Archlinuxarm On C3x00

[danboid]

Looks like you might've made a mistake packaging the new kernel daal - it seems to actually contain 3.11.3.

[danboid]

I have installed the latest kexec and that works fine for me. Nice to have the 5s timeout! VT switching works great too now you've pointed out how its mapped.

I've installed fbset and your config file for it and switching between VGA and QVGA works fine but I'm yet to get an SDL console app/emu to work, thats with or without exporting those two SDL envvars. I expect the reason for that is that everything I've tried so far likely isn't trying to output at 320x240 (or 240x320).

The emu that looks the most promising out of everything I've tried so far is mednafen. It supports a number of systems (inc GBA, SNES, NES, MD and PSX amongst others), it is in the repos, it doesn't require X and it uses console SDL by default. Disabling scaling in its config file and the SDL rotation EV have both helped me get closer.

Any tips for scrolling the  console buffer outside of screen, less/more and X? On a regular Linux PC I do this with SHIFT + PGUP/PGDOWN and under BSD its SCROLL LOCK +  arrow keys.

Thanks!

[greguu]

Looks like you might've made a mistake packaging the new kernel daal - it seems to actually contain 3.11.3.

Ups, thanks. Fixed.

[greguu]

Any tips for scrolling the  console buffer outside of screen, less/more and X? On a regular Linux PC I do this with SHIFT + PGUP/PGDOWN and under BSD its SCROLL LOCK +  arrow keys.

According to the borzoi.map.gz : PageUp / Down is ALTGR + UP/DOWN, so try SHIFT + ALTGR + UP/DOWN, it may work!

[greguu]

SDL and ROTATION :

If I remember correctly, SDL apps / games scan the fb.modes file when using FBCON as back-end. Since the fb.modes are 240x320  or 480x640, the game / app bails out without finding a proper mode. The libSDL is looking for a 320x240 mode in fb.modes, but will not find it. I had to modify game / app / sdl source to tweak the detection of the modes I think. It was not too hard and also I added an additional EV to SDL that handled the qvga/vga and orientation for the Z in console modes. Long story short, the prebuild SDL lib from Arch might not do the trick for rotated frame buffers in console mode. The DirectFB backend of SDL2.0 might be worth looking into, too. DirectFB support in SDL1.2/3 was ok but not great and had heaps of bugs. Saying that, most older games will possibly only compile fine with SDL1.2. - Well all this has been quite some time ago since I played with it.. Let me know how you get a long with running a simple SDL app rotated in console for a start.

[greguu]

Any tips for scrolling the  console buffer outside of screen, less/more and X? On a regular Linux PC I do this with SHIFT + PGUP/PGDOWN and under BSD its SCROLL LOCK +  arrow keys.

According to the borzoi.map.gz : PageUp / Down is ALTGR + UP/DOWN, so try SHIFT + ALTGR + UP/DOWN, it may work!

I can confirm this is not working  This might need some tweaking in the keymap or somewhere else. I would suggest to use screen because the F keys seem to work properly only when I use screen . Fn+1 = F1 etc.

[danboid]

I'm not having much luck with the new kernel daal - have you tried it yet?

The HDD LED is working now but when I boot I get a few errors that I didn't get with the previous kernels:

Code: [Select]

ipv6: version magic '4.2.3-c3x00+ preempt mod_unload ARMv5 p2v8 ' should be '4.2.3-c3x00 preempt mod_unload ARMv5 p2v8 '
pxaficp_ir: version magic '4.2.3-c3x00+ preempt mod_unload ARMv5 p2v8 ' should be '4.2.3-c3x00 preempt mod_unload ARMv5 p2v8 '
ads7846: version magic '4.2.3-c3x00+ preempt mod_unload ARMv5 p2v8 ' should be '4.2.3-c3x00 preempt mod_unload ARMv5 p2v8 '
I deleted the old 4.2.3 kernel modules and put the new ones under /usr/lib/modules but its not finding them as I can't mount cards, for example.

[greguu]

I'm not having much luck with the new kernel daal - have you tried it yet?

The HDD LED is working now but when I boot I get a few errors that I didn't get with the previous kernels:

Code: [Select]

ipv6: version magic '4.2.3-c3x00+ preempt mod_unload ARMv5 p2v8 ' should be '4.2.3-c3x00 preempt mod_unload ARMv5 p2v8 '
pxaficp_ir: version magic '4.2.3-c3x00+ preempt mod_unload ARMv5 p2v8 ' should be '4.2.3-c3x00 preempt mod_unload ARMv5 p2v8 '
ads7846: version magic '4.2.3-c3x00+ preempt mod_unload ARMv5 p2v8 ' should be '4.2.3-c3x00 preempt mod_unload ARMv5 p2v8 '
I deleted the old 4.2.3 kernel modules and put the new ones under /usr/lib/modules but its not finding them as I can't mount cards, for example.

looks like the kernel modules are from an older build. I will fix and upload later today. Thanks for testing.

