Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 22:00, Paul Fertser fercer...@gmail.com wrote: Qi is really simple and (almost) clean, and it can boot kernels. I don't understand why you think one should want to maintain huge and complex u-boot instead of small simple Qi. It boots kernels - good enough. KISS Personally I do not want to keep huge u-boot. But I think Torfinn talking about fixing u-boot comes just from some previous posts where people just said something like (sorry for reformulating with my understanding) if QI is not ok for you just use U-Boot, it can multiboot, so why do you complain. But then it would imply that U-Boot has to be maintained. Torfinn just let the choice open for devs since he said he would (could) not do it himself. Now, will any developer step up and fix Qi (or U-boot) so that it will be usable for users? If you're ok with initramfs solution (and i haven't yet seen a single point why it's not ok) then it seems it's not a matter of fixing Qi, rather a matter of implementing an initramfs menu... I completely agree with that, and really would like such a solution. I thought it would have come sooner (people did talk about trying to make a little multi-boot quite a while ago !). And I do agree with Torfinn. I do need to be able to access different partitions. But I really tried hard and different timings for clicking Aux, but at the very best I can choose the good partition only once over 10 trials. And when using u-boot, I did have 5 partitions where I could install and test different configurations/distros. I do not anymore, but do not either play as much with my freerunner. It is not as simple as And in fact if anybody of those talking about bootmenu, multiboot and such really needed it he would have done it himself long time ago. I am not sure I would have been able to do this quickly and correctly enough. (and once again some said they were looking at this, and they are more competent than me). Also there are a lot of other things needing work. If everyone had to do everything himself we would no go really far. Granted I might feel a little bad saying that since I did not code anything for the freerunner, but hence the FreeRunner will remain a gadget for developers only ... ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
FWIW, the link works for me (now). The subject of the thread is Touch based Dual Boot Menu. The thread is from March this year, it includes a couple of examples, one have a screenshot of a working menu. how well do you want to have it published? :) the thread mentions all that is needed to actually create initrd and menu, plus has links to my testing images: http://vanous.penguin.cz/files/om/menu/ the proof of concept was ok but as i am not a programmer the only thing i could do was to make a simple script. this required X to run and became too big and too slow to boot. anyone with coding skills could either use and tweak Zaurus program or make something new... Petr ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Hi, On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Petr Vanek van...@penguin.cz wrote: how well do you want to have it published? :) A howto that explains every step needed to put it al together would be nice. Example: - where would the menu partition live? On SD crd or on NAND? - how do I install the whole deal? the thread mentions all that is needed to actually create initrd and menu, plus has links to my testing images: http://vanous.penguin.cz/files/om/menu/ Well, I didn't understand how to put it all together. the proof of concept was ok but as i am not a programmer the only thing i could do was to make a simple script. this required X to run and became too big and too slow to boot. anyone with coding skills could either use and tweak Zaurus program or make something new... Yes. It will be interesting to see if anyone actually makes something, or if this idea will stay as a proof of concept forever. -- Regards, Torfinn Ingolfsen ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Am 25.09.2009 um 21:27 schrieb Torfinn Ingolfsen: To a user, it might look like this: - U-boot wasn't working correctly with newer (bigger) kernels, so the developer(s) abandoned it - instead they created Qi to be newer, better, faster and so on - Qi isn't living up to promises for users I'm not saying that such a view is correct, but that is how it can look like from a users view. What I wonder is why nobody did fix u-boot if it had problems with bigger kernels. And adding stateless boot from the rootfs would be nice to have in u- boot as well (for other hardware that uses u-boot). When looking into the most recent official u-boot sources I was disappointed to find essentially nothing from OM. Other open hardware projects like OpenPandora simply use mainstream u-boot. Maybe, the better path would have been to integrate more OM-u-boot back into official u-boot and work on the general limitations instead of starting a new project (Qi). But you can only influence the future but never change the history... -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: What I wonder is why nobody did fix u-boot if it had problems with bigger kernels. I'm just a bystander here, but from what I understood this wasn't the reason Qi was started. u-boot is an entire environment that needs drivers for a lot of the hardware (usb, graphics, pmu, etc.) all of which end up duplicated in the Linux kernel. The u-boot philosophy (of an entire environment supporting DFU and a boot menu) implies that those drivers have to be