Hi,
I have opened this thread to document my attempts to run Alarmz on my Akita (SL-C1000). As you probably already know, Alarmz is currently declared as not tested on that Zaurus. Yesterday night I have finally found some free time to test it, and I'd like to write down everything I'm trying to do so that I won't forget anything in case I'll have to postpone any further testing due to lack of time, and in case these info could be useful for other C1000 users here. Please feel free to comment and/or point to any error in my post.
The first blocking step is alarmz's own kexecboot, which doesn't run on the Akita since it lacks specific code for that model. Luckily the official kexecboot does support the Akita, there's a specific build for it. I have tried two versions of it: the old one based on the 2.6.2x kernel, and the latest one (released last May) based on 4.4.8. Both can be found here:
https://github.com/LinuxPDA/linux-kexecboot...e/master/zaurusThe 2.6 kexec works as expected, though it doesn't support ext4 partitions, which the 4.4.8 one does. Alarmz on an ext4 partition should run faster than on an ext3 one, but if at the end I'll not manage to boot the latest kexec, I'll try the 2.6/ext3 setup.
I have not been able to run the 4.4.8 kexec so far. At first I thought that the problem might be the modified partition table on my NAND: I had previously resized the root partition from 58 MB to 32, in order to install Cacko on NAND. I had a conversation on IRC with Ant (Kexecboot's Zaurus maintainer), he has told me that the latest kexec supports only root partitions with a default size of 58 MB, unlike older kexec versions. I have therefore done a NAND restore using Trisoft's backup, but I still had the same problems, as I will explain below.
At the first boot, a screen with the Open Embedded logo is displayed. The boot seem to remain stuck to that image, I have waited for a couple of minutes but nothing happened. After a switch off/on cycle, the screen went black, then the kexec menu was briefly shown for a fraction of second, then the screen turned black again. After unplugging the charger and the battery, waiting for 5 seconds then plugging them back, nothing is displayed anymore. The charger LED is turned off for a second, turned on and turned back off again after a second. I have tried to reflash kexec to no avail, the Open Embedded screen still isn't shown anymore, so I'll have to do the NAND restore again in order to go back one step and try to do something else when the OE logo is shown. This is what I'll try next:
- do the NAND restore again; when the OE logo is shown, leave the Zaurus untouched for a longer time and see if it makes any difference
- (thanks Ant for the hint!) the original Sharp's ROM has the rootfs and second rootfs formatted as JFFSv1 which seems that cannot be mounted by newer kexecboot with kernel >= 2.6. Try to flash again kexec with updater.sh, but this time flash the rootfs and 2nd rootfs too with an JFFSv2 image, i.e.:
1) zImage for kernel
2) initrd.bin for rootfs in mtd2
3) home.bin for second rootfs in mtd3 (optional)
as described here:
http://cgit.openembedded.org/meta-handheld...n/README.zaurus . Use two copies of the following file, named as initrd.bin and home.bin:
https://github.com/LinuxPDA/builds_OE_2016-...33.rootfs.jffs2- have an ext4 SD with Alarmz on it inserted. If the menu can be seen again, see if it's possible to navigate in the menu and select the Alarmz partition before the screen turns black again
- report the issues on #kexecboot. In case a dmesg log is generated and stored anywhere in the NAND, consider doing a NAND dump via the maintenance menu and see if the dmesg log can be extracted from there.
- try the kexec 2.6/ext3 partition solution
Varti
