Topics

1

Gemini PDA - General Discussion / kernel flaw

« on: September 29, 2018, 05:12:08 am »

https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/76631/...ernel-flaw.html

FYI peeps, we are all currently unpatched.

2

Gemini PDA - Linux / wlan0 internal wifi interface with other linux OS(s)

« on: July 31, 2018, 04:38:45 pm »

Copy of post from developer.planetcom.co.uk (https://developer.planetcom.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=153&pid=371#pid371):

Hi,

I am trying to bring up the internal wifi under Arch Linux using the stock 3.18 kernel (recompiled with module support).

I've copied the firmware from .stowaways in the Debian TP sailfish rootfs to /lib/firmware (and symlinked to /etc/firmware, /system/extra/firmware and somewhere else I forget).

I then compiled these tools - https://github.com/abbradar/wmt. (I couldn't use the one from sailfish rootfs as the were compiled for the wrong arch (armhf? 32 bit?)

I then run wmt_loader and I get the following:

Code: [Select]

init combo device
Opened combo device
get device id : 26519
set device id : 26519
do module init: 26519
failed to init module
I can't for the life of me work out how you are bringing up the wifi in Debian TP - any pointers would be greatly appreciated! Just to clarify I am not even getting a wlan0 interface.  The networking with external devices is fine ie USB ethernet/wifi dongles.

Anyone over here have any thoughts?

3

Gemini PDA - Linux / booting rootfs from usb

« on: June 26, 2018, 12:44:58 pm »

Hello all,

If I want to put my linux rootfs on a USB stick do I just create a custom kernel/boot.img which will point to a partition on a usb stick (e.g. root=/dev/sda1). I'm thinking of setting the third boot.img as a usb boot.

I'm aiming for:
boot 1 - rooted android
boot 2 - debian tp
boot 3 - custom kernel pointing to rootfs on usb stick. I plan to use this to test out other distros and, eventually, newer kernels

sound feasible?

4

Gemini PDA - Hardware / USB 3.0?

« on: June 20, 2018, 06:54:51 pm »

Apologies if this has been asked before but what USB standard is supported on the gemini?

Hardware support - it seems that the x25/x27 could support USB 3.0, but that doesn't mean the rest of the hardware has been put in place on the gemini.

Software - I've not flashed native linux so I can't test, and running lsusb -v under android only reports a USB 2.0 device. But I'm out and about and haven't tried with anything plugged into it which may give me more useful results. (ps you need more than just the busybox lsusb to give you verbose output)

And before anyone says anything, no USB C does not equal USB 3.x.  USB 2.0 can be implemented over C type port/cables.

EDIT:

OK so I've done some more testing this morning...
Right side port appears as a USB 2.0 hub
Left side port appears as a 3.0 hub (5gbs) but...
The Planet supplied hub only enumerates as a 2.0 device, and so does my USB 3.0 flashdrive

5

Gemini PDA - General Discussion / Flash tool

« on: March 01, 2018, 04:50:11 pm »

I don't have a device to test yet, but I have found some source for a linux flash tool that might work the the images released from Planet Computers today.

https://github.com/eret1k/SP-Flash-Tool-src

if you are compiling under linux then edit Build/build-linux.mk and change the path to qmake. QT4 is needed.

6

Gemini PDA - Linux / Mainline linux kernel

« on: February 16, 2018, 02:56:31 pm »

Ok so rather than me banging on in lots of tangential topics about how important upstream support is, I thought I would start a new thread to discuss efforts to bring mainline linux support to our Geminis.

At this time we have less than no information about what kernel our devices will be running when shipped.  Hopefully this won't remain the case for much longer!

Taking a look at the latest mainline kernel sources we can see that there is no device tree for any Helio X27 devices, so there is no upstream support at present.  There is support for a couple of closely related X20 SoC devices (MT6797) which is apparently identical to the X27, just with slower clock speeds.

Here is a useful reference for the X27 chip - https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/mediatek/helio/mt6797x

One likely stumbling block will be wireless drivers (WiFi/LTE/BT). If we are lucky we will just need to copy across the firmware blobs from the stock linux rootfs that is supplied with the Gemini to bring the wifi and BT up.  LTE will be harder probably.

One definite stumbling block is the Mali GPU.  We can just forget open source 3D hardware acceleration.  There has been some open source development for earlier Mali hardware (Mali 400) but we won't be seeing anything for the T880 any time soon, probably ever.  However framebuffer support will be fine for a lot of use cases, and the CPU is more that fast enough for software video playback.  Of course the display panel will need to be supported first.

Another question is whether we can get access to UART. Probably not but it would be awesome if we could. This is why I should have bought a second device so I could take a soldering iron to it - oh well!

Bootloader - will this be littlekernel? Will we have sources and be able to build our own binaries? If we can build our own blobs, will they need signing with keys held by Mediatek/Planet Computers? It may be that we need to patch the bootloader to bring up mainline support e.g. for proper initialisation of various hardware - clock speeds, setting MAC address, enabling virtualisation etc etc