maintained in two places (u-boot and kernel) which cases pain, and inevitably results in u-boot being slower to boot. Qi starts with a completely different philosophy - that the bootlooder should do as little as possible, and that it should need to know as little as possible about the hardware. In terms of intent, it's closer to the coreboot project than it is to u-boot. You really couldn't achieve this [separation of bootloader device drivers] with u-boot, which is why the separate Qi project was formed instead of continuing to evolve u-boot. So what you _can't_ do inside Qi is have a graphical boot menu, or support dfu - because Qi doesn't know how to talk to the hardware. What you _can_ do is construct a mini Linux environment that provides a boot menu / usb-dfu, and is booted by Qi in the normal way. This would place those tools in regular Linux userspace, i.e. much more accessible to regular non kernel / bootloader hackers. This could be the default or secondary boot option - provide a boot menu and then chainload the desired final Linux environment. There's a philosophical difference between the two projects, and I think Qi's approach is much better suited to this kind of hardware, than u-boot could ever be (with trunk, or with the existing gripes resolved). But you can only influence the future but never change the history... Wise words! :-) Imho our time would be better spent building this mini-environment (which would probably be best constructed in initrd as Paul mentioned) than returning to u-boot. Any takers? Dave ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@computer.org writes: To a user, it might look like this: - U-boot wasn't working correctly with newer (bigger) kernels, so the developer(s) abandoned it - instead they created Qi to be newer, better, faster and so on - Qi isn't living up to promises for users I'm not saying that such a view is correct, but that is how it can look like from a users view. What I wonder is why nobody did fix u-boot if it had problems with bigger kernels. It didn't. Maybe, the better path would have been to integrate more OM-u-boot back into official u-boot and work on the general limitations instead of starting a new project (Qi). General limitation of u-boot is different ideology behind the project. Please take a look at coreboot[1] to understand what i mean. Also please see my other mail for additional information about why some developers think that u-boot is more hassle than win. [1] http://www.coreboot.org/FAQ -- Be free, use free (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) software! mailto:fercer...@gmail.com ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Am 26.09.2009 um 11:12 schrieb Nikita V. Youshchenko: What you _can_ do is construct a mini Linux environment that provides a boot menu / usb-dfu, and is booted by Qi in the normal way. This would place those tools in regular Linux userspace, i.e. much more accessible to regular non kernel / bootloader hackers. This could be the default or secondary boot option - provide a boot menu and then chainload the desired final Linux environment. Have anybody done this, at least in proof-of-concept form? As far as I remember the good old Sharp Zaurus did it that way some years ago (unfortunately most links are gone). It loads a Mini-Linux that was the real bootloader and finally loaded the full Linux. If yes, any links? ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
On Sat, 2009-09-26 at 09:06 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Am 25.09.2009 um 21:27 schrieb Torfinn Ingolfsen: To a user, it might look like this: - U-boot wasn't working correctly with newer (bigger) kernels, so the developer(s) abandoned it - instead they created Qi to be newer, better, faster and so on - Qi isn't living up to promises for users I'm not saying that such a view is correct, but that is how it can look like from a users view. What I wonder is why nobody did fix u-boot if it had problems with bigger kernels. And adding stateless boot from the rootfs would be nice to have in u- boot as well (for other hardware that uses u-boot). When looking into the most recent official u-boot sources I was disappointed to find essentially nothing from OM. Other open hardware projects like OpenPandora simply use mainstream u-boot. Maybe, the better path would have been to integrate more OM-u-boot back into official u-boot and work on the general limitations instead of starting a new project (Qi). But you can only influence the future but never change the history... -- hns u-boot can still work with bigger kernels - its part of the environment setup. There are instructions on the wiki somewhere. Ive just gone back to u-boot from Qi - cant stand the WSODS which only occur with Qi for me - makes the phone unusable as it usually does it on an incoming call. BillK ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
u-boot being slower to boot. Just FYI. I was involved in recent MontaVista's boot-in-one-second presentation. That demo did use u-boot (although somewhat changes) in the one-second boot process. Kernel got control there in about 0.3 seconds since poweron. So claim that u-boot is unable to do things fast is plain incorrect. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 10:36:54AM +0100, George Brooke wrote: There was a thread on the devel list see here: http://lists.openmoko.org/nabble.html#nabble-td1980163%7Ca1980163 That link isn't working, it just gives a nearly blank page. -- Rask Ingemann Lambertsen Danish law requires addresses in e-mail to be logged and stored for a year ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
