Dual boot setup

[stampsm]

has anyone done this with there 5600. i just got mine a few days ago and i don\'t want to mess it up if it doesn\'t work

[derekp]

has anyone done this with there 5600. i just got mine a few days ago and i don\'t want to mess it up if it doesn\'t work

The scripts are for the 5500 only.  It would be posible to do the same type of thing on the 5600, but since it has a different layout, you can\'t use the same scripts.  See the posts from jerrybme where he\'s trying to do the same setup for his c750 (which has a similar rom layout as the 5600).

[Stubear]

Well I have had limited success with dual booting a C760.

Got past the \"respawn\" problem by moving /sbin/telinit to /sbin/sys/ and renaming to init. Then I created a link from /sbin/sys/init to /sbin/telinit.

Now I can load normally if there is no init.card on the SD card. If there is on SD card then I get what lloks like a core dump flash by and the CF card no longer mounts and the only way to reboot is to do a hard reboot (hold OK and Home while toggling battery lock switch then power on with external on/off button).

If there is a init.card on SD card then it passes control over to the init.card on .dev, and runs the commands in init.car (they are shown on the screen with a \"+\" in front of them, however it freezes after the exec/sbin/init command. This is with OZ 3.3.5, will try pdaXrom and Cacko QT to see if they are the same.

Stu

[anonuk]

keep us posted stubear - i am really looking to dualbooting qtopia and pdaxrom!!!

Thanks to everyone who works/worked on these scripts for your hard work ..

[dhns]

Any constructive comments on how I can make the documentation better?

Less on the documentation, but on automation:

You can launch the rom modification script from a Qt icon. What I would expect it to do:
a) check for having a SL-5500 with Sharp ROM or any other that works
 check for presence of a writable CF card with enough free capacity
c) create the flashable file on the CF card
And put everything in a nice dualboot_arm-1.0.ipk

Then, documentation reduces to
1. install dualboot.ipk
2. insert CF card
3. launch dual-boot-installer application
4. wait for completion (x minutes)
5. flash a new rom according to the standard instructions
6. copy second rom\'s initrd.bin to a fresh SD card

The only issue with Qt wrapped shell scripts is that they can\'t have a user interface. But I remember that there is a /bin command (I don\'t have the Z with me at the moment to specify) which pastes an image to the screen (like the initial Zaurus welcome screen). So predefined pngs can be used for messages like \"please wait\", \"error\", \"finished\".

If you need support on this idea, please contact me.

-- hns

[derekp]

The only issue with Qt wrapped shell scripts is that they can\'t have a user interface. But I remember that there is a /bin command (I don\'t have the Z with me at the moment to specify) which pastes an image to the screen (like the initial Zaurus welcome screen). So predefined pngs can be used for messages like \"please wait\", \"error\", \"finished\".

Ok, here\'s a couple ideas I was thinking of.
1) I can launch the terminal app from the icon, with a paramater to call the modrom script.  This way, there can be at least a minimal user interface.   Only drawback is, the terminal app isn\'t installed by default.  So I\'d have to make it a dependency in the ipk.  But someone might have an alternat terminal app installed (i.e., opie-terminal), and I\'m not sure how to make the dependency  an either/or.
2) The script switch to another virtual cosole (call \"chvt 3\" at the top of it).  This would give the same type of user interface as above, but not rely on having the terminal app installed.
This could work ok for the modrom script, but the oz2sd script will cause a low memory condition (since it has to insmod the mtdram module which takes up an aditional 16 meg memory), which results in qpe displaying the low memory dialog.  Don\'t know if this would pop up over the alternate virtual console, I\'ll have to do some tests on this.
3) There is a program out there that allows a shell script to make qt calls (open window for output, dialog buttons, etc.)  Haven\'t played with it yet, but it could be an option for providing a minimal gui interface.   Again, it adds another dependency.

I\'m leaning more towards option 2, since it would be the easiest for me to impliment for the time being.  As for the documentation, I\'ll split it up into a \"quickstart\" guide, a \"detailed\" section, and a third part that gives a more in-depth look at what is changed.  Also, the modrom script sets up the zaurus for both dual-boot root on SD, and also has another component, for just /home on SD.  I\'ll have to do a better job of documenting both so that they don\'t get confused.

Now, if I get some funds together, I\'ll order an sl-5600, then I\'ll be able to maintain a seperate version for that platform (which seems to be many of the requests here).  I\'ve just gotta make the determination if the 5600 would be worth it for me at this point, or if I should hold out for the 6000 or c860.

