So, I decided to fetch and build a fresh trunk for my router and while I was waiting and looking around the source tree to see what's new (as one does) noticed this (changelog).

There are also a few more details here.

Apparently it comes with an up-to-date kernel (2.6.35.4) including KEXEC support!

This target isn't included in the snapshot builds and my own build box is going to be busy for a while, but in the meantime has anyone else tried it?

Update: It boots, and KEXEC works :-)

X didn't start, but that's probably something wrong with my build. The console works, but fn doesn't which means some essential characters like / can't be entered. So I couldn't try to configure WiFi, bluetooth etc and see how they worked.

If anyone wants to give it a go, there are some steps omitted in the above link. Before menuconfig copy feeds.conf.default to feeds.conf (and optionally edit it to enable package feeds of interest). Then run "./scripts/feeds update" followed by "./scripts/feeds install xserver-xorg" (and whataver other packages you want to include - use "./scripts/feeds list" to see what's available).

It's possible you may also have to run "make tools/install" if the build fails complaining it couldn't find some host-side tool.

If all goes well the results of the build will be in bin/omap24xx. You don't really need to flash the kernel, a simple "flasher-3.5 -k bin/omap24xx/openwrt-omap24xx-zImage -l -b" will do for trying it out.

Got a bit further with some help from mbuesch (menuconfig doesn't produce a working Xorg for some reason).

Is it inappropriate to get excited by seeing this?

It's not quite ready for end-users, but wireless works so I can ssh in and do stuff (the X keymap is worse than the console, not even ctrl works).

But first things first: charging. Stskeeps, can you point me to whatever magic you used to get the initfs bme working in Mer? I can only get as far as starting it (chrooted, obviously) and watching it segfault here :-(

Sorry for the noob question but, what kind of advantage could it bring to our beloved N810?

What, hack value isn't enough? ;-)

More seriously, it's a very lightweight distribution originally aimed at access points, routers and such but lately receiving some GUI attention for things like the Ben NanoNote, OLPC XO and the Openmoko Freerunner.

Wow this looks really cool. I like the stuff in the patches directory, gives a hint of the capabilities for people like us who cant try this out right now.

what was needed to get Xorg to run, i've built this rootfs and kernel and was stuck on the same problem... oh and how did you configure your wifi so you could ssh?

Not quite sure, I just asked mbuesch for a copy of his working .config and used that (attached), but I haven't gone over the diff from the menuconfig-produce one yet (it's quite large).

Even with this the build failed in a few places. I had to add libusb-1.0 to gpsd's PKG_BUILD_DEPENDS and disable gpxview & nfs-utils, YMMV. In case it matters the successful build was at r23088.

Once you boot, X will start with a black root window and nothing else, which may look like it's broken if you expect to see the classic root weave pattern or a mouse pointer for example. Apparently you can autostart clients via /etc/config/x11 but I don't know the details yet. Setting $DISPLAY and starting stuff from an ssh session works of course.

By modifying the rootfs /etc/config/wireless on a PC before putting it in the N810. You need to remove the "option disabled 1" line, and set the ssid and encryption details.

BTW, it will use a 00:02:ee:c0:ff:ee MAC address by default (that's also in a range registered to Nokia but is nothing like the address used under Diablo). That's something to watch out for if for instance you have MAC filters on your AP or reject unknown clients on your DHCP server. Dropbear is started automatically at boot time.

Oh, and USB is not currently working so spare yourself the trouble of trying to set up a USB console or networking.

Does this mean that there is an open source wifi driver for the N810?

Oh yeah, there has been for quite a while now :-) The stlc45xx driver was announced by Kalle Valo just over two years ago and presented at the Berlin summit, then it was moved to the staging tree with kernel 2.6.30 and eventually merged with bits of p54 to form p54spi (in mainline now).

It's kinda sad that this isn't more widely known, it's one of the n8x0s' best success stories IMHO.