What you _can_ do is construct a mini Linux environment that provides a boot menu / usb-dfu, and is booted by Qi in the normal way. This would place those tools in regular Linux userspace, i.e. much more accessible to regular non kernel / bootloader hackers. This could be the default or secondary boot option - provide a boot menu and then chainload the desired final Linux environment. Have anybody done this, at least in proof-of-concept form? If yes, any links? signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 10:36:54AM +0100, George Brooke wrote: There was a thread on the devel list see here: http://lists.openmoko.org/nabble.html#nabble-td1980163%7Ca1980163 That link isn't working, it just gives a nearly blank page. It worked for me in Firefox, but not in konqueror. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Hi, On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 1:17 PM, Rask Ingemann Lambertsen ccc94...@vip.cybercity.dk wrote: On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 10:36:54AM +0100, George Brooke wrote: There was a thread on the devel list see here: http://lists.openmoko.org/nabble.html#nabble-td1980163%7Ca1980163 That link isn't working, it just gives a nearly blank page. FWIW, the link works for me (now). The subject of the thread is Touch based Dual Boot Menu. The thread is from March this year, it includes a couple of examples, one have a screenshot of a working menu. Still - nothing is published for users to try. -- Regards, Torfinn Ingolfsen ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Nikita V. Youshchenko yo...@debian.orgwrote: What you _can_ do is construct a mini Linux environment that provides a boot menu / usb-dfu, and is booted by Qi in the normal way. This would place those tools in regular Linux userspace, i.e. much more accessible to regular non kernel / bootloader hackers. This could be the default or secondary boot option - provide a boot menu and then chainload the desired final Linux environment. Have anybody done this, at least in proof-of-concept form? If yes, any links? Search kexecboot http://git.linuxtogo.org/?p=groups/kexecboot/kexecboot.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/cfgfiles I'm using it on my old Sharp Zaurus and it works great, still actively developed (would be nice to have some hacker testing, improving support for freerunner). I liked u-boot menu and this is even better as kernel for this and then whole system can be quite the same. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Am 26.09.2009 um 10:20 schrieb Dave Ball: Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: What I wonder is why nobody did fix u-boot if it had problems with bigger kernels. I'm just a bystander here, but from what I understood this wasn't the reason Qi was started. u-boot is an entire environment that needs drivers for a lot of the hardware (usb, graphics, pmu, etc.) all of which end up duplicated in the Linux kernel. The u-boot philosophy (of an entire environment supporting DFU and a boot menu) implies that those drivers have to be maintained in two places (u-boot and kernel) which cases pain, and I see. This is surely a problem. For u-boot there are estimatedly 200 other hardware projects around that have the same issue. Therfore porting fixing is only 1/200 of efforts. Except the hardware specific parts (e.g. LCD). inevitably results in u-boot being slower to boot. That one I do not really understand. If I want to load a kernel from MMC it needs the driver anyway. And why is it slower if there are other (unused) drivers available? The only delay I am aware of for u-boot is from waiting if someone wants to break into command line mode through the console... Otherwise the boot speed should only be limited by how fast we can locate and fetch the kernel image from peripheral memory. Qi starts with a completely different philosophy - that the bootlooder should do as little as possible, and that it should need to know as little as possible about the hardware. In terms of intent, it's closer to the coreboot project than it is to u-boot. You really couldn't achieve this [separation of bootloader device drivers] with u-boot, which is why the separate Qi project was formed instead of continuing to evolve u-boot. But u-boot evolves anyway (with us or without) because many other projects simply use it. Nevertheless your point with the LCD device driver is very valid. It is specific to every piece of hardware. Only the CPU is more generic. So what you _can't_ do inside Qi is have a graphical boot menu, or support dfu - because Qi doesn't know how to talk to the hardware. What you _can_ do is construct a mini Linux environment that provides a boot menu / usb-dfu, and is booted by Qi in the normal way. This would place those tools in regular Linux userspace, i.e. much more accessible to regular non kernel / bootloader hackers. This could be the default or secondary boot option - provide a boot menu and then chainload the desired final Linux environment. Isn't this even slower than u-boot? There's a philosophical difference between the two projects, and I think Qi's approach is much better suited to this kind of hardware, than u-boot could ever be (with trunk, or with the existing gripes resolved). Hm. This makes me raise some questions: * what is so specific with this hardware so that Qi is better suited? * is there any indication that Qi is adopted by other hardware projects? But you can only influence