Angstrom distribution on 770/N800

[Alfabeta]

Has anyone ever tried the Angstrom (http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/) distribution on 770/N800?

[blackax]

From what i understand the 770/N800 has a closed boot loader so booting an other os would be very hard to get working. But i could be wrong never really looked in to it. :P

[Alfabeta]

Distribution images for 770 and N800 are here (http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/unstable/images/).

And here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/cleverswine/tags/angstrom/) are some nice screenshots.

[johsua]

Have you installed it, or are you trying to find the person that did, and made all the screenshots?

[torx]

Hey can i know more about this?

This is like running a stripped-down gnome on the N800/770 right?

[barry99705]

Angstrom is still a little buggy. I have it running on my Zaurus it's a pita to install on the Z, I have no idea on how to put it on a Nokia. It uses gpe for the window manager, there's also limited support for opie, and enlightenment. If it was a little more stable, I'd probably flash it to the Nokia. I'm not a big fan of having the launch bar down one side and the other bar across the top. Seems like they could be combined and free up some screen space.

[Rocketman]

Angstrom is not exactly the most user-friendly of distros. They have builds for an impressive number of devices, but leave everybody but embedded system developers scratching their heads going "now what?"

BTW, the screenshots that were posted here are not of it running on a NIT, as the resolution and aspect ratio is plainly wrong.

If you have more money than sense and are interested in bricking your NIT, I recommend you just on irc (freenode) and visit #angstrom. I don't recall his nick, but Koen was very helpful to me when I played around with Angstrom on my Netbook Pro.

[barry99705]

Koen is also the guy in charge of the N800 port.

[torx]

Angstrom is still a little buggy.

Buggy in what way?

Anyway, i'll be able to run any application without any hildonizing if i use Angstrom right? Or would there be some Angstromizing before i can run programs?

[barry99705]

Buggy in what way?

Anyway, i'll be able to run any application without any hildonizing if i use Angstrom right? Or would there be some Angstromizing before i can run programs?

Well on the Z, I sometimes have suspend issues. Some apps work, others fail miserably. I still haven't been able to do any compiling on the device. They have a convoluted build system called bitbake, to compile apps you have "recipes". The distro is still pretty much a work in progress. You won't have to hildonize anything because they don't use the hildon gui, it's gpe. I've not seen any how-to's on installing on a Nokia though.

[iball]

Woah. The screenshots of it running on the Zaurus look incredible.
I'll have to dig out my ol' 5500 and try this one.
If anyone takes the plunge and gets it running on the N800, report back your experiences.

[lardman]

The Angstrom image should be similar to the old gpe-image. The Angstrom thing is just a name change. Add on top of that the fact that there's been another year's worth of developement.

Installation is simple, you just flash the rootfs without touching the initfs and bootloader, etc.

I don't know what the current status is of Angstrom on the nokias, but these are my comments about running the gpe-image on the 770: http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3129&page=2

Cheers,


Simon

[torx]

sigh, there are no instructions anywhere on how to install this.

[lardman]

Try something along the lines of:

./flasher -r <path to some file called *.rootfs.jffs2> -f -R

Si

[earl00]

has anyone got this working on the n800?

[Modulok]

Just found some pix. I guess it is not even the newest version. It seems that they have firefox running ...

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/8871/angtroms2eh9.jpg
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/8792/angtroms1ac0.jpg
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/3057/angtroms3va1.jpg
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/7658/angtroms4cp1.jpg
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/3051/angtroms5fy3.jpg
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/3575/angtroms6ao2.jpg

[SeRi@lDiE]

looks nice... I wouldn't mind giving it a try...

[w14]

Those screenshots are from a Zaurus. Firefox has been running on that device for a couple of years ...

[aflegg]

Yeah, they're 640x480 scaled to 320x240. The N800 has an 800x480 screen.

[steckel]

You do not have to flash your device with the actual image. You might as well download the RootFS-Tarball and install it to a partition on your mmc. You'll need the menu enabled bootloader to boot from that image, though.

You can use fanoush's flasher tool from within a linux or mac box to start the tablet with another kernel without flashing (and risking to brick) your tablet.

The Angstrom-rootfs for 770 does not have any X11 related binaries included - you will obviously end in a text terminal
The 800 rootfs does have some gpe related binaries and a X-server included but _not_ firefox or any of those applications you can see in the zaurus screenshot

[barry99705]

Yeah, they're 640x480 scaled to 320x240. The N800 has an 800x480 screen.


