3MX Ultra3 with 2.6 kernel w/sound released.

[wicknix]

Alright, it was asked for, so i spent yesterday tweaking 3MX to work with Ruben's 2.6 kernel. It isn't a "new" 3MX however. No new software added other than what was needed to get wifi and sound working properly with the new kernel.

The advantage of the new kernel:
MUCH faster boot time.
Machine no longer freezes if left turned on for more than a day.
Quicker and more stable wifi connections.
No more random characters getting spit out when typing.
Ability to boot from SD card.

The disadvantages:
Can not install to nand easily. (see below)

So to get up and running first download it:
http://filefactory.com/file/ca774a0/n/3MX-Ultra3-2.6kernel-rootfs.tar.bz2
Partition and format an SD card with the first partition being fat16/fat32 and 16mb in size.
Second partition should be ext2 and at least 600mb. (or the rest of the cards free space)
Extract the rootfs to the second ext2 partition (as root user)
Then copy the kernel (uImage) from /boot to the fat16 partition.

To boot from SD card:
Hold FN+LeftShift, power on, (while still holding those keys) now hold F2 until you see X11 start.

To install to nand:
First boot from SD card.
Then: mkdir /mnt/nand
Then: mount /dev/mtdblock4 /mnt/nand
Then: rm -rf /mnt/nand/*   (this will erase everything on nand1 so back up any important stuff first!)
Then: copy from the booted SD card the following directories to /mnt/nand (i use mc for this to make it easy)
/bin /boot /dev /etc /lib /libexec /lost+found /mozopt /opt /root /sbin /share /usr /var and the @linuxrc symlink.
Then: cd /mnt/nand and
mkdir /mnt
mkdir /mnt/nand2
mkdir /mnt/sd
mkdir /mnt/usb
mkdir /proc
mkdir /sys
mkdir /tmp

Now all thats left is to copy the new kernel to nand
cd /boot
cat uImage > /dev/mtdblock1

Thats it. Reboot and you have 3MX Ultra3 with 2.6 kernel installed.
Do NOT try using the F3 recovery console if you install this kernel to nand. It WILL destroy that parition. You've been warned

If you have a machine with 2gb nand then nand2 will auto mount at boot at /mnt/nand2. Anything else you will have to mount by hand. You can insert a card and run: fdisk -l to get the device names or check dmesg.

Cheers.

[T_Nut]

Wicknix your on fire !!  2.6 kernel with working sound oh i hope so
How many os for the LLL have you done so far one of me sock's will have to come off soon !!
It's not downloading fast enough need more speed !!
Wicknix a BIG FAT THANK YOU for all you have done for us and the LLL.
Many Thanks
Andrew

[jakfish]

Many, many thanks.  Have downloaded the package successfully, but no joy in booting.  For a Skytex MIPS, I made two partitions on 1gb Sandisk SD card on Puppy Linux/gparted: sdc1 and sdc2.  sdc1 is 16mb FAT, with only uImage.  sdc2 is ext2 has the rest, including contents of /boot.

No matter what keys I hold down:

http://projects.kwaak.net/twiki/bin/view/Epc700/UbootStuff

I get a white screen until I let go of the keys, and then the machine goes back to ard kernel and original 3mx.

I've obviously done something wrong in gparted, but I don't know what.  In gparted, after making the FAT partition, I use the rest of the card for ext2.  But I have to call ext2 partition the primary partition.  If I don't call it the primary partition, I have to make it into a
"logical extension"

I've done both ways, to no avail.

Any suggestions/key strokes?

Jake

[wicknix]

Hmmm. I'm not a fan of gparted. Never works for me. Maybe try using cfdisk. Its always worked for me. Also make sure you extract the rootfs as root user, because if you arent permissions get b0rked and it wont boot.

Key combos... maybe power on, then quickly hold those keys. The alpha 400 apparently wont power on with keys pressed, but works if you hold them immediately after power on, while my razorbook and cnmbook will power up fine no matter what keys i'm holding.

The bad news however is your skytex machine. You wont have wifi with this kernel. Only the zydas wifi chipsets work currently with the 2.6 kernel. 

Cheers.

[T_Nut]

Hi All
Jakfish when in gparted did you mark fat partition as boot.  highlight partition then right click then manage flags tick boot. My fat partition is 16mb FAT 16.  i removed the boot folder from ext2 partition then followed wicknix's instructions.
Wicknix i have to use mouse buttons no double tap on mouse pad is that right and no screen brightness control
But otherwise no problem at all. Another fine one to the collection keep up the good work
Many Thanks
Andrew

[wicknix]

I hadn't looked at touchpad double tap, but you may be right.
For screen brightness just:
echo (number 1-10) > /proc/jz/backlight
example: echo 5 > /proc/jz/backlight
1 being lowest, 10 being highest.
Its set to 5 (medium) by default.

Cheers.