the future but never change the history... Wise words! :-) Imho our time would be better spent building this mini-environment (which would probably be best constructed in initrd as Paul mentioned) than returning to u-boot. Any takers? Dave ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 12:00:46AM +0400, Paul Fertser wrote: Qi was created to have a minimal simple easily maintainable bootloader, take a look at coreboot project to understand the idea behind Qi. U-boot is just wrong for this kind of device: it's neverending porting of Linux drivers to u-boot which doesn't make much sense when you can boot Linux, the kernel directly. So why doesn't Qi do that? Qi also has drivers for PMU, NAND flash, SD card, file systems, etc. Why not boot a kernel directly? Lack of menu with initramfs says imho that nobody really needs it or else it would have been created long time ago. No, months ago I made a trimmed down kernel for the purpose and would have given the initramfs menu a shot months ago if only the required kexec() interface was documented somewhere. Since it isn't, I'm stuck with U-Boot, which to me isn't really all that bad. -- Rask Ingemann Lambertsen Danish law requires addresses in e-mail to be logged and stored for a year ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
On Saturday 26 September 2009 10:12:59 Nikita V. Youshchenko wrote: What you _can_ do is construct a mini Linux environment that provides a boot menu / usb-dfu, and is booted by Qi in the normal way. This would place those tools in regular Linux userspace, i.e. much more accessible to regular non kernel / bootloader hackers. This could be the default or secondary boot option - provide a boot menu and then chainload the desired final Linux environment. Have anybody done this, at least in proof-of-concept form? If yes, any links? There was a thread on the devel list see here: http://lists.openmoko.org/nabble.html#nabble-td1980163%7Ca1980163 solar.george signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Dave Ball openm...@underhand.org writes: ... There's a philosophical difference between the two projects, and I think Qi's approach is much better suited to this kind of hardware, than u-boot could ever be (with trunk, or with the existing gripes resolved). Great thanks for this clear and complete explanation. I hope that they'll finally get it after your write-up. -- Be free, use free (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) software! mailto:fercer...@gmail.com ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: U-Boot improvements? (Was: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?)
El Friday, 25 de September de 2009 06:37:19 Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller va escriure: Am 24.09.2009 um 22:44 schrieb Rask Ingemann Lambertsen: I tried to merge the two trees a couple of months ago, but the NAND flash code has changed so much that merging in the 2442 support requires knowledge of how the NAND flash interface works. I don't have that knowledge. Is this code somewhere available? I personally don't have the experience for the 2442 you mention, but others could be interested as well. http://git.openmoko.org/?p=u-boot.git;a=summary ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: U-Boot improvements? (Was: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?)
Am 25.09.2009 um 08:46 schrieb Jose Luis Perez Diez: El Friday, 25 de September de 2009 06:37:19 Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller va escriure: Am 24.09.2009 um 22:44 schrieb Rask Ingemann Lambertsen: I tried to merge the two trees a couple of months ago, but the NAND flash code has changed so much that merging in the 2442 support requires knowledge of how the NAND flash interface works. I don't have that knowledge. Is this code somewhere available? I personally don't have the experience for the 2442 you mention, but others could be interested as well. http://git.openmoko.org/?p=u-boot.git;a=summary Is there the merged tree Rask did mention? As far as I can see it is the OM fork and miles away from the 2009.08 u-boot. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Hi, On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 6:59 AM, Paul Fertser fercer...@gmail.com wrote: And in fact if anybody of those talking about bootmenu, multiboot and such really needed it he would have done it himself long time ago. I bet trying and tweaking all distros including Qtopia, Qtmoko, Android, H:1 etc etc took them 10x time required to build a minimal bootmenu. Well, this (statements like those above) is why the shoemaker's children is still running around barefoot. :-) (For those not catching the reference - the shoemaker can make shoes for his children at any time, he just never makes it a priority.) Developers and users have different views of what is required to make a device usable. Unless the developers recognize that, and produce something that the users find acceptable, the device in question will remain a gadget for developers. I had hopes that I would be able to use my FreeRunner as a user one day, heck I still have that hope. If that doesn't happen I (and probably a few others) will be a bit dissappointed. Hm, i have my normal one on uSD and in case i screw something up i just boot pre-installed 2007 from NAND by pressing AUX button at the right time (and yes, i can't manage it with 100% success rate but taking out the battery and trying again is not a big deal). Lucky you. I have tried the press AUX button trick a lot of times, I can _never_ make Qi boot