From: <edw...@ti...> - 2011-04-08 16:52:18
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Just a heads up here really... Spent some time today looking at the website... things are kind of a mess. We don't even have any source available for download. Had a panic for a minute because I thought the source was lost... I couldn't access linux-7110.sf.net/files, I got a 403 However can see everything is still there after using ftp to log in. Might have a go at tidying things up a bit some time soon, putting stuff in CVS etc. Have been doing some work with the netbook pro and thinking about moving that over to openpsion too. Ed |
From: Thor A. <ta...@im...> - 2011-04-08 19:29:40
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On Fri, Apr 08, 2011 at 05:38:46PM +0100, edw...@ti... wrote: [...] > Might have a go at tidying things up a bit some time soon, putting > stuff in CVS etc. Have been doing some work with the netbook pro and > thinking about moving that over to openpsion too. Hi Ed, thanks for working on this. I have a 5mx which I plan on reviving at some point, that task will be so much easier if this project survives. If time permits I would like to contribute as well. -- best regards Thor Andreassen |
From: David G. <dg...@co...> - 2011-04-10 10:11:16
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On 09/04/11 15:04, edw...@ti... wrote: [...] > I > think getting the old kernels to build with gcc 4 will be far less work > than porting them to 2.6. Actually, I might be telling a lie: Linux 2.4 *can* be built with gcc 4. I think. It's terribly hard to find information, but this post: http://kerneltrap.org/node/7505 ...appears to indicate that 2.4.34 supports gcc 4 for at least x86, x86-64 and sparc64. Which appears to indicate that it's at least possible. [...] > I recently got another series 5 (a rare one > with a transparent case - a never released prototype) which is what > sparked all this off. Oo. Photos? [...] > In a way the netbook/series 7 port seems a bit of a lost > cause to me, because there was never really enough knowledge about the > hardware and performance suffers. Alas, guess what hardware I have... -- ┌─── dg@cowlark.com ───── http://www.cowlark.com ───── │ │ "I have a mind like a steel trap. It's rusty and full of dead mice." │ --- Anonymous, on rasfc |
From: <edw...@ti...> - 2011-04-11 10:16:24
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>On 09/04/11 15:04, edw...@ti... wrote: >[...] >> I >> think getting the old kernels to build with gcc 4 will be far less work >> than porting them to 2.6. > >Actually, I might be telling a lie: Linux 2.4 *can* be built with gcc 4. >I think. It's terribly hard to find information, but this post: > >http://kerneltrap.org/node/7505> >...appears to indicate that 2.4.34 supports gcc 4 for at least x86, >x86-64 and sparc64. Which appears to indicate that it's at least possible. > >[...] I think you'd get it to build with some fiddling. I managed to get 2.6.9 to build under gcc4 with a fairly small patch >> I recently got another series 5 (a rare one >> with a transparent case - a never released prototype) which is what >> sparked all this off. > >Oo. Photos? Will take some tonight/tomorrow > >[...] >> In a way the netbook/series 7 port seems a bit of a lost >> cause to me, because there was never really enough knowledge about the >> hardware and performance suffers. > >Alas, guess what hardware I have... As Klassjan says, interrupts are emulated, so disk & pcmcia access is buggy. Not really sure how we can get past this, aside from disassembling EPOC. |
From: David G. <dg...@co...> - 2011-04-08 19:43:47
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On 08/04/11 20:29, Thor Andreassen wrote: [...] > Hi Ed, thanks for working on this. I have a 5mx which I plan on reviving > at some point, that task will be so much easier if this project > survives. If time permits I would like to contribute as well. I have a Netbook I'd like to do something with, too... Unfortunately the current killer issue is that the Psion kernel only supports 2.4 with the old ARM ABI, which means that no modern software will work on it. (Even once you've found a repository of the right architecture, chances are the version of libc it's been built against requires a 2.6 kernel...) Even just building the 2.4 kernel is horrible; it'll only work with gcc 2.95, and cross-compiling that is something only angels or fools would even attempt. Possibly the most useful thing to do is to get a working 2.6 kernel for the Psion. Alas, I wouldn't know where to start. -- ┌─── dg@cowlark.com ───── http://www.cowlark.com ───── │ │ "I have a mind like a steel trap. It's rusty and full of dead mice." │ --- Anonymous, on rasfc |
