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Petric Frank | 1 Nov 14:09
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Beginner: Target Mips + nommu

Hello,

i'm rather a beginner when it comes to embedded systems.
My (play) system is a mips (i assume a mips32 big endian) system without a 
mmu, so i started with
  crossdev --target mips-softfloat-linux-uclibc

which runs well (after unmasking uclibc-0.9.30.1-r1 for mips). So i have now 
the cross-compilers and binutils available.

Due the target has no mmu i assume that i have to rebuild the uClibc with a 
modified .config to cover this, right ?
Ok, in the first view switching ARCH_HAS_MMU/ARCH_USE_MMU off is obvious, but 
then i think PIC (DOPIC) is also not allowed. 
(anyone could share me a working .config for this target ?)

Also - as far as i read - the normal linux kernel is not capable of a mmu-less 
mips system. Is uClinux the proper alternative for this or are the mips 
kernels available in the portage tree patched to cover this ?

Are there other things i have to care about ?

I would be happy if someone can share some knowledge with me.

regards
  Petric
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Peter Stuge | 1 Nov 14:44
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Re: Beginner: Target Mips + nommu

Petric Frank wrote:
> Is uClinux the proper alternative for this

In general it is the proper alternative for machines without MMU.

> or are the mips kernels available in the portage tree patched to
> cover this ?

In theory that's possible, but I doubt it.

//Peter
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Sven Rebhan | 2 Nov 08:43

Re: Android phones

2009/10/30 wireless <wireless@...>:
> Hello,

Hey!

> Can the gentoo embedded, openmoko, or any other
> embedded linux stack run on the (verizon) Android
> (verizon droid) phone?

The openmoko overlay does not have any ebuild for Android
and i doubt any other overlay has so far. But if you are
willing to provide ebuilds... ;-)

> Isn't the Android(2.0) phone just somebody's Linux
> stack? If so, is it an open/hackable embedded
> linux stack for an Arm?

And here the trouble starts. Android only uses the Linux
kernel, but the userland has nothing to do with a GNU/Linux
userland AFAIK. I had no deeper look, but  you probably
need another toolchain option... many ebuilds... and I'm
not even sure you can completelty rebuild Android as some
parts are proprietary IIRC.

> James

Sven
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Petric Frank | 2 Nov 21:22
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Re: Beginner: Target Mips + nommu

Hello,

On Sunday 01 November 2009 14:44:23 Peter Stuge wrote:
> > Is uClinux the proper alternative for this
> 
> In general it is the proper alternative for machines without MMU.
> 
> > or are the mips kernels available in the portage tree patched to
> > cover this ?
> 
> In theory that's possible, but I doubt it.

Thanks for your hints.

As far as i understand the cross compile system - the uclibc built by crossdev 
is the one the compiled software for the target to be linked against. 
Resulting from this the uclibc must reflect the target system (here 
especially: no-mmu).
Hope i am right here.

So i tried to do this using the savedconfig use-flag. I broke to compilation 
process while it is compiling uclibc. Then i did a "make menuconfig" (in 
/var/tmp/...) and disabled MMU and (as followup) the target file format to 
"STATIC FLAT" (i assume PIE is also not possible because of the missing MMU).

At restarting the crossdev execution i got an error while installing uclibc. 
The compile step of the ebuild went well. At the installation stage it 
complains that it is missing "utils/ldconfig.host" when doing newbin. This can 
be seen in the ebuild in the src_install step. The offending line is
  newbin utils/ldconfig.host ${CTARGET}-ldconfig | die
(Continue reading)

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Petric Frank | 3 Nov 22:44
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Re: Beginner: Target Mips + nommu

Hello,

On Monday 02 November 2009 21:22:38 Petric Frank wrote:
> > > Is uClinux the proper alternative for this
> >
> > In general it is the proper alternative for machines without MMU.
> >
> > > or are the mips kernels available in the portage tree patched to
> > > cover this ?
> >
> > In theory that's possible, but I doubt it.
> 
> Thanks for your hints.
> 
> As far as i understand the cross compile system - the uclibc built by
>  crossdev is the one the compiled software for the target to be linked
>  against. Resulting from this the uclibc must reflect the target system
>  (here especially: no-mmu).
> Hope i am right here.
> 
> So i tried to do this using the savedconfig use-flag. I broke to
>  compilation process while it is compiling uclibc. Then i did a "make
>  menuconfig" (in /var/tmp/...) and disabled MMU and (as followup) the
>  target file format to "STATIC FLAT" (i assume PIE is also not possible
>  because of the missing MMU).
> 
> At restarting the crossdev execution i got an error while installing
>  uclibc. The compile step of the ebuild went well. At the installation
>  stage it complains that it is missing "utils/ldconfig.host" when doing
>  newbin. This can be seen in the ebuild in the src_install step. The
(Continue reading)

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Christopher Friedt | 5 Nov 14:54
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Re: Android phones

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 8:34 PM, wireless <wireless@...> wrote:
> Can the gentoo embedded, openmoko, or any other
> embedded linux stack run on the (verizon) Android
> (verizon droid) phone?

yes.

my suggestions would be to

1) cross-compile busybox statically for armv5tel
2) push the busybox binary (and symlinks) to the device using adb
3) download a gentoo stage3 filesystem for armv5tel
4) extract the filesystem to a suitable memory card
5) log in to the device using 'adb shell'
6) execute '/bin/ash' (the busybox shell)
7) mount proc sys dev -o bind to your memory card, where the gentoo
root is installed
8) chroot to the gentoo root filesystem

If you do that, you'll have android and gentoo 'running' on the device
at the same time. I'm not sure how easy it is to do all of that on a
Motorola Droid, and you might need to make some software modifications
to start the adb (android debug bridge) service on the device.