anything other that the default (first) partition on my SD card. Like this: - I don't press anything, the default partition gets booted - I press AUX (hopefully at the right time), and Qi never finshes booting anything (not in 5 - 10 minutes anyway). Someone said that Qi is unusable by normal users. I wanted to prove it wrong. IMHO, you failed to prove anything. I still say that Qi is unusable for normal users - it doesn't have a reliable way for users to select which partition to boot. To a user, it might look like this: - U-boot wasn't working correctly with newer (bigger) kernels, so the developer(s) abandoned it - instead they created Qi to be newer, better, faster and so on - Qi isn't living up to promises for users I'm not saying that such a view is correct, but that is how it can look like from a users view. By derfinition, only developers can fix the software. Now, will any developer step up and fix Qi (or U-boot) so that it will be usable for users? If no developer wants to scratch that particular itch, the FreeRunner will remain a gadget for developers only. -- Regards, Torfinn Ingolfsen ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Torfinn Ingolfsen tin...@gmail.com writes: And in fact if anybody of those talking about bootmenu, multiboot and such really needed it he would have done it himself long time ago. I bet trying and tweaking all distros including Qtopia, Qtmoko, Android, H:1 etc etc took them 10x time required to build a minimal bootmenu. Developers and users have different views of what is required to make a device usable. Unless the developers recognize that, and produce something that the users find acceptable, the device in question will remain a gadget for developers. I'm not a dev. I don't maintain anything. And don't write anything. I'm just using FR as my only daily phone since November. Hm, i have my normal one on uSD and in case i screw something up i just boot pre-installed 2007 from NAND by pressing AUX button at the right time (and yes, i can't manage it with 100% success rate but taking out the battery and trying again is not a big deal). Lucky you. I have tried the press AUX button trick a lot of times, I can _never_ make Qi boot anything other that the default (first) partition on my SD card. Like this: - I don't press anything, the default partition gets booted - I press AUX (hopefully at the right time), and Qi never finshes booting anything (not in 5 - 10 minutes anyway). Why don't you add an additional delay or led blink to it to make it more explicit? Someone said that Qi is unusable by normal users. I wanted to prove it wrong. IMHO, you failed to prove anything. I still say that Qi is unusable for normal users - it doesn't have a reliable way for users to select which partition to boot. I'm not sure the majority of users really want it, there was no such poll. To a user, it might look like this: - U-boot wasn't working correctly with newer (bigger) kernels, so the developer(s) abandoned it False statement. - instead they created Qi to be newer, better, faster and so on Qi was created to have a minimal simple easily maintainable bootloader, take a look at coreboot project to understand the idea behind Qi. U-boot is just wrong for this kind of device: it's neverending porting of Linux drivers to u-boot which doesn't make much sense when you can boot Linux, the kernel directly. Qi is really simple and (almost) clean, and it can boot kernels. I don't understand why you think one should want to maintain huge and complex u-boot instead of small simple Qi. It boots kernels - good enough. KISS - Qi isn't living up to promises for users Qi is working almost bugfree. It does what was promised. If anyone with a debugboard or the simplest UART-whatever converter (i've just built one myself based on FT232R, damn simple; the same goes for MAX232 etc, it's not _that_ hard to find RS-232 even nowadays) can reproduce any bug with it, please report it on trac, i promise i will try to fix it. Lack of menu with initramfs says imho that nobody really needs it or else it would have been created long time ago. I'm not saying that such a view is correct, but that is how it can look like from a users view. I hope now i clarified it enough to explain why it's not correct. By derfinition, only developers can fix the software. It would be interesting to see this definition... Now, will any developer step up and fix Qi (or U-boot) so that it will be usable for users? If you're ok with initramfs solution (and i haven't yet seen a single point why it's not ok) then it seems it's not a matter of fixing Qi, rather a matter of implementing an initramfs menu... If no developer wants to scratch that particular itch, the FreeRunner will remain a gadget for developers only. Hehe, how scary ;) BTW, no offense meant, take it easy dude :) -- Be free, use free (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) software! mailto:fercer...@gmail.com ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Warren Baird wjba...@alumni.uwaterloo.ca writes: I have a slightly more interesting issue - my aux button doesn't work any more after my daughter dropped my FR one too many times... Judging by experience i guess most probably everything is undamaged, there were numerous reports of failing AUX button after bad drops but on no occassion anything was really broken. Just solder it back. -- Be free, use free (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) software! mailto:fercer...