Linux On Skeye Sl Pad

[scholbert]

Hello Folks,

let me start with a little story:
I recently bought a Skeye Pad SL from the german manufacturer Hoeft&Wessel.
The concept of the device is very similar to the Simpad, but it was mainly sold B2B, so that's the reason why it is not so common.

At least there should be some of you who might have seen one.

The device is a bit smaller than the Simpad, offers two slots for PCMCIA/CF, has a smaller but powerful lithium accu (3600mAh), two speakers (unfortunaly mine has no stereo sound), offers a lot of space for enhancements inside the housing, and last it looks quite stylish.
The only thing i didn't like: It is running wince .net 4.1.

After playing around with it for a while, i decided to take a screwdriver and have a look inside. All in all it was no big surprise what was inside.

So i decided to think about a linux port.

In the skeye forum there once were some questions about running linux on the device, but the support team never saw the use to push it and nothing happened.
Have a look at Skeye forum.

At least there were some guys from kernelconcepts who made first steps porting a kernel to the skeye sl.

I got into contact with these guys to find out how far they got with it.
As a starting point they gave me some sources of the nearly forgotten project.
After a while i was able to build a working kernel which i started from wince.
This kernel is very simple so a lot of work is to be done.

I also started patching the well known hh.org bootloader to work with the skeye sl.
Everything compiled fine but the state yet is unknown, because there is no time to test it at the moment.

Finally i managed to locate the JTAG pins and so i will go on testing when the weather get's worse.

So this is the little story so far!
Are there any poeple out there who like to know more about it?

Greets,

scholbert

[Tom61]

I'm interested in nearly all Linux porting projects, so post away. My software abilities aren't that great, but putting up pictures of the kernel loading, pictures and descriptions of any hardware hacking, and where you found the kernel modules needed to get it going, would be very interesting.

[Mickeyl]

Sounds good. When you have a 2.6 kernel running, it might be a nice new OE target. Good luck!

[koen]

Sounds good. When you have a 2.6 kernel running, it might be a nice new OE target. Good luck!
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I strongly suspect it already has OE support  Try asking florian

[scholbert]

Thanks for your replies so far!!

Hopefully i will manage to post all the info i got so far, within the next weeks.
Time is so short sometimes   !

At the moment i am able to boot a 2.4.25-vrs2 kernel with some patches for the platform, mostly done by the poeple from kernelconcepts.

The worst thing is that they once had to sign a NDA to get information from the manufacturer of the skeye sl.
That's why i had to start finding things out on my own.
Especially JTAG was a strong effort for me, because i'm not really good at hacking kernel source.

At the moment booting the kernel is done using linexec, haret should also do it.
After the boot process i use a ramdisk to work.
This has also to be modified to have more comfort.

Unfortunately there is still some work to do before I am able to post a patch for this kernel release to this forum.
And of course the kernel needs a lot of work too (especially when going to 2.6).
Some really useful things are still missing, the most interesting is the PCMCIA workaround. That's why i concentrate on it at the moment.

All in all this can be seen as a starting point.

Greets,

scholbert

[scholbert]

Hello again,

here are some pics from the skeye sl hardware. Enjoy   !

I also collected some datasheets for most of the components, if someone is interrested, post it!

The display in my device is made by unipac (UB084S01-2 type:LVDS)

scholbert

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

[scholbert]

Hi folks,

i'd like to inform you once again of the state of porting linux to the skeye sl.

The first version of a test kernel will be available soon.
The project page is already accessable under linuxtogo.org.
Big thanks to the guys who made this possible!!!!
Now i have to make efforts with svn   .
Testing the bootloader is next.

In the meantime the JTAG connection has been successfully tested.
The software part is covered by version 0.5.1 of the jtag tool from openwince.
You can download the sources from the sourceforge openwince project page.

Nearly any simple adaptor (as described in the software package) can be used to access the hardware.
Take care that the adaptor has access to the TRST# pin.
Otherwise you will get no access.

The picture above shows the pinout of the debug-connector on the skeye-sl mainboard (a.k.a HW90340).

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

The connector is RM1.27, so you must use a similar header to build an adaptor.

As long as there is no working linux image to flash, JTAG can be used for debug purpose. Maybe someone will find this useful.

Stay tuned  

scholbert

[scholbert]

Hi there,

here is some new stuff for you!

I was lucky and managed to post the first scratchy version of a test kernel to the svn repository.
The kernel is now accessable on the skeye project page of linuxtogo.org.

What is still missing is a usable bootloader   .
As i posted earlier, it is possible to boot the kernel from wince for now.

Here's a package attached for those who like to play around a bit.

hw90340_booting.txt

Extract it and copy the files to the root directory of a CF-card.
If you put it elsewhere you have to modify params.txt (of course!!).

Put the card into your skeye sl pad and turn it on.
Within your file browser, change into the storage card's directory structure and tab on the icon of linexec.exe
You will need a serial connection (115200, 8N1) from the pad to your host to see the kernel booting.

