Re: [linuxdc-dev] Re: [linuxsh-dev] Completion of LinuxDC merge into LinuxSH

[M. R. B. <mr...@li...>]

* YAEGASHI Takeshi <t...@ke...> on Thu, May 24, 2001:

> 
> This surprised me a bit, because I've paied little attention to
> your project's status for a long time.  Now it seems much better
> than my drivers. ;-> Great work.
> 

Hehe, imagine my surprise when your code was finally released, and we had
basically the same drivers!  All of your work is appreciated, and I understand
the situation you were in before, and I'm glad you're able to hack on these
drivers :).  Here's what's on LinuxDC's agenda in the next few weeks, for
those of you out there who want to help out:

- Finish rewriting Maple subsystem
- Finish drivers for the vmu MTD flash and LCD fb
- Finish AICA RTC stuff
- GD-ROM support
- MTD driver for DC's internal flash
- ALSA or OSS drivers for the AICA system
- if necessary, External DMA, and other minor subsystems

> 
> You may know BERO has already had the GD-ROM driver ported from
> NetBSD:
> 
> 	http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown/2004/dcdev/linux/linux.html
> 
> I have another driver based on this, and a standalone Debian
> system can boot on my Dreamcast with the kernel powered by it.
> 

Wow! This is ... cool! :)  I'm glad we have a starting point for writing a
GD-ROM driver, would you mind sending me the driver you have as well?  Some
of the things I wanted to support in addition to the PIO stuff Marcus has
done are DMA reads and audio playing, which is why I've been hesitant just
using his "stock" GD-ROM code :).  This is a tremendous help, thanks!

> I'm now working on adding GD-ROM drive and ISO9660 supports to
> eCos+RedBoot/Dreamcast to make it serve as a bootloader, and
> planning to distribute CD-Rs at LinuxWorld Expo/Tokyo.
> 

That would also be great, we've been mostly using dcload for sending
kernels over the BBA, but once we get proper GD-ROM support added a decent
bootloader will be required.  I've played with RedBoot a little bit, but
haven't sat down to get kernels booting via TFTP, etc.  I would be
interested in helping you out with this, just let me know :).

For those of you out there who don't hack kernels but still want to help,
you can, by:

- testing the kernels, finding bugs, and reporting them
- helping with documentation where needed (it's needed *badly*, ATM)
- using the cross-tools to port your favorite app/library over (hehe, I've
  already done SDL, just need to accel. that damn frame buffer :)
- helping get binary images together for those who don't have the means to
  build everything from scratch
- doing whatever else you can think of :)

M. R.