@gmail.com ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 11:11:04PM +, Niels Heyvaert wrote: The idea of having a simple GUI boot loader could be very useful... We have one. It's called U-Boot. Or am I missing something? -- Rask Ingemann Lambertsen Danish law requires addresses in e-mail to be logged and stored for a year ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 12:36:43AM +0400, Paul Fertser wrote: Torfinn Ingolfsen tin...@gmail.com writes: Qi _will_ need to be improved until it is usable for end users, or it will fade away I really can't understand the desire to multi-boot. What does it matter if you understand anybody elses desire to multi-boot or not? But let me give you a few uses anyway: 1) A backup installation in case you break your normal one. 2) Regression testing. I have an unmodified andy-tracking kernel installed in addition to the one I'm hacking on and normally use. So if something is broken I can check if it was broken before I started hacking too. And btw, Qi doesn't let me select between multiple kernels for the same rootfs, does it? And btw the recent poll proved that most users use Qi IIRC. A clear evidence it's already usable for them. There are more iPhone users than Freerunner users. What was your point again? -- Rask Ingemann Lambertsen Danish law requires addresses in e-mail to be logged and stored for a year ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Hi, On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 4:02 PM, Rask Ingemann Lambertsen ccc94...@vip.cybercity.dk wrote: On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 11:11:04PM +, Niels Heyvaert wrote: The idea of having a simple GUI boot loader could be very useful... We have one. It's called U-Boot. Or am I missing something? Apart for a fact that it has problem loading kernels over a certain size? Or that it requires the kernel on a separate partition (which must be fat?)? No, I don't think so. But this begs the question: could U-boot be improved to deal with the current requirements of the users? -- Regards, Torfinn Ingolfsen ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Hi, On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 4:02 PM, Rask Ingemann Lambertsen ccc94...@vip.cybercity.dk wrote: On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 11:11:04PM +, Niels Heyvaert wrote: The idea of having a simple GUI boot loader could be very useful... We have one. It's called U-Boot. Or am I missing something? Apart for a fact that it has problem loading kernels over a certain size? Or that it requires the kernel on a separate partition (which must be fat?)? No, I don't think so. But this begs the question: could U-boot be improved to deal with the current requirements of the users? -- Regards, Torfinn Ingolfsen ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
On Thursday 24 September 2009, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote: Hi, On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 4:02 PM, Rask Ingemann Lambertsen ccc94...@vip.cybercity.dk wrote: On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 11:11:04PM +, Niels Heyvaert wrote: The idea of having a simple GUI boot loader could be very useful... We have one. It's called U-Boot. Or am I missing something? Apart for a fact that it has problem loading kernels over a certain size? The default is 2MB, but it's a config option. Or that it requires the kernel on a separate partition (which must be fat?)? No, I don't think so. Where did you get that idea? My kernels live in /boot on the ext3 partition I'm booting. They can live on a separate partition, and it can read from fat, but neither are requirements. But this begs the question: could U-boot be improved to deal with the current requirements of the users? The two issues above could be solved by providing a more friendly configuration tool. The slightly slower boot and resume probably can't be changed due to the different philosophy. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
U-Boot improvements? (Was: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?)
On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 04:18:30PM +0200, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote: On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 4:02 PM, Rask Ingemann Lambertsen ccc94...@vip.cybercity.dk wrote: On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 11:11:04PM +, Niels Heyvaert wrote: The idea of having a simple GUI boot loader could be very useful... We have one. It's called U-Boot. Or am I missing something? Apart for a fact that it has problem loading kernels over a certain size? Not as such, but it does lack kernel size detection when reading from NAND flash. The config shipped by OM limits NAND flash kernels to 2 MB. Does anybody actually (want to) ship kernels larger than that? Andy-tracking's packaging config comes out to around 1.7 MB. NAND flash kernel size detection wouldn't be all that difficult to add, though. Around 10-20 lines of code. Or that it requires the kernel on a separate partition (which must be fat?)? It doesn't. I have the kernel on the Debian rootfs, which is ext2. I also have an old SHR installation, also with the kernel on the ext2 rootfs. But this begs the question: could U-boot be improved to deal with the current requirements of the users? Probably. The first step is to list the requirements. -- Rask Ingemann Lambertsen Danish law requires addresses in e-mail to be logged and stored for a year ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: U-Boot improvements? (Was: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?)
