Typical boot and cursor in console

If you have Netwalker and have you tried to switch to console (for example by pressing ctrl+alt+f1), you probably noticed that there is no cursor. Well friends, it's not bug, it's feature. This part of code in drivers/video/mxc/mxc_ipuv3_fb.c is self-explanatory...

#ifdef CONFIG_MACH_MX51_ERDOS
static int dmy_cursor(struct fb_info *info, struct fb_cursor *cursor)
{
/*
* don't display cursor for slash image.
*/
return 0;
}
#endif /* CONFIG_MACH_MX51_ERDOS */

Let's have cursor back with this patch. Well, with this you'll get cursor back, but what about removing SHARP logo? This one should give you typical Linux Tux logo instead. And for completely usual linux boot sequence we all love so much. To get all that informations running in startup, all errors and messages disable in kernel config System Type --> Freescale MXC Implementations --> MX51 Options --> printk suppress less KERN_ERR.

Good night!

Netwalker for Sleep_Walker

I recently bought new gadget - SHARP PC-Z1 Netwalker. For those who doesn't know this device it's something between netbook and PDA - good choice for every geek. It has Freescale i.MX515 ARMv7 processor with Cortex-A8 core, 512 (!) MB RAM, 4 GB internal flash storage, WiFi, 1024x600 display, touchscreen and two USB ports. With its 16 cm it can well fit my pockets. Manufacturer says that it should work about 10 hours for single charge. Cool isn't it?

One of first things I tried was to boot my Debian system I use in Treo680 and Centro and it just worked. So I prepared Debian rootfile system for you with ease. It is quite up-to-date Debian sid with Illume on top. You can find it here. I plan to use it for updates since aptitude works there fast and has no need to swap. I'll try it for building Gentoo soon.

It has Netbook remix of Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope out of box with GNOME environment, but I tried even KDE4 and I have to say it's great to touch applications you are using daily...

Since it has Linux inside, it also has available kernel sources, but I have to say that quality of code is really low. It often fail to build when you just change kernel configuration a bit. Good news is that Amit Kucheria from Canonical is working on adding support of i.MX chips into upstream ARM kernel.

I searched a lot for any community around this nice device but found nothing but yahoo group (intended more for users than developers) so I decided to create wiki page on Hack&Dev web as basic place for cooperation. I found some interested people on #ubuntu-arm@freenode, but it seems it will be long road to the bright future of this device. Fortunately it is quite usable even now using that kernel sources provided by manufacturer. Wiki page should contain now some basic information but I'll use it to track current status.

---

OK, this was written about two months ago. I tried some experiments with Netwalker - running Gentoo (it was quite great, but compilation on Netwalker sucks), Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04 - it mostly sucked. I'm now using Debian with E17 and XFCE and I'm completely satisfied. Maybe I'll try openSUSE for ARM in future, but for now is Debian the most suitable distribution on Netwalker.

I had this week Hackweek 5 so I dig a bit to Netwalker's kernel and tried to port it to 2.6.31 Freescale's latest kernel. I found very awful stuff:

• Netwalker doesn't have it's own machine ID - it uses machine ID of Babbage board - one similar board.
• code is very hardly portable... there are #ifdef CONFIG_MACH_MX51_ERDOS spread in many files
  $ grep -Rl CONFIG_MACH_MX51_ERDOS /usr/src/linux-fsl-imx51-2.6.28 | wc -l
53

Try to avoid devices containing kernel code by Nissin Systems Co.. It can save you half year of work :)

Quick notes

As expected my son is occupying me a lot. But I had some Innovation Time Off accumulated at work so I worked on Palms a bit.

USB client is not working well for all PXA machines, but palmtreo.c code had missing some more functionality - connection worked only once when booting with cable attached. I fixed this with following marex's patch adding this support for PalmLD, PalmTX and PalmT5. It works now better, but it stops working after suspend/resume. I'll try to dig into code. I have found that GPIO90 works same way as GPIO1 - USB detection - weird.

Support for MAX8588 and PI2C was added and it seems to work. Funny about this is, that I tried to use CPU at 416 MHz in Linux at the same voltage as it was set in PalmOS for 312 MHz. I started to use Linux on 520 MHz and it works nice.

Camera differs from the ones found in other Palms (understand - I tried to follow marex's patch for Zire72 camera but it did not work :). I disassembled my Treo680 and tried to trace GPIOs. The only one new GPIO I have found is GPIO82. You can see photos here and here. I don't know currently what type it is and I didn't even found it on I2C bus yet. Interesting is that this module has 20 pins.

I also did some tiny code cleanups but I have to create patch set and push so you can use it too.

If you want some up-to-date distribution, you can try Ångström distribution - they started to provide online builder where Palm Treo 650 can be found. You can use such image, just put there new kernel and modules. Beware of udev and CONFIG_SYSFS_DEPRECATED. I tried OPIE (didn't work), GPE (worked somehow) using mdev instead of udev.

You can also prepare Debian root filesystem using qemu. There is prepared kernel and base system here you can use as a start. If there will be time spare I'll make some automated up-to-date Debian root filesystem generator for Palms. For getting files out of qemu disk when the virtual system is off use kpartx and raw image type.

Good night!