[T_Nut]

Wicknix where are all the scripts for backlight control in debian lenny so can transfer to 3mx hopefully might work 
I also transfered all wifi scripts from lenny to 3mx just to make it easier and works with no errors.
Many Many Thanks
Andrew

[jakfish]

What a nightmare w/ gparted.  It turns out that puppy linux and gparted don't talk to each other nice.  So it looks like everything's partitioned, etc., but it's not.  I had a flux-flux linux on a sd card, and got it right.  Thank you, you guys, for steering me through and offering boot and root suggestions.

THEN, on my Skytex, my touchpad dies.  I had another LLL that gave up its touchpad, two usb ports, and wifi.  The hardware just goes dead, and the same happened here.

So I'm down to my EPC as my last fully-running machine.  Tick-tick-tick

A couple of things:

1) wicknix: thank you again for doing this.  It's so cool to play with another kernel

2) it's a blazingly fast boot, even via sd card.  Remarkable

3) a serious screen whine with any setting other than 10.  Has anybody else noticed that, or maybe it's an EPC thing?

4) t_nut is correct about the touchpad tapping, though taps will work when closing out apps, etc, tappig when the cursor is on the right-upper-corner x  Also, once you're in the start menu, you can click on apps in the directories.  So the absence of touchpad clicks seems to be a desktop thing

5) I'm still not up w/ wi-fi and I don't know why:  I've used this command:

wpa_passphrase JF 1234567891 > /etc/wpa.conf

and find the essid JF and the key in wpa.conf, but the key is #-ed, and the next line appears to be a coding of my key.

But I can't connect to this, and wifi info shows me with an "any" essid and some kind of weird, unrelated nickname

Any ideas about the wifi?

Jake

[jakfish]

Okay, figured out the wifi:

Bring it up, then use this old wicknix tip:

iwconfig eth1 mode managed essid JF key 1234567891

A proven winner!

As a follow-up: wicknix, I see that the backlight has a timer--could you point me to the file so I can adjust the time-out?

Jake

[wicknix]

Glad you got it sorted out.
The backlight time out is built into the kernel, so no real way to adjust it. It will auto blank after about 10 minutes if the machine is left idle without user interaction. Too bad about your machines partially dying, i havent encountered that on any of mine *yet* and they are abused daily from constant reflashings, compiling on device etc etc. 2-3 years strong and still ticking (although the razorbook's charge LED never shuts off any more letting me know when its fully charged).

As for backlight scripts i think i included them. Try lcd-high, lcd-med, lcd-low. Probably located in /usr/bin or /usr/sbin or /usr/local/bin.

Cheers.

[jakfish]

Thanks for the backlight tip.

I've had some trouble installing this OS to nand.  Because the EPC has two gigs, I could not get the machine, while booting, to mount nand1 (where all the linux was), and instead it only mounted and accessed nand2 (which had no linux os).

I eventually started over w/ wicknix instructions, and simply used nand2 in place of nand, and I'm now booting into it.

However, I am not getting the machine to recognize an sd card.  It'll see and register a usb drive, opening, writing, unmounting, etc.

But when I put in an sd card, I do not get that groovy red sd card icon nor do I get sd_1.

Any handle to jiggle?

Jake

[jakfish]

A little follow-up:

I don't know why LLL is seeing my usb drive right off, and not my sd card, but I think I need to tell LLL about my sd card.  I'm doing the "fdisk -l" but I don't know how to capture the results from the terminal screen.  In sakura console, there's highlighting and a copy key.  Is there anything for that here?

More about the boot:

Booting from sd card is twice as fast as from nand.  There's some hiccup, or check-down, that nand does.  The boot message scroll is fast and even in an sd card boot, but there's a 15-second pause in nand, ALMOST all the time.  That's the weird thing--a couple of times I've boot nand just as fast

I thought it was a search for the two drives on the EPC, but now I'm not sure at all.  The initd file has yet to illuminate me.

Thanks,
Jake

[jakfish]

More follow-up:

1)  If a user puts a " > log" at the end of a command, s/he can get a full print-out.  Everybody else in the world, I imagine, knew this  I've been using sakura, which is console for dummies, I guess...

2)  so using the command "mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /SD" gives me back my SD card.  However, the names on the SD card are now in 8-character DOS format.  Any reason why?  Some command that I'm sure I missed?

Solved: for those of you using a FAT16 or FAT 32 sd card, here's the command to get the long file names:

mount -t vfat /dev/mmcblk0p1 /SD

Jake

[wicknix]

Answering your own questions i see.
Look in /etc/fstab and comment out the /mnt/nand2 line if you dont want it mounted at boot. It does a file system check *before* it mounts it, hence the slowdown.
You can also add your SD card line to that file if you want it mounted at boot also.

Cheers.

[jakfish]

Re: the nand boot.  Okay, I think I understand: you're saying that the sd card boot doesn't do a file check, am I correct?

An interesting thing with the wifi.  I've been cribbing from old scripts and the new commands in this update and this is what I'm using to bring up wifi:

wifi-on
sleep 4
iwconfig eth1 mode managed essid JF key 1234567891

This works, but only after I've brought up and brought down wifi via wifi-config utility.  Only after I've used wifi-config once does the script work.  Am I missing a command?  Are there scripts to automate wifi-config?

Thanks much for your help,
Jake