[derekp]

Well, I found out that my option 2 above won\'t work, as chvt hangs while under the tkc (and sharp, i think)  rom (unless you kill qtopia).  I think this due to a file lock issue with qtopia.  So, I\'m working on putting together the ipk\'s with launch icons that call the terminal app to run the scripts.
The good news is that I\'ve got a way around the low memory issues when extracting the OZ filesystem (oz2sd package).  I found a blkmtd test driver in the kernel, which will work with a jffs2 image, instead of using the mtdram test driver.  This way, the script won\'t have to insmod a 16-meg module, or create a temporary swap file either.  So the final packages should be a bit more robust.
The other change I\'ll make to the modrom script is to have it use md5sum to identify the installed rom, and validate the md5 on the generated initrd.bin file.  I\'ll have to load up several versions of the various compatible roms, so far my list includes Sharp 3.10, Sharp 3.13, TKCrom 1.0, TKCrom 2.0-alpha3.  Any others I should include?

[Stubear]

Jerrybeme,

I can now boot into pdaXrom on SD and run console apps but when I start X the display is mangled and unusable, but at least I got rid of the segmentation faults I was getting before. If I can\'t kick the display problem on pdaXrom, I\'ll try OZ 3.3.6r1 and see if I have better luck with a qt based rom.

Here are the scripts I use for /sbin/init and /mnt/card/init.card.

Brief steps to get as far as I have

1. remount / writeable (mount -o rw,remount /)
2. mkdir /sbin/sys
3. cp /sbin/telinit /sbin/sys/init  - this was the crucial step for me, telinit didn\'t like being linked from /sbin/sys/init and gave spawning errors
4. cp init scrip to /sbin
5. chmod +x /sbin/init
6. copy rom to ext2 formatted SD card
7. copy init.card to SD card
8. reboot and cross fingers

Had some problems getting a good copy of the roms from the initrd.bin (think my mtdram/mtdblock modules on my desktop box are a little dodgy as the sometimes give strange errors) ended up flashing my Z with pdaXrom and extracting the files that way.

Now if I can just get over the display problem, I\'ll be a happy camper

Stu

NOTE: the current scripts don\'t e2fsk the sd card during boot as I rewrote the scripts from scratch to work out what was different between 5500 and C760, will probably put it back in later.

[ZeeUser]

Stubear,
Were you able to get dual-boot to work with OpenZaurus and a Sharp-based rom (such as Cacko 1.21)? If so, could you please post a detailed how-to on setting it up for the Cxxx? Thank you!

[Stubear]

ZeeUser,

Sorry no luck yet with OpenZaurus from the SD, in the midst of testing Cacko 1.21 from the SD - looking good, no seg faults at the moment, just need to tweak the startup to load everything properly.

PdaX works after changing the Xfbdev from X11-zaurus, but it\'s a bit slow as I only have really old SD card (gotta get me a new one)

Stu

[ZeeUser]

Stubear,
What ROM do you currently have flashed that Cacko 1.21 is working in dual-boot off the SD with? I wouldn\'t mind trying a dual-boot with OpenZaurus in flash and either pdaXrom or Cacko 1.21 on SD, if that is currently working. I just  don\'t like playing the flashing game   :wink:
I would like to try dual-boot with the modified pdaXrom now, but I am not clear on your instructions from your April 3rd post. When you say copy the rom to the SD card, specifically which rom and in what form? I don\'t mind waiting if you plan on writing a detailed how to once all the kinks are worked out, though.

By the way, would it be possible to boot from multiple roms? This would be accomplished by having each alternate rom on a separate SD card. What I would really like to see, though, is an boot menu to choose from different roms on the same SD (maybe through partitioning the card and some extra scripting?).



My thanks to Stubear, DerekP, Jerrybme and everyone else who has/is working on this!

[Stubear]

ZeeUser,

I\'m trying to dual-boot Cacko 1.21 from a Standard Sharp Qtopia rom, if that works I\'ll try some other roms to see if my script needs tweaking.

I took my pdaX dual-boot stuff over to another thread]http://www.zaurususergroup.com/index.php?n...27]thread[/url][/url] cause I was having unrealted to this thread. A tarball of the pdaXrom and my dual-boot scripts can be downloaded from here

Booting multiple roms from multiple SD cards should work fine, but i\'ve had no luck getting pivot_root to boot different roms from the same SD card. (That\'s a project after I get cacko dual-booting)

Stu

[Snooby]

I\'m interested in derekp\'s dual boot - How\'s the HOW TO coming along?
Would also like some info from joshp about his 4-ROM setup is possible - just ordered myself a 256MB SD card to try this stuff out on.

[Snooby]

[Joshp]

Derekp haseint relley been doing to much with his howto.  As for me I suck at wrighting.  So post what you want to know and I will try to explme as much as I can.  On a side note my 4 way boot setup does tend to look your Z but I don\'t know if thats because of my wifi card or the way I have it set up.  And my wifi problumes come form the fact that I compiled my own kernel.  Not form doing dualboot.  Have you goten you 256MB sd card yet?

JP

P.S. Sorry I did not post sooner.