If it was one of the newer clam shells it was 640x480 with no scaling. Enlightenment works okay on them, but it can be a real resource hog.

[screener]

640x480 with no scaling, but it can be a real resource hog ?? i don't understand any thing ?

so ? can we have it . . . sorry how can we have it ?

is it any good . . . ??

[torx]

640x480 with no scaling, but it can be a real resource hog ?? i don't understand any thing ?

so ? can we have it . . . sorry how can we have it ?

is it any good . . . ??

Yes we can have it, in fact, you can download the ready to install package from angstrom website.

Only problem now is, there is no proper documentation or instructions on how to install.

[screener]

torx

sorry for my question . . . but we would still use the same software that we do now . . . for the N800 and the same ripo's ?? right ??

or that it would give the n800 an extra boost ?? more software and more stuff to do with it ??

thanks

[barry99705]

torx

sorry for my question . . . but we would still use the same software that we do now . . . for the N800 and the same ripo's ?? right ??

or that it would give the n800 an extra boost ?? more software and more stuff to do with it ??

thanks

No, once you flash to Angstrom, it no longer supports the hilden apps. It will only support the Angstrom repo for apps. It would give you more apps to play with, but a lot of them are in the same not quite done, needs a bit more polish as most of the third party maemo apps.

[ca0abinary]

I'm working on getting Angstrom running on my N770. I have ~lekernel~'s bootloader from his website http://lekernel.lya.eu/fbbmenu770.html so I can boot from the MMC slot and have managed to compile the minimal and console images with success. Currently compiling the X11 image, but that takes time so I'll have to provide an update on how that goes. This method is nice because I don't have to wear out my internal flash and dual booting prevents me from making any major screw-ups.

[fanoush]

Interesting, another bootmenu solution :-) This one uses text console and has hardcoded options. You may check also http://fanoush.wz.cz/maemo/#initfs it should work too and provide more options.

[fanoush]

And if it doesn't work, we could fix it, simple replacement for nokia text2screen command that uses console directly (instead of drawing fonts) should be enough for it to work in console mode too.

[ca0abinary]

Interesting, another bootmenu solution :-) This one uses text console and has hardcoded options. You may check also http://fanoush.wz.cz/maemo/#initfs it should work too and provide more options.

Looks nice, thanks for the link. After I get a good xorg session up I might be brave enough to try a different boot menu, especially if it gives me the ability to boot from multiple partitions on one MMC. So far my image is coming along well and has gotten past the packages that weren't compiling in the past. Only 1,503 tasks left to go... I remain cautiously optimistic.

[steckel]

ca0abinary: I am trying to compile a vanilla angstrom x11 image for 770, too. I got an error about the x-server not being available for nokia770-arch. How did you manage to step that hurdle ?

[ca0abinary]

ca0abinary: I am trying to compile a vanilla angstrom x11 image for 770, too. I got an error about the x-server not being available for nokia770-arch. How did you manage to step that hurdle ?

Edit org.openembedded.dev/conf/machine/nokia770.conf

replace both (there are 2) instances of "xserver-kdrive-omap" with "xserver-kdrive-xomap"

I'm on the last step, but ipkg is complaining about "en-gb" locale data not being available (weird...) I changed my distro conf file to use "en-us" as I live in the US.

[ca0abinary]

Successfully got a 64MB Angstrom X11 image for Nokia770. Only 75% disk usage too, so there's some free space.

Boots up with the Angstrom splash screen, but seems to hang. If anyone wants a debug copy let me know (it's an ext2 file).

I'll try to debug but don't have a lot of time tonight. (yes this will involve some soldering and a level convert cable for the brave among you http://maemo.org/community/wiki/howto_kernelcompilation/ look at the heading "Serial Console")

UPDATE: Turned off psplash, seems like GPE display manager doesn't want to start. It's not giving any debug info, just dropping to a login screen. I know dropbear and Ethernet gadget are running, but I've not yet successfully used Ethernet gadget. Can anyone who has experience with angstrom-minimal or angstrom-console on the 770 give me a hand with that? I'm running Ubuntu feisty.

[ma2dy]

AngstromAndN800.


My steps for install Angstrom on my N800.