Here's what i got:
 [ Invalid Attachment ]

The ramdisk is a very simple one, so don't be dissappointed.
It simply contains a busybox compiled for strongarm.
If i remember right, i once took it from the xda developers website.
There's no GUI for the moment.

The kernel will do no harm to your device, but to have a working wince device again, you will have to press the reset button for a while   .

By the way, i think it's time to move to the skeyepad project site (see link above).
If there are any newbie questions or kernel experts who like to help, don't hesitate!!

scholbert

[scholbert]

Sounds good. When you have a 2.6 kernel running, it might be a nice new OE target. Good luck!
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=135775\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Hi again,

i think going to 2.6 is next. At the moment the modification of to 2.4 kernel are quite easy to follow. So it might be a good thing to move all the stuff into the 2.6 kernel the next weeks and see what happens   .

Greets,

scholbert

[scholbert]

Hello,

further efforts have been made concerning the bootloader   .
The last few weeks i stepped deep into the sources of hh.org's bootldr.
Hopefully the result will be a fully functional bootloader for the skeye pad.
PCMCIA/CF support will be the hardest part. There's nothing!

Yesterday i made some further tests with the jtag stuff.
Doing this, i found out, that the jtag-0.5.1 tool had some problems to re-program the first sector of flash.
Also i realized some problems to read from flash after having erased some blocks.
So i nearly bricked the pad.

Fortunately i kept the sources of the well known jflash tool.
I once used it to recover some IPAQs.
There was nearly nothing to do, to make it work for the skeye sl.

Here's the package i used:

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

The binary in this package is linked statically, so it should run on nearly every linux machine.

Greets,

scholbert

[Tom61]

Any progress on this port? It seems that there is a seller on eBay selling these now for $100 BIN or Best Offer.

[scholbert]

Any progress on this port? It seems that there is a seller on eBay selling these now for $100 BIN or Best Offer.
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Hi,

99$ is a nice price for this device you might grab it anyway. It's quite nice to surf the net even with wince on it   .

Concerning the linux efforts there's nothing sensational to report.
I did some further investigation on the PCMCIA/CF stuff, but it's not that easy.
At least i didn't want to sign a NDA for the device   .

So my plan is to switch to 2.6 kernel soon. Because in this early state of kernel port the hardware dependent stuff isn't that much.
But obviously it's hard enough for me anyway   .

Another plan is to switch to u-boot as a bootloader.

So there's still much to do, but i look forward to the day i got a useful kernel to check out all the GUI stuff (opie, GPE) which is running on the simpads!

In the meantime you might take a look at [a href=\"http://scholbert.homelinux.org/SkeyePad_stuff.html]some hires pics[/url] or this.

Regards,

scholbert

[scholbert]

Any progress on this port? [div align=\"right\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

It's me again.

For those who were interested in the past and had a recent look at this topic:
Further progress has been made!
PCMCIA/CF slot and framebuffer support is working now.
Now you may use fb console output and start Xserver as well as using CF-cards or network-adapters (with serial console of course).
New test-kernel and initrd (familiar 0.8.4) can be found [a href=\"http://scholbert.homelinux.org/files/skeye-kernel-ramdisk.zip]here[/url].

Due to limited space on the initrd no further graphic funtionality at the moment, i'm sorry.
I guess i have to think about my rootfs file concept   .

In the meantime i also started working on 2.6 kernel support for this device.
Black screen, no output ...
But i just started   !!!

I think i will stop skeye pad related postings here, because lack of interest.
You may also look at my news page from time to time.

Thanks a lot, to those who came along!

scholbert

[koen]

Any progress on this port? [div align=\"right\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

It's me again.

For those who were interested in the past and had a recent look at this topic:
Further progress has been made!
PCMCIA/CF slot and framebuffer support is working now.
Now you may use fb console output and start Xserver as well as using CF-cards or network-adapters (with serial console of course).
New test-kernel and initrd (familiar 0.8.4) can be found [a href=\"http://scholbert.homelinux.org/files/skeye-kernel-ramdisk.zip]here[/url].

Due to limited space on the initrd no further graphic funtionality at the moment, i'm sorry.
I guess i have to think about my rootfs file concept   .

In the meantime i also started working on 2.6 kernel support for this device.
Black screen, no output ...
But i just started   !!!

I think i will stop skeye pad related postings here, because lack of interest.
You may also look at my news page from time to time.

Thanks a lot, to those who came along!

scholbert
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Wouldn't it be better to use a distro that isn't crappy and unsupported?

[scholbert]

Wouldn't it be better to use a distro that isn't crappy and unsupported?
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Yes of course!! You're absolutely right.

But...
the skeye pad isn't that popular (e.g. compared to the simpad) and no one joined the project at linuxtogo, so this port is still in a very early state.
I look forward to the day i get 2.6 kernel running, build some patches and integrate all that stuff into a real distribution, like angstrom.

scholbert