EDIT : updated kernel tar ball 4.2.3 v0.2 - git adds annoying "+" to local version name when adding code to vanilla kernel, I had to disable that and recompile.

[danboid]

That sounds irritating re the git prob. Thankfully it seems its third time lucky for 4.2.3 0.2! I've installed the latest tarball and it seems fine so far - thanks daal!

I've not made any progress on my wifi or anything else. It looks like I'll have to write to the linux-wireless ML to see what they say for my CF card driver and its firmware.

I'd prefer to get a b/g CF wfi card working - hopefully the one I've already got - but I wonder if there is USB wifi adapter that will run OK off the Z's bus power alone? CF cards are a bit of a rarity now.

[danboid]

There is one issue with 4.2.3 that I've encountered but forgot to mention up until now. If you don't touch the Z for 10/15 minutes or so, 3.11.3 blanks the screen but under 4.2.3 the screen goes white. As soon as you push a key you are returned to the console OK though.

[greguu]

That sounds irritating re the git prob. Thankfully it seems its third time lucky for 4.2.3 0.2! I've installed the latest tarball and it seems fine so far - thanks daal!

I've not made any progress on my wifi or anything else. It looks like I'll have to write to the linux-wireless ML to see what they say for my CF card driver and its firmware.

I'd prefer to get a b/g CF wfi card working - hopefully the one I've already got - but I wonder if there is USB wifi adapter that will run OK off the Z's bus power alone? CF cards are a bit of a rarity now.

hm, I do not think you can get WiFi USB stick running with 150 to 180 mA. You will need a powered USB hub.

[greguu]

There is one issue with 4.2.3 that I've encountered but forgot to mention up until now. If you don't touch the Z for 10/15 minutes or so, 3.11.3 blanks the screen but under 4.2.3 the screen goes white. As soon as you push a key you are returned to the console OK though.

Hm, sounds strange. There are always things with new kernels that do not work out of the box. This needs investigating. I have not had time to boot 4.2.3 on my Z yet and will not find much time in the coming days, but I will look into it. Probably good you let me know of any issues you experience with the new kernel. Cheers.

[greguu]

That sounds irritating re the git prob. Thankfully it seems its third time lucky for 4.2.3 0.2! I've installed the latest tarball and it seems fine so far - thanks daal!

Git issue with kernel local version : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1933391...-kernel-version

I am relatively new to git , but hey, you never stop learning.

The correct answer for me was :

To prevent the script scripts/setlocalversion to append the + to the end of the kernel local version, create an empty .scmversion file in the root of the kernel sources.

Code: [Select]

touch .scmversionthis way, you'll be able to leave LOCALVERSION as is in the kernel configuration file, in case you want to append a local signature to the kernel name.

[greguu]

I'd prefer to get a b/g CF wfi card working - hopefully the one I've already got - but I wonder if there is USB wifi adapter that will run OK off the Z's bus power alone? CF cards are a bit of a rarity now.

The DLINK DCF-660W Wireless 2.4GHz (802.11b)  works well, but is slow. Also it is a bit clunky compared to the Ambicom or others.

In Japan they sold CF 3G/HDSPA cards. These would give you 3.6Mbit only, but basically everywhere in Japan !
http://www.ymobile.jp/lineup/old/d01nx2/

The japanese recommend these to work with a Z and 802.11g.
http://petit-noise.net/download/gw-cf54g/

This one looks good.
 http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B000N4A...ASIN=B000N4AVRA


Back in the days when I was mobile with my Z I used my Nokia 6020 and IrDA to connect to the Internet with my Z. That was flash, no cable or extra card needed.
Just GPRS dialup speed, but hey it worked, and in the console with lynx/links and mutt pretty well. IrDA is still enabled in the current kernel

I probably should stock up on a 32GB CF card and a 54g CF too. Did anyone try 32GB+ in a Z ?

[greguu]

There is one issue with 4.2.3 that I've encountered but forgot to mention up until now. If you don't touch the Z for 10/15 minutes or so, 3.11.3 blanks the screen but under 4.2.3 the screen goes white. As soon as you push a key you are returned to the console OK though.

Hm, sounds strange. There are always things with new kernels that do not work out of the box. This needs investigating. I have not had time to boot 4.2.3 on my Z yet and will not find much time in the coming days, but I will look into it. Probably good you let me know of any issues you experience with the new kernel. Cheers.

I can confirm. After booting 4.2.3 and idle for about 10min , the screen blanks white instead of black.

Could not find an explanation for this, but a workaround at the moment would be to add "setterm -blank x" (where "x" is number of minutes after when to blank ) to your .bashrc.

Then it will blank correctly. However this workaround only works for the VT when you have logged in.

 I will investigate if this can be fixed properly, it seems to be kernel related indeed.

Cheers!