Am 24.09.2009 um 19:36 schrieb Rask Ingemann Lambertsen: On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 04:18:30PM +0200, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote: On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 4:02 PM, Rask Ingemann Lambertsen ccc94...@vip.cybercity.dk wrote: On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 11:11:04PM +, Niels Heyvaert wrote: The idea of having a simple GUI boot loader could be very useful... We have one. It's called U-Boot. Or am I missing something? No, except that it is not really u-boot but a 2 years old fork that is now no longer maintained. u-boot 2009.08 has improved many things that could be nice to have on a GTA02 as well. Apart for a fact that it has problem loading kernels over a certain size? Not as such, but it does lack kernel size detection when reading from NAND flash. The config shipped by OM limits NAND flash kernels to 2 MB. Does anybody actually (want to) ship kernels larger than that? Andy- tracking's packaging config comes out to around 1.7 MB. NAND flash kernel size detection wouldn't be all that difficult to add, though. Around 10-20 lines of code. Or that it requires the kernel on a separate partition (which must be fat?)? It doesn't. I have the kernel on the Debian rootfs, which is ext2. I also have an old SHR installation, also with the kernel on the ext2 rootfs. But this begs the question: could U-boot be improved to deal with the current requirements of the users? Probably. The first step is to list the requirements. -- Rask Ingemann Lambertsen Danish law requires addresses in e-mail to be logged and stored for a year ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: U-Boot improvements? (Was: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?)
On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 08:08:53PM +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: No, except that it is not really u-boot but a 2 years old fork that is now no longer maintained. I tried to merge the two trees a couple of months ago, but the NAND flash code has changed so much that merging in the 2442 support requires knowledge of how the NAND flash interface works. I don't have that knowledge. u-boot 2009.08 has improved many things that could be nice to have on a GTA02 as well. You say many things but don't mention even one thing. -- Rask Ingemann Lambertsen Danish law requires addresses in e-mail to be logged and stored for a year ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: U-Boot improvements? (Was: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?)
Am 24.09.2009 um 22:44 schrieb Rask Ingemann Lambertsen: On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 08:08:53PM +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: No, except that it is not really u-boot but a 2 years old fork that is now no longer maintained. I tried to merge the two trees a couple of months ago, but the NAND flash code has changed so much that merging in the 2442 support requires knowledge of how the NAND flash interface works. I don't have that knowledge. Is this code somewhere available? I personally don't have the experience for the 2442 you mention, but others could be interested as well. u-boot 2009.08 has improved many things that could be nice to have on a GTA02 as well. You say many things but don't mention even one thing. -- Rask Ingemann Lambertsen Danish law requires addresses in e-mail to be logged and stored for a year ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Rask Ingemann Lambertsen ccc94...@vip.cybercity.dk writes: On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 12:36:43AM +0400, Paul Fertser wrote: Torfinn Ingolfsen tin...@gmail.com writes: Qi _will_ need to be improved until it is usable for end users, or it will fade away I really can't understand the desire to multi-boot. What does it matter if you understand anybody elses desire to multi-boot or not? Probably i will want to multiboot myself so much that i'll finally prepare a minimal initramfs to allow that. And in fact if anybody of those talking about bootmenu, multiboot and such really needed it he would have done it himself long time ago. I bet trying and tweaking all distros including Qtopia, Qtmoko, Android, H:1 etc etc took them 10x time required to build a minimal bootmenu. But let me give you a few uses anyway: 1) A backup installation in case you break your normal one. Hm, i have my normal one on uSD and in case i screw something up i just boot pre-installed 2007 from NAND by pressing AUX button at the right time (and yes, i can't manage it with 100% success rate but taking out the battery and trying again is not a big deal). 2) Regression testing. I have an unmodified andy-tracking kernel installed in addition to the one I'm hacking on and normally use. So if something is broken I can check if it was broken before I started hacking too. And btw, Qi doesn't let me select between multiple kernels for the same rootfs, does it? Well, i just copy every kernel i need to /boot and then make uImage-GTA02 symlink point to the one i want to test. And btw the recent poll proved that most users use Qi IIRC. A clear evidence it's already usable for them. There are more iPhone users than Freerunner users. What was your point again? Someone said that Qi is unusable by normal users. I wanted to prove it wrong. -- Be free, use free (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) software! mailto:fercer...@gmail.com ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote (ao): On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 9:13 PM, Al Johnson [1]openm...@mazikeen.demon.co.uk wrote: I believe it's an arbitrary limit based on the assumption that with no gui it would be hard to select the intended partition. Given the touble people have with only 3 partitions it seems well founded. OK, so when Qi is improved so that partition selection is actually usable, this artificial limitation will go away. One should create an initramfs which shows a boot menu of some kind. This is not something qi should provide. Sander -- Humilis IT Services and Solutions http://www.humilis.net ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Al Johnson openm...