Z is permanttly net connected as well for a dev enviroment or to run your own power testing stuff however i see the timeframe on that one bieng about 2 months

i am aming to punch up the idle load run time by at least 3 hours and the mp3 playing load by 1 hour. moive playback i am aiming for 30 minutes however this one is hard to quanitfy as there are many diffrent moive types that are optimised diffrently for the Z (ie divx, mpeg4, xvid, h263, not to mention container formats)

6

Linux Issues / Host Contact Problems

« on: March 31, 2007, 02:31:31 am »

Well i never thought i would be asking someone else for linux help but i guess its my last option  ethire that or reinstall windows

anyway i am having a wierd problem, at first i couldnt ssh into my server (on the internet (pocketnix.org)) however i soon relised i couldnt contact any service on my host from my OS

my quick patch was to ssh into another server and then from there ssh into the pocketnix server, works fine but port fowarding is a b#@% in that senario

anyway i tested trying to contact the server on several machines, works on my PDA (behind the same nat as my home PC) works on a debian VM on my machine (What the?!?!?) however dosent work on any other fedora core 6 machines

now it might have been a kernel update (thinking congestion control or one of those options that says "dont enable me or i cant talk to 1/2 the internet", yes there is one of those in the kernel) or a ssh update

i have tried everything related to mtu size changing however running wireshark on the services seems to indicate that the connection is made and works fine untill the connection "get serious" ie with imaps it cuts off after the ssl handshake, ssh when auth protocols are bieng exchanged "SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT" and with http after the GET command

i recive no errors until i close the connection in which case i get retransmitted packet errors

i am thikning its a problem with my router, to say its unreliable is an understatment, i drop the connection on a regular baisis (some cases every 5 mins under load) and cant get rid of it as its the adsl modem as well (last time i let some one else handle the "details")

any ideas, im guessing its a fedora only problem (seen enough of those) and am willing to change however i am looking at changing to a 64 bit distro that works, fedora wont boot, debian hangs at the language selection part of the install and misc bad things happen with all teh other distros

beginig to think the computer haunted, anyway if you have any ideas pleas reply, im at my wits end after the problems that have plauged me in the last week (kernel that crashes x secconds after boot, you can time your watch to it and a usb hub between the keyboard and PC that wasent getting properly reset by the bios and hanging the bios leaving me 2 days of diagnostics before i replugged the hub and restarted it)

7

PocketPenguin / Software

« on: March 10, 2007, 05:35:53 am »

Well as some of you may have noticed there hasent been much work as off late.

this is mainly due to the software issue, ie what pcb tools will i use. well i had a look at the "pcb" program on sf.net and it seems it now includes an autorouter, i dont know how good it is but ill give it a try. its still lacking features i "want" but i belive at thius point in time that i could do the project with the software in its current state

so basically it looks like gEDA and pcb forthe pcb and scehmatic software, this is probbelly a better thing than what i wanted to use as most peopel who are want to take a look wouldnt need to buy expensive software, but those people probelly wouldnt mind the pictures

i will give it a spin in the next couple of weeks, i have some free time coming up again so i think its time for the feature freze and some diagarms, at the least i will have the power supply up which should be "fault tollirent" unlike whatever they put in my Z , it should also be able to exceed 0.5A on the usb socket, not recomeneded of course but those who need a bit of surge power to jump start a usb drive will apreciate this.

i will try and design it for 0.7A @ 5v normally and 2A surge (basically using caps for the surge, if you dont need this feature then drop the caps but considering how they are less than a cent anyway i dont see the point)

if i get a chance i will knock up some of the pelimanary usb to iMX3 stuff and some of the support circitry (ie clocks and passives) as these always need to be double checked (you always forget somthing). this is somthing that a non technical person can do, just look at the page numbers i provide as refrence and double check the wiring looks the same in thier examples asit is in the pics i provide, and check the svalues are the same except where stated.

i will have to look at a couple of IO things as well, did anyone want a rs232 level serial port (12v to -12v) or ttl (5v to 0v), is an SPI header somthing that people want (ie add user sensors) and do you want i2c, if so a dedicated connection (ie no devices on the bus) or a shared one (cheaper for me, you only have to be careful that when you add a device you dont use an exsisting device)

some other features others may not have cconsidered, besides the gyroscope/accereometer would you like features like a compus? or teamprature?, i was thinking that a temp sensor on the cpu and an ambient one would be nice, easy to do with I2C. perhaps one near the battery and power supply would be advisable as well.

well thoughts and input people, this week is out but next week the holidays begin (much to my relief)

8

PocketPenguin / Board Support Package

« on: February 16, 2007, 05:20:14 am »

just looked at the hardware support package they ship on thier site

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/p...143297336425774

anyway they mention openglES support. however they mention it in the kernel section so i am wondering if thet means we will get mesa opengl acceleration or the stuff they ship. ie did they write the interface or the full stack

anyway. it looks like the hardware support is there and i have seen them submit patches to the mainline kernel.

9

PocketPenguin / Screens

« on: February 06, 2007, 04:57:33 am »

well i finally found somthing

http://www.azdisplays.com/prod/pd035vx2.php

they also do a 5" model (begin drooling) and some others that would make sense for a umpc sized version

one more component nailed  havent checked pricing but i assume up to $200USD

anyway, might have had some luck with a not for resale copy of the pcb software (ie almost free) there is no way i will break copyright with this thing, i want to own the design folluy and make sure its free to anyone, more news coming soon

10

General Discussion / Site Down?

