Marcin Juszkiewicz

There is lot of talk about reading books for children. In Poland there is a big campaign on that subject called “Read your child for 20 minutes, daily” (which has some rhymes in Polish language).

I started reading very early and have no problems with reading (even in languages which I do not fully understand which was useful during our trip to Slovakia in 2005). And I plan to read books for my daughter.

But I wonder what kind of child she would be if I would read computer books instead of children books…

My Zaurus c760 is nice ARM based palmtop. I use it for testing miscellaneous things during my work days.

It was device where I hacked some Python based applications to fit in 10 megabytes of flash (it was fully working console system with Python and those apps). I test Ångström and Poky on it, tested different combinations of software etc…

But it shows age — batteries (950mAh and 1700mAh ones) started to lose capacity (one of them gives less then 60%) so sooner or later this device will stop booting (as battery is needed to boot even on AC).

But how to replace this device? There are lot of ARM palmtops in a world but most of it lack one or more features which c7x0 has:

• ARMv5t instruction set
• Linux support
• VGA screen
• working keyboard
• 128MB flash
• 64MB RAM

Due to first one all devices powered by Samsung S3Cxxxx processor can be ignored. Most of today WindowsMobile powered devices lack VGA screen (not to mention that they also usually lack Linux support). But at least those ones are available in normal shops in Poland.

I already considered few options but each of them has minuses:

• other Zaurus (but they are few years old technologically)
• HTC Universal (hard to get in good state, still boots from WinCE instead of flash)
• Finnish tablet N810 (impossible to buy in Poland and lack any warranty/service)

In worst situation I will slowly switch to using QEmu ARM emulation instead of real device.

During holidays I found another usage for my current phone (SonyEricsson k750i). It is Bluetooth Remote Control functionality.

Basically it turn phone into HID device but the good thing is that user can create own profile for this. There is a tool for it (Microsoft Windows executable) and also those files can be created by hand (instructions are provided by Stefan ‘tommie’ Tomanek as part of his excellent guide about using this cellphone with Linux).

I do not know does it is possible on Neo1973 (IIRC BlueZ only has HID daemon) but I will miss it if it is not…

2007 is ending. It was very good year for me. I am now married man, waiting for daughter birth. Have own company, working as contractor for one of biggest companies in OpenEmbedded world.

January

• Signed contract with OpenedHand — starting from February.
• Became one of 50 selected developers for OpenMoko Phase0 program. Each of us got offer to get Neo1973 GTA01 for free. First it was GTA01Bv3 with battery problem, then GTA01Bv4.
• I ended working for Conecto. Finally end of PHP programming.
• There was information that Sharp ended production of Zaurus palmtops. During next months they were still manufacturing them.

February

• FOSDEM — my first one. It was very nice event and good occasion to meet all those hackers from miscellaneous projects. I spoke with more people that was able to remember.
• Got Nokia 770 tablet donated. Interesting device but underpowered. It also became unsupported few months later.
• My first code entered Linux kernel. It was LCD backlight driver for Frontpath ProGear tablet.
• OpenMoko project released RoadMap.

March

• Vernier LabQuest got released. I was one of members of OpenedHand development team working on Poky for this device.
• Pingwinaria 2007 — I was there with one talk about OpenEmbedded. Then decided that it is time to buy laptop to be able to read mail, do some hacking etc.
• My Neo1973 GTA01Bv3 arrived. Added was Debug board, 128MB MicroSD card, pen/stylus and few other things.
• Three years of using OpenEmbedded.

April

• OpenZaurus project halted — all work is now done for Ångström distribution.
• My oldest Zaurus got SD/MMC driver for 2.6 kernel. Thanks goes to Thomas Kunze. I hope that he will update it to current kernels one day.
• Moved blog to current domain.
• Bought Dell D400 laptop. It is nice and fast machine — I use it as 32bit build machine.
• Nokia 770 which I got two months before became unsupported device.
• Bought 3rdparty Nokia charger to be able to charge Neo1973 battery.

May

• I got Neo1973 GTA01Bv4. As this was “developer update” only battery was added. I also got gllin in rootfs :)
• Bought Linksys NSLU2 — it was working as NFS server for my build machines.
• Played a bit with Vista on my friend 17” laptop. It is not a system for me.

June

• After reading about trademark wars started by handhelds.org I decided to end using their services. It also means that I am no longer OPIE developer.
• With few friends took StarWars marathon. We were exhausted after five episodes so “Return Of The Jedi” was not displayed.
• Due to big amount of visits from Google search I wrote small information about how to buy Neo1973 phone.