From: <edw...@ti...> - 2011-04-09 14:04:39
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>I have a Netbook I'd like to do something with, too... > >Unfortunately the current killer issue is that the Psion kernel only >supports 2.4 with the old ARM ABI, which means that no modern software >will work on it. (Even once you've found a repository of the right >architecture, chances are the version of libc it's been built against >requires a 2.6 kernel...) > >Even just building the 2.4 kernel is horrible; it'll only work with gcc >2.95, and cross-compiling that is something only angels or fools would >even attempt. > >Possibly the most useful thing to do is to get a working 2.6 kernel for >the Psion. Alas, I wouldn't know where to start. > This would be nice, but I think it is also rather a lot of work. A small effort is being made at the moment to get a more recent 2.6 kernel working for the netbook pro. There is an early port of something like 2.6.7 to the 5mx I believe... last I checked it was somewhere on Tony Lindgren's site. To start off with I'm just going to try and remember how all this actually worked, get the source tidied up, and update the website a bit. I think getting the old kernels to build with gcc 4 will be far less work than porting them to 2.6. I recently got another series 5 (a rare one with a transparent case - a never released prototype) which is what sparked all this off. The series 5 is more-or-less identical to the 5mx/revo (which is our only really 'complete' kernel) but was never finished and was stuck at kernel 2.2. However, a one man effort by Stanson brought it up to 2.4, but I am not sure how complete his patches are. In a way the netbook/series 7 port seems a bit of a lost cause to me, because there was never really enough knowledge about the hardware and performance suffers. The netbook pro is a lot more promising though. As always, time is the real issue. |
From: klaasjan gm <kla...@gm...> - 2011-04-10 20:09:37
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Dear Ed and David, A few comments as quick feedback: On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 4:04 PM, edw...@ti... <edw...@ti...> wrote: >>Unfortunately the current killer issue is that the Psion kernel only > >>supports 2.4 with the old ARM ABI, which means that no modern software > >>will work on it. (Even once you've found a repository of the right > >>architecture, chances are the version of libc it's been built against > >>requires a 2.6 kernel...) What I tried, and what seems workable is to use an old version of Debian (in a virtual machine, using virtualbox in fact). If there is interest I can try and summarize my notes. >> >>Even just building the 2.4 kernel is > horrible; it'll only work with gcc >>2.95, and cross-compiling that is > something only angels or fools would >>even attempt. This was easy in the virtual machine: install the old emdebian crosstools for gcc-2.95. >> >>Possibly the > most useful thing to do is to get a working 2.6 kernel for >>the Psion. > Alas, I wouldn't know where to start. The old version of debian should be happy with 2.4 also. > This would be nice, but I > think it is also rather a lot of work. A small effort is being made at > the moment to get a more recent 2.6 kernel working for the netbook > pro. Can you say more about this? > There is an early port of something like 2.6.7 to the 5mx I > believe... last I checked it was somewhere on Tony Lindgren's site. Yes, and I still have my malaybook... > To > start off with I'm just going to try and remember how all this actually > worked, get the source tidied up, and update the website a bit. That would be great. > I > think getting the old kernels to build with gcc 4 will be far less work > than porting them to 2.6. Again, the simplest thing is to go with an old debian and a crosscompiler. (in my experience of a few months back, anyway). > I recently got another series 5 (a rare one > with a transparent case - a never released prototype) which is what > sparked all this off. The series 5 is more-or-less identical to the > 5mx/revo (which is our only really 'complete' kernel) No, it is very different (armv3 vs. armv4 cpu). Also the fragmented memory in some series 5 machines is a complicating factor. but was never > finished and was stuck at kernel 2.2. However, a one man effort by > Stanson brought it up to 2.4, but I am not sure how complete his > patches are. The 2.2 kernel for the series 5 was done by Werner Almesberger. This was quite 'professional'. In a way the netbook/series 7 port seems a bit of a lost > cause to me, because there was never really enough knowledge about the > hardware and performance suffers. The main issue was lack of knowledge on interrupts from the pcmcia and cf ports. This made accessing these periferals slow, buggy and difficult. > The netbook pro is a lot more > promising though. Tell me more, tell me more... Hint, hint... > As always, time is the real issue. Yes, and memory (in more than one sense of the word). best, Klaasjan |
