Archive for the 'Releases' Category

OpenZaurus time is over - long live Ångström

Marcin Juszkiewicz April 26th, 2007

Some time ago new kernel hacker joined team of people working on 2.6 kernel for Zaurus machines — Thomas Kunze gave us SD/MMC driver for collie and works on other subsystems to get this machine working. As result collie got added into list of Ångström supported devices and test images were generated.

Also during last time people were asking Koen Kooi when Ångström is going to be released. He usually answered that it depends on OpenZaurus release plans (OZ first).

But we lack developers to work on two distros in one time. Release of OpenZaurus 3.5.4/3.5.4.1 took me few months of work as I had to organize beta testing program, build images, fix bugs, find someone to work on documentation, build feeds. Then due to limited access to main mirror I had to work on upgrades feeds. Those tasks will be split to more people in Ångström.

As a result I was going to tell world that there will be no new OpenZaurus releases ever. But I did not wanted to sound like dictator - I asked other developers on openzaurus-devel ML what they think. There were 3 options:

  1. we release OpenZaurus 3.5.5 for all Zaurus models
  2. we release OpenZaurus 3.5.5 for Collie/2.4 only
  3. we close OpenZaurus history and switch to Ångström

During week twelve persons replied - no one chosen option 1st or 2nd…

So Ångström is a future for our machines — and many others already supported in OpenEmbedded. End of OpenZaurus does not mean that Zaurus models are obsolete or that users need to switch to pdaXrom or Cacko.

It needs work to create nicely working distribution which will use up-to-date technologies, will base on current software etc. Personally I do not even plan to look at 2.4 kernel for Zaurus any more - it was ‘created’ in such bad way that…

During next days I will post to both OpenZaurus mailing lists about things which we have to do:

  • move of Wiki content to Ångström wiki
  • start testing Ångström images on our devices
  • provide fixes to packages/system

And one important thing: OpenZaurus was Zaurus only (I do not count unofficial images). But Ångström is not — it is distribution which cover many devices (palmtops, phones, headless servers, developer boards) so our changes has to be done in wise way.

OpenZaurus 3.5.5 status

Marcin Juszkiewicz January 26th, 2007

Work on next OpenZaurus release started. It will be 3.5.5 and I want to have it done for all models in one release. This will be also last release from me - I will switch into Ångström.

To get this release done I need Your help.

Before 3.5.4/3.5.4.1 release we had test cycles with over 100 users so this time I want to do it with the same way so we can give people another great version of our distribution.

Changes from 3.5.4.x:

  • OPIE 1.2.3 (this version will be released in February)
  • kernel 2.6.20 for all models except collie (which will have 2.4.18-crapix with hacked SD/MMC driver to be able to use >1GB cards)
  • altboot root-on-sd for collie
  • boot from flash, boot from SD kernels
  • Ximageon X11 server for c7×0
  • anything other if someone will update it

Someone need to test altboot root-on-sd so we will give 100% working start images.

Ximageon server is new thing from Manuel Teira Paz. It has XVideo working and there are work on XRandR support.

Images

I would like to provide a bit changed list of images available in OZ 3.5.5:

  • bootstrap
  • opie
  • gpe
  • opie-minimal (launcher + minimal settings + konsole)
  • gpe-minimal (also stripped from apps)

Minimal images provided for collie/poodle/tosa/c7×0 as they can have <32M rootfs so users have problems with fitting. This way they can install rest of software to SD cards.

Of course if they prefer to boot from SD (directly under 2.6 or via altboot on collie) then they will choose normal images.

XFCE, E17 images will be probably not provided. This can change if someone will work on them.

OZ 3.5.4.2-rc2 released

Marcin Juszkiewicz September 2nd, 2006

Third version of OpenZaurus with 2.6 kernel support poodle (sl-5600) and tosa (sl-6000) only (no collie support in this RC).

I will update collie config and then release bootstrap-images for it (no GPE or OPIE images for this machine).

2006.09.05 UPDATE: OPIE images recreated - should work now.

Download from EWI

Small changelog:

  • sound on poodle improved
  • touchscreen on tosa improved - no more ‘heartbeats’ instead of lines
  • some WiFi cards which got orinoco_cs loaded will get hostap_cs now

It is experimental release to get wider testing of our work and to show all of you what we did during last months. Support for those machines needs some love and hard work, but machines are far more usable then they were under 2.4-crapix kernel.