« on: February 06, 2007, 02:36:46 am »

Was it just me or was the site down for about 4 days just recentlly, i havent een an anouncment but from my end it looks like there were no dns entries (ie kept doing a lookup), then the site came back up and i got a blank white page

anyone see anything simmilar or was i the only one without my oesf fix

11

General Discussion / Eabi

« on: January 19, 2007, 08:57:44 pm »

intresting article on floating point performance and recent improments

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9048137234.html

note the platform they are talking about is also an xscale, one thats normally used in raid cards and storage devices, its the same as a pxa without the iwmmxt and a couple of other improments

seems arm is starting to get a bit more support

12

General Discussion / Linux Gps Maps And Routes

« on: January 15, 2007, 07:54:26 am »

i stumbeld across this little gem of a project that looks like it could form the backbone of gps mapping for linux and OSS

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/

Its a user contributed database of roads, walking path and bike tracks. i have thoght about doing somthing like this before but i am gald to see someone has done it

current database wieghs in at 4GB of nav points (wow) however that is maps for every country in the world.

route planning is comming soon and will consits of a cmdline ruby app, which should be handy as it would be easy to then add route planning to any oss gps software, gust give it 2 points and it gives you the vectors between those two points, you then overlay that on top of your exsisting map

i plan to sign up and start mapping alot of my area on bike so expect a Dee Why map in Sydney NSW. gives me an ecscuse to test the 'portability" of my setup

there is also some links to some very nice platform independent oss software, its quite simple at the moment however i think once the route planning comes it we should see it start to catch up on tom tom for features.

at the very least we now have a small set of maps for several countries and anything that dosent exsist well perhaps next time you drive that route you might as well take you gps unit along

13

PocketPenguin / Security Features

« on: January 15, 2007, 06:21:38 am »

Well i thoght i might as well get them on paper, you never know when it could be handy to refer to it, also this fourm counts as "documentation" to me

Features that the hardware and bootloader provide
1. Secure boot
2. Signed kernels
3. SIM acsess
4. Removable Smart card acsess, i will tell you where to get it and ship with them as an option, part of the secure boot feature that will allow you to move your encrypted CF card between devices without changing keys (i finally worked out how to do that, horey for me!!!)
5. Full disk encryption from boot with no extra hardware!!!! use a flashdisk, password, or smartcard for key storage

OS level features that need to be implemented
1. "zones" "chroots" "compartments", basically some sort of fencing of an app from the main OS, not needed for us normally however a normal user might, and it would be good to have a way to "test" anon scripts i get from the net (perhaps copy on write and unionfs)
2. firewall, standard but still required
3. Verbose logging, this thing will have alot of flash and logging is a good thing for those who care about security
4. Smart card support, stuff is already avalible however a wrapper for crypt-setup to gets its keys from a smart card might be better than patching the source, whoever mabey others want that feature. gpg and such already support it
5. authentication forwding, ssh is good for this (log into B from A then log into C from B but have it authenticate against As keyring) i guess if the smart card is serial bassed then we could use the usb client serial mode and bridge it together, in fact that would work nicely
6. Kernel virtual HUB, as far as i see it it would be great if i could tell my xen stuff that everything hangging of port B belonged to the client OS. back to the point this facilitates that however where it would be good is if i can use usb client with the serial profile, hard drive profile and rindis at the same time, the only thing more i could wish for is a usb client keyboard so that i can share the hosts keyboard with the other PC. this may not be major but how can you trust an unknown PC's keyboard or OS. i would rather enter my passphrase for the smartcard on a trusted device

basically i had the idea of turning the PDA into a smartcard reader as well that can be plugged into a PC to share its smartcard features, no more duping and syncing RSA private keys between 2 smartcards (not that i expect any of you to have done so yet

anything i missed?

added

Random number generator
Keys on chip (not in flash) not changable
kernel module signing
kernel signing
virtulisation (heavy usage)

14

PocketPenguin / Product Series?

« on: December 09, 2006, 06:05:14 am »

[EDIT] In the intrest of public saftey i have been advised to inform you that this should be read in the tone of someone with a very dry scence of humor, hope that helps. if not i recomend a drink of somthing wet and prefrebly acoholic
[/EDIT]

I know someone will claim that it is too early to be thinking about  this hoowever i would like to put down on paper what i have envisioned for this project, its motivaations and how i hope to achive it, basically a "behind the scenes"  of the project and the inner workings of my mind

well here it goes, i have always wanted to get into HMD tech stuyy  like steve Mann, in fact if you do a searcch you will see mee drop hints about this around the fourms (ok perhaps not a search but if you read my posts and followed them you might come to that conclusion). but it always came down to finding a cheap  computer that i was happy with with VGA out. after all i had some requiremnts:

long battery life (ie low power consumption) hence the large battery packs i have
no movinng parts (well i guess a microdrive would be an exception but i have heard great things about thoose 8GB CF cards)
Hevily connected, ie wifi 10/100 GPS, every up to the minute tech i could get my hands on
non intrusive,  not really a problem with the Z as it was light and courd fit iin my pockeet, my faimly always used to joke aabout me buyingg my pants bassed on the size oof the pockets
Ergonomic. seems wierd but i wanted it to be comfterble to use and feel like it was second nnature, so high speed text entry and voice recording were high on the featture list.

ill take a break here becauuse if i keep on going i know i will hit the maximum post siize for this fourm, and i know some of my post can be long  (i belive i set a reccord with one of the original PP threads) so back in a minute

15

PocketPenguin / Fabber@home

« on: December 09, 2006, 05:35:58 am »

Just found this and its what i have alwaays wanted to do this project

http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?ti...40Home:Overview

basically its a 3D printer, case prob/ems will disappear on a small scale production run (dont expect me to make 100 case with it

i will keep my eye on this