You can of course do the same with an OpenMoko filesystem image
instead of a Gentoo filesystem image. Unfortunately, you won't be able
to use the framebuffer while Android is using it (AFAIK).

> Isn't the Android(2.0) phone just somebody's Linux
> stack? If so, is it an open/hackable embedded
(Continue reading)

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wireless | 5 Nov 15:30
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Re: Android phones

Christopher Friedt wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 8:34 PM, wireless <wireless@...> wrote:
>> Can the gentoo embedded, openmoko, or any other
>> embedded linux stack run on the (verizon) Android
>> (verizon droid) phone?
> 
> yes.
> 
> my suggestions would be to
> 
> 1) cross-compile busybox statically for armv5tel
> 2) push the busybox binary (and symlinks) to the device using adb
> 3) download a gentoo stage3 filesystem for armv5tel
> 4) extract the filesystem to a suitable memory card
> 5) log in to the device using 'adb shell'
> 6) execute '/bin/ash' (the busybox shell)
> 7) mount proc sys dev -o bind to your memory card, where the gentoo
> root is installed
> 8) chroot to the gentoo root filesystem
> 
> If you do that, you'll have android and gentoo 'running' on the device
> at the same time. I'm not sure how easy it is to do all of that on a
> Motorola Droid, and you might need to make some software modifications
> to start the adb (android debug bridge) service on the device.
> 
> You can of course do the same with an OpenMoko filesystem image
> instead of a Gentoo filesystem image. Unfortunately, you won't be able
> to use the framebuffer while Android is using it (AFAIK).
>
(Continue reading)

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Raffaele Recalcati | 5 Nov 16:17
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Re: Android phones

remind that the kernel has inside android patches, not, even if your
gentoo is chrooted, it could have some pb anyway

2009/11/5 wireless <wireless@...>:
> Christopher Friedt wrote:
>> On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 8:34 PM, wireless <wireless@...> wrote:
>>> Can the gentoo embedded, openmoko, or any other
>>> embedded linux stack run on the (verizon) Android
>>> (verizon droid) phone?
>>
>> yes.
>>
>> my suggestions would be to
>>
>> 1) cross-compile busybox statically for armv5tel
>> 2) push the busybox binary (and symlinks) to the device using adb
>> 3) download a gentoo stage3 filesystem for armv5tel
>> 4) extract the filesystem to a suitable memory card
>> 5) log in to the device using 'adb shell'
>> 6) execute '/bin/ash' (the busybox shell)
>> 7) mount proc sys dev -o bind to your memory card, where the gentoo
>> root is installed
>> 8) chroot to the gentoo root filesystem
>>
>> If you do that, you'll have android and gentoo 'running' on the device
>> at the same time. I'm not sure how easy it is to do all of that on a
>> Motorola Droid, and you might need to make some software modifications
>> to start the adb (android debug bridge) service on the device.
>>
>> You can of course do the same with an OpenMoko filesystem image
(Continue reading)

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Mike Dunn | 5 Nov 19:54
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Re: Android phones


> IMHO - the best (current) device you can use for a hackable handheld
> is the Nokia N900 - I wish I had one myself.
>   

If you're just looking for a hacker project and not concerned about 
using a smartphone from the latest generation, you may also want to 
consider a Palm Treo 650 or Treo 680.  Support for the 680 just went 
into the mainline Linux kernel, and others have ported to the 650 as 
well.  You can pick them up pretty cheap on ebay.  I've been playing 
around with both phones using a gentoo embedded environment, focusing 
mostly on reverse engineering the hardware with an eye towards 
developing drivers for the hardware components not yet supported by the 
kernel.  I'm able to boot the kernel on both devices.  The usb client 
hardware on the phone is supported, so I'm also able to ssh into the 
phone from my desktop via usbnet.  At least one person has documented 
success at making calls on the 650 (not sure about the 680 - I haven't 
gotten around to it for either phone).  See http://www.hackndev.com as a 
starting point.  One of the principal guys on that site developed a 
Linux boot loader (cocoboot) for the Palm OS, and all their reverse 
engineering efforts are documented on the wiki hosted on the site.
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wireless | 5 Nov 20:21
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Re: Android phones

Mike Dunn wrote:
> 
>> IMHO - the best (current) device you can use for a hackable handheld
>> is the Nokia N900 - I wish I had one myself.
>>   
> 
> If you're just looking for a hacker project and not concerned about
> using a smartphone from the latest generation, 

Ugh, that is exactly what I want. A smart phone
running eGentoo with WiFi on Verizon's net.......

sry for not making this clear.

James
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Gmane