1. I have download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/unstable/images/nokia800/20070814/Angstrom-x11-image-glibc-test-20070814-nokia800.rootfs.jffs2 image and http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/unstable/images/nokia800/20070814/zImage-2.6.18-osso40-nokia800-20070814113427 kernel image.
2. Flashed the images to my N800
./flasher-3.0-static -r armstrong/Angstrom-x11-image-glibc-test-20070814-nokia800.rootfs.jffs2 -f -R
./flasher-3.0-static -k zImage-2.6.18-osso40-nokia800-20070814113427 -f -R

3. Boot my N800.I see window with register formfor new users But my touchscreen is not responding. Joystik worked. Ok Button worked.

[http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/8627/68594813cd7.jpg

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/2930/38142930lx8.jpg

[dwmcqueen]

Has there been any progress on this?

[rachid]

same question here.
there are now newer autobuild for N770 and N800:
http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/unstable/autobuild/

[Benson]

Try with a USB mouse, see if that works? just a thought...

[qwerty12]

Hmm, I'm not keen on flashing my os2008 rootfs for something that probably will not work.

Better option is to make ext2 partition and mount jffs2 rootfs in desktop linux and tar the files inside the jffs2 image to your ext2 partition. at least you may be able to edit files in angstrom.

[lardman]

No, once you flash to Angstrom, it no longer supports the hilden apps. It will only support the Angstrom repo for apps. It would give you more apps to play with, but a lot of them are in the same not quite done, needs a bit more polish as most of the third party maemo apps.

The thing is that Angstrom (in fact the OE metadata) supports a pretty wide range of applications - if it has source, then it can be added to the metadata and built for whichever machine you want. The fact that some things are not included by default in a given image (e.g. the N800 one) means little. You can install it from the repo using ipkg, or edit the conf file to ensure it's included in the rootfs.

3. Boot my N800.I see window with register formfor new users But my touchscreen is not responding. Joystik worked. Ok Button worked.

Interesting. It used to work in the image I tried (which I thought was for the N800). I'd be tempted to ask on #angstrom.

Basically Angstrom is the best thing going for the Zaurus, and assuming that power management could be sorted for the ITs, it would be equally good for those (i.e. there was certainly some work for enterprising hackers to do if they so desire). In GPE for example and when I last tried last year, the desktop applets weren't too aware of power-saving. The maemo applets are supposed to stop timer events when they are covered or the screen is locked, which allows dyntick to do it's thing. This wasn't enforced in GPE (for good reason as the other devices tend to suspend rather than slowing the tick rate), but with some patches could be made so.

Anyway, the point of my post is to say that this is an evolving and well supported build system and set of build metadata and that it should certainly not be written off but rather give it a go, send bugs and patches and make it better, if it's the sort of thing you're after.

[Capn_Fish]

Has anybody tried Angstrom recently? I'm hoping to get it booting on my N810, but the image I made from the online image builder just reboots after a while.

[speculatrix]

Has anybody tried Angstrom recently? I'm hoping to get it booting on my N810, but the image I made from the online image builder just reboots after a while.

you probably need to ensure it "kicks" the watchdog regularly which catches lockups.

[Capn_Fish]

OK, so I gave this another shot (steps below for reference), and things kind of work.

-Use the online image builder (http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/narcissus/) to make an (X11 unstable) image.

-Follow directions to see boot messages (http://wiki.maemo.org/Advanced_booting#Boot_messages)

-Flashed the image, tried to boot; it "couldn't find init on /dev/mtdblock4"

-/sbin/init was linked to /sbin/init.sys-something. I made a copy.

-Tried booting again; complaints about not finding /etc/osso_software_version or some similar file. I created it and put something like RX-... in it (too lazy to look up exactly what- this may be a problem)

-Tried booting AGAIN; get a couple of errors about blocks not being as expected (corruption of some sort?), then it just kind of stops.

Anyway, that's where I'm at now. It also just kind of stopped with the osso_software_version thing. The keyboard still works, so it's not frozen.

Also, a bunch of messages about "cleanmarker" and "empty flash found" pop up during the boot, but stop when init starts.

Any suggestions on what to try? I'm thinking I'll try to reflash it and see if the same stuff happens, but I'd appreciate input all the same.

Sorry about sticking this on this thread, but it seemed to be a direct continuation.

Thanks.

EDIT: Reflashing the image didn't help.