July

• GUADEC — I was going there with thinking “what I would do at GNOME conference” but it was also occasion to meet OpenedHand gang and people from other projects. I still remember how badly I lost on first day… and I did it twice ;(

August

• I married my beloved Ania — it was big event with lot of people from our families, our friends…
• Poky Linux 3.0 released — after release we pushed all upgrades which came to our minds and it was still working.
• Got Alix.1c board which PC Engines company donated to OpenEmbedded project. It replaces NSLU2 as NFS server. It still lack case and other services are still not moved to it.

September

• Ania and I were on Zakynthos island (Greece) on honeymoon — nice place if you want to rest.
• I wrote post about my testing of OpenMoko 2007.2 system. It was most popular post ever.
• My blog got new theme.

October

• OEDEM 2007 took place. Nice event, lot of OpenEmbedded developers.
• Maemo started developer program for Nokia N810 tablet. Due to limitations I was unable to take part of it. ARGHH!

November

• Upgraded my desktop system a bit — new CPU and cooler.
• OpenMoko released Gllin with script which starts it using OABI libraries on EABI system.
• Thanks to work done by Dmitry Baryshkov 2.6.23 kernel works nice on Tosa. It pushed new life into this device.

December

• OpenedHand X-mas took place — lot of fun and occasion to meet new guys from OH. Also played with few interesting devices.
• Due to lack of ARMv6 hardware I was working on getting current QEmu working. Now I am using it to test my recent Poky changes.
• Due to flu (which I catch during OH X-mas) we had to spend Christmas at home. It was our first x-mas at home without family.

Few days ago Ångström distribution was released. Currently machine mentors tests images and release them so their devices will be also supported and ready for users.

Users often have CompactFlash cards which we (developers) do not have. Some of them will be hit by miscellaneous problems. For example their WiFi card which was nicely working with HostAP driver now works only with Orinoco one so they can not connect to WPA encrypted access points.

How to solve that? Such users should report those cards. What report needs to contain:

• pccardctl ident output
• information does card was working with other distribution (it can be any Linux distribution — I test cards under Debian on my laptop)

What developer has to do then? Creation of patch to in-kernel driver is simple — there is one table per driver in source and few simple macros. Examples can be found in my submissions to kernel tree.

During last months I did few attempts to unify kernel configuration for all PXA Zaurus models (so no collie). As last one did not generate working ones and I do not have time to fix it (or devices for testing) I decided to release last version so maybe someone will look at it and try to get it fixed.

To generate configuration files run make.

Sharp Zaurus palmtops have separate flash ‘partition’ for keeping kernel. The problem is that it is only ~1.2 megabyte… It was good enough for 2.4.18 kernel which was used by vendor but with 2.6 kernel maintained by OE community it is really hard to fit there.

We started to remove some features from kernel. With 2.6.23 release we were forced to choose: SD/MMC support or PCMCIA/CF support goes into kernel. As many people keep rootfs on SD cards we moved CF into modules. To get 2.6.24 fit I had to choose another parts…

In near future we will probably end with a kernel which will be stripped from everything possible. This will leave only framebuffer and rootfs access support — Everything other moved to modules.

Other solution is to change a way of booting device. There are few solutions:

1. Use kernel space for really minimal kernel + initramfs which will use “kexec” functionality to boot kernel stored in rootfs.
2. Change Sharp bootloader into something more sane — like U-Boot, Apex or RedBoot.

First one require some patching to get rid of everything other then MTD + JFFS2 or CF + ext2 (for spitz). Then adding simple initramfs which will contain tool which will check rootfs for kernel and parameters. Then load/execute new kernel with “kexec”.

Second way… this one is more tricky as it also change a way of updating device to newer kernel/rootfs. We can get more space as Sharp “rescue” system used for updating can be replaced with much smaller one but this also require work. There is a patch from pdaXrom which adds c7x0 and akita/spitz support for 1.1.4 U-Boot. After few tweaks it applies to current version but need updating configuration and also adding some code for Flash operations. But this does not help for Tosa/Poodle devices as they would need more work.

Which way to choose… For now we will rather stick with removing all what can be removed. All other options require more work which require developers. But our Zaurus hackers usually moves to newer platforms now…

Today is 24 December — a day when some people celebrate Christmas. Some will celebrate it tomorrow as it depends where you live and how your culture handle it.

I want to wish Merry Christmas to all my blog readers — spend them with the ones you love.

Due to flu I will spend this year Christmas at home only with my wife. It was not planned to be this way but I hope that we will not die from boredom ;)