@mazikeen.demon.co.uk writes: This limitation is one of the reasons I'm still using u-boot. The other is the inability to pass optional kernel parameters when booting from NAND. Why not have something like grub in the boot?. With a keyboard added, nothing could be more flexible. -- Esben Stien is b...@e s a http://www. s tn m irc://irc. b - i . e/%23contact sip:b0ef@ e e jid:b0ef@n n ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 4:36 PM, Paul Fertser fercer...@gmail.com wrote: I really can't understand the desire to multi-boot. And btw the recent poll proved that most users use Qi IIRC. A clear evidence it's already usable for them. here's a couple of use cases: 1 I have a working shr-u install on my phone, and want to experiment with the shr-testing candidate - however I want the capability to revert back to the working shr-u install if I have problems with shr-testing. This is the situation I'm in right now. 2. More generally - I have a working distro I like, but am curious to try one or more of the other distros. 3. I'm a developer working on an app for the FR, and I want to make sure that it works well on debian, SHR, and QtMoko (using QX), but only have one FR. In the 'bad old days', when I was experimenting with the early OM 2009 TRs, I often had to boot back to QtEI to actually be able to make an outgoing phone call. I definitely think there are many valid reasons for multi-booting. I have a slightly more interesting issue - my aux button doesn't work any more after my daughter dropped my FR one too many times... So my solution for multi-boot involves renaming the appropriate boot directory on the SD card before rebooting... far from ideal... Warren -- Warren Baird - Photographer and Digital Artist http://www.synergisticimages.ca ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Hello, Is there any specific reason why Qi[1] only tries to boot from partition 1 - 3 when ther csn be 4 (four) primary prtitons on a SD card? Or is it just developer eccentrics or programmer laziness? :-) References: 1) http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Qi -- Regards, Torfinn Ingolfsen ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
On Tuesday 22 September 2009, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote: Hello, Is there any specific reason why Qi[1] only tries to boot from partition 1 - 3 when ther csn be 4 (four) primary prtitons on a SD card? Or is it just developer eccentrics or programmer laziness? :-) References: 1) http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Qi I believe it's an arbitrary limit based on the assumption that with no gui it would be hard to select the intended partition. Given the touble people have with only 3 partitions it seems well founded. This limitation is one of the reasons I'm still using u-boot. The other is the inability to pass optional kernel parameters when booting from NAND. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Hi, On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 9:13 PM, Al Johnson openm...@mazikeen.demon.co.ukwrote: I believe it's an arbitrary limit based on the assumption that with no gui it would be hard to select the intended partition. Given the touble people have with only 3 partitions it seems well founded. OK, so when Qi is improved so that partition selection is actually usable, this artificial limitation will go away. Qi _will_ need to be improved until it is usable for end users, or it will fade away Whether that happens with the suggested menu partition or with an improved blinking lights and push buttons scheme doesn't matter. One way or the other, Qi must improve. This limitation is one of the reasons I'm still using u-boot. The other is the inability to pass optional kernel parameters when booting from NAND. Hmm, why can't this be solved with the append file (In /boot), like in QtMoko? -- Regards, Torfinn Ingolfsen ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Torfinn Ingolfsen tin...@gmail.com writes: Qi _will_ need to be improved until it is usable for end users, or it will fade away I really can't understand the desire to multi-boot. And btw the recent poll proved that most users use Qi IIRC. A clear evidence it's already usable for them. -- Be free, use free (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) software! mailto:fercer...@gmail.com ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
RE: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
Torfinn Ingolfsen writes: Qi _will_ need to be improved until it is usable for end users, or it will fade away I really can't understand the desire to multi-boot. And btw the recent poll proved that most users use Qi IIRC. A clear evidence it's already usable for them. Perhaps because the Openmoko Wiki urges people to switch to Qi, with fact based argumentation, is one of the main reasons why so many people use it. Some of us are challenged by getting Qi to do what it is advertised to do. Technically, Qi allows multiboot, but it proves hard to invoke the behavior. The idea of having a simple GUI boot loader could be very useful... _ Lentekriebels? Speel samen met je vrienden de spelletjes die Windows Live je aanbiedt! http://www.messengerbillboard.be/nl/play ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qi - why only 3 partitions on SD card?
On Tuesday 22 September 2009, Paul Fertser wrote: Torfinn Ingolfsen tin...@gmail.com writes: Qi _will_ need to be improved until it is usable for end users, or it will fade away I really can't understand the desire to multi-boot. And btw the recent poll proved that most users use Qi IIRC. A clear evidence it's already usable for them. Most people use Windows, but that doesn't meet my needs either ;-) ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