From: <edw...@ti...> - 2011-04-11 10:56:05
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> >What I tried, and what seems workable is to use an old version of >Debian (in a virtual >machine, using virtualbox in fact). If there is interest I can try and >summarize my notes. > >>> >>>Even just building the 2.4 kernel is >> horrible; it'll only work with gcc >>>2.95, and cross-compiling that is >> something only angels or fools would >>>even attempt. > >This was easy in the virtual machine: install the old emdebian >crosstools for gcc-2.95. > > >>> >>>Possibly the >> most useful thing to do is to get a working 2.6 kernel for >>>the Psion. >> Alas, I wouldn't know where to start. > >The old version of debian should be happy with 2.4 also. > I think it would be nice to be able to build with gcc 4. If the problems aren't much worse than the early 2.6 series this shouldn't be too problematic. Most of the issues I faced compiling 2.6.9 were things like ordering of struct declarations, arrays declared incorrectly, specifier keywords in the wrong place etc. >> I recently got another series 5 (a rare one >> with a transparent case - a never released prototype) which is what >> sparked all this off. The series 5 is more-or-less identical to the >> 5mx/revo (which is our only really 'complete' kernel) > >No, it is very different (armv3 vs. armv4 cpu). Also the fragmented memory >in some series 5 machines is a complicating factor. I had forgotten this. The peripherals I believe are almost the same though... IIRC the windermere chip in the 5mx is very similar to the CL PS-7110 used in the series 5 (same pinout, same peripherals) but with a different core. I think the helper chip(s) are also the same. Fragmented memory though, is bound to make life difficult. > >but was never >> finished and was stuck at kernel 2.2. However, a one man effort by >> Stanson brought it up to 2.4, but I am not sure how complete his >> patches are. > >The 2.2 kernel for the series 5 was done by Werner Almesberger. This >was quite 'professional'. > Again, it would be nice to have a kernel newer than 2.2 though. In 2.2 they still had the big kernel lock! >> This would be nice, but I >> think it is also rather a lot of work. A small effort is being made at >> the moment to get a more recent 2.6 kernel working for the netbook >> pro. > >Can you say more about this? > >> The netbook pro is a lot more >> promising though. > >Tell me more, tell me more... >Hint, hint... > So, we have some bootable images for the pro... and figured out how to boot them on the non-'linux' version of the pro (which has 256MB of ram and more flash, rather than the 32MB flash/128MB RAM of the standard one). We then found the source code for Psions version of the 2.6.9 kernel, and I've managed to build it with gcc 4, but could not boot it. The boost bootloader in the netbook pro is undocumented, and the images it boots require kernel+initrd+ some bootstrap code. Fortunately the other guy working on this with me was able reverse engineer Psions bootstrap and made his own version (which, you'll be happy to hear, displays an image with _thousands_ of penguins on the screen before it starts the kernel). So now we can boot our kernel. The problem right now is that for some reason we get no serial output with kernels I have compiled. I am not sure if the problem is in the bootloader or the kernel. At first I thought it was because the power management chip actually turns off the TTL-RS232 level converter, so I soldered on a connector that bypassed the level converter and used my own. Unfortunately this was not the issue, and I haven't gotten any further with it yet. The serial port is a problem because the display driver does not work in later kernels, so we really do need serial output to make this work. You can read more here http://jlime.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2775&sid=b826db36019b600b69d079161867114a&start=135 Input is more than welcome! >> As always, time is the real issue. > >Yes, and memory (in more than one sense of the word). > You're not wrong there. Ed |