Newbie Flash On 750

[markbedish]

Hi, I've been trying to flash 3.541 on my 750 but do not understand how to erase the previous rom. Having tried pdaxrom and cacko I would really like to try oz. After flashing cacko with standard 25M, I put the oz files on my cf and flashed but it always comes up with the old cacko display before bringing up GPE or Opie. Presumably it is leaving something behind and so it is not a proper install.

Please can you tell me how I can do it cleanly. I have looked at the wikis but cannot find an answer.

BTW, didnt have this problem on a 5500.

Thanks for your help.

Mark

[lardman]

From your description, it sounds like the kernel's not flashing, however as you've got a c750, the rootfs won't work with the cacko kernel, so I'm not so sure.

Check the md5sums of the zImage.bin and initrd.bin files.


Si

[markbedish]

Si,

I decided to do a NAND restore using syst750.dbk and then reflashed gpe.

It seems to have worked but is showing under system info the kernel as 2.4.18-rmk7-pxa3-embedix. Is that correct for the 750? I haven't experimented yet but the rom looks really good so far!

Thanks

Mark
(Surrey,UK)

[lardman]

Where did you download the OpenZaurus files from?

The c750 has a 2.6.x kernel, and the rootfs won't work with the 2.4.18 kernel (lack of modules, etc.) so I'm a little confused.

The images should have come from here: http://ewi546.ewi.utwente.nl/tmp/hrw/3.5.4...c4/images/c7x0/


Si

[markbedish]

Si,

It's ok, I reflahed with 3.5.4 (stable version) and it brought up correct version of kernel.

However, it left stuff behind from previous sharp restore. Is it OK to delete the /home directory completely and then reflash?

Can I please ask one more question about installing packages. Are they supposed to go into /home (root is full) or /dev?

Thanks again.


Mark
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c750 testing oz 3.5.4 opie and gpe (previous roms pdaxrom and cacko)

[lardman]

However, it left stuff behind from previous sharp restore. Is it OK to delete the /home directory completely and then reflash?

Yes. That's the recommended method.

Are they supposed to go into /home (root is full) or /dev?

Certainly not /dev, did you mean /media? In any case I'd install things to /home if I were you. You could also install to /media/cf or /media/card if you have an ext2 formatted CF/SD card.

Make sure you ipkg-link whatever you install if you install to /home (and make sure /home is setup as a dest in /etc/ipkg.conf).


Si

[markbedish]

Make sure you ipkg-link whatever you install if you install to /home (and make sure /home is setup as a dest in /etc/ipkg.conf).

Si,

Getting there slowly. Do I need to be logged in as root user, or as normal user but with root shell? I have had a lot of errors with out of space when doing ipkg-link so did another nand restore. The rom is very good and fast esp browser and email, but I do need to install certain packages cleanly for it to be worthwhile, like mp3 player, gnumeric and perl and am having trouble with ipkg command line.

Thanks!

Mark
750 testing oz 3541 gpe (was pdaxrom)

[lardman]

You need to be root when installing things, either open the root shell or use 'su -' from a standard shell to become root.

Out of space errors are not good, symlinks do take up some space but not much. How much space do you have before installing anything (use 'df')?


Si

[markbedish]

Out of space errors are not good, symlinks do take up some space but not much. How much space do you have before installing anything (use 'df')?

Si, Example of error after trying to install beepmp to /home. Seemed to download ok and do configuring but then

ipkg_conf_write_status_files: Cant open status file //usr/lib/ipkg/status for writing: No space left on device.

/dev/mtdblock2           25600     25388       212  99% /
ramfs                    10240        36     10204   0% /dev
tmpfs                    10240        36     10204   0% /dev
/dev/mmcblk0            981176        20    931316   0% /media/mmcblk0
/dev/mtdblock3           32768     11364     21404  35% /home
tmpfs                    31264      2544     28720   8% /var
tmpfs                    31264        36     31228   0% /media/ram

This is after installing to home: gnumeric, xmms, gpe-filemanager only. I also want to install perl though I could use my sd 1gig but need to understand the 'no space left'.

Thanks for any insight.


Mark
-----
slc750 testing oz gpe 3.5.4.1

[lardman]

/usr/lib/ipkg/status is the package database - this stores info about the packages which are installed. I had thought that this was stored on the mount point to which you installed a package (so in your case it'd probably be in /home/packages/usr/lib/ipkg/status for packages installed to the /home partition).

I may be wrong about this, or some package on / might have been upgraded by your install (upgrades are installed in the same place they were originally) - if you were really low on space (as you are) this might have filled up / and stopped you from installing anything else.

Next thing to check is that stuff really is being installed to /home - it looks like it probably is as you have a fair amount of stuff in there, but do check.

Final suggestion is to remove some things from / and re-install them to /home. Make sure you reboot a couple of times between uninstalling and re-installing to give the jffs2 filesystem a chance to garbage collect the deleted files and free the space.

Can anyone else with a vanilla gpe-image installed tell me how much free space (or used space) you have. It may be that the image needs to be trimmed to fit in the c750's smaller / partition.


Si