Release notes are available already in wiki. Feel free to add content.

Test it and report bugs, fixes, ideas:

All feedback goes to openzaurus-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list.

Machine related stuff is provided as preconfigured feed.

OpenZaurus 3.5.4.2 RC1 released

Marcin Juszkiewicz August 10th, 2006

Second version of OpenZaurus with 2.6 kernel for:

  • poodle (sl-5600)
  • tosa (sl-6000)
  • collie (sl-5000/5500)

is available from http://ewi546.ewi.utwente.nl/tmp/hrw/3.5.4.2-test/rc1/

Image changes:

  • collie OPIE image got PIM and Bluetooth apps removed
  • poodle/tosa OPIE images got Qpdf2, Konqueror, games and few other things removed
  • poodle GPE image got Sylpheed removed (unusable on such small screen)

Collie does not have working SD/MMC and we do not know when it will have it supported. Chip which control SD/MMC is not documented so to get it working under 2.6 someone would have to do some reverse-engineering work on 2.4 binary driver. Our kernel team work on getting other models fully supported.

It is experimental release to get wider testing of our work and to show all of you what we did during last months. Support for those machines needs some love and hard work, but machines are far more usable then they were under 2.4-crapix kernel.

Release notes are available already in wiki. Feel free to add content.

Test it and report bugs, fixes, ideas:

All feedback goes to openzaurus-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list.

Machine related stuff is provided as preconfigured feed.

OpenZaurus 3.5.4.1 release

Marcin Juszkiewicz July 6th, 2006

The OpenZaurus Project is proud to present a new release of its free Linux software environment for Sharp’s Linux-based Zaurus PDAs.

OpenZaurus 3.5.4.1 supports clamshell Zaurus models and includes about 13,000 packages ready to install. The non-clamshell models can use the software feeds from 3.5.4.1 to update their base system.

Additional release highlights of the 3.5.4.1 OpenZaurus release include:

  • Opie 1.2.1
  • GPE 2.7
  • WPA support
  • Linux kernel 2.6.16
  • Keymap corrections for all machines
  • Fixed keyboard repeat
  • Lots of Bluetooth base system improvements
  • drivers for USB WiFi dongles

Englightment images will get provided later - we had some build problems with them.

The release supports the following Sharp Zaurus models:

  • c7×0 (C700, C750, C760, C860, SL-7500)
  • akita (SL-C1000)
  • spitz (SL-C3000, SL-C3100, SL-C3200)

Release work would not be possible without the OpenEmbedded buildsystem which took most of the work from our shoulders.

You can help to speed up development by donating money and/or devices to our developers. Compared to other open source projects we receive very few donations, although we spend a lot of our precious spare time and deliver lots of good work. So if you are regularly using OpenZaurus, consider donating developers.

See the Release Notes for important notes before you install OpenZaurus 3.5.4.1. Also see Installation instructions.

Release can be downloaded from our mirrors:

if you want to setup mirror contact CoreDump ( oe (AT) hentges. net ).

Marcin Juszkiewicz OpenZaurus 3.5.4x Release Manager

OZ 3.5.4.1 status update

Marcin Juszkiewicz June 17th, 2006

OpenZaurus 3.5.4.1 is near to be released. Images was created and tested on all supported platforms (c7×0, akita, spitz/borzoi/terrier) and they work. Next step is generating feeds.

I will generate new feeds for 3.5.4.1 release. They will replace 3.5.4 ones also for any next releases.

So current situation looks like this:

  • images are working on all platforms (thx to Mickeyl, CoreDump, RP and few other devels/users for testing)
  • feeds need to be built (optimised for arm not armv5)
  • images will be rebuilt from feeds and tested
  • release of 3.5.4.1

I think that this will take about 1-2 weeks to get feed built.

Please send opinions to openzaurus-devel mailing list.

Status of building is available in OpenEmbedded Tinderbox as “ewi-OZ-3.5.4.1-feed”.

Problem with WiFi card?

Marcin Juszkiewicz April 12th, 2006

Few days ago new HostAP drivers (version 0.4.7) were added into 3.5.4 upgrades feed. They depend on hostap-conf package which contain /etc/pcmcia/hostap_cs.conf file (which previously was part of hostap-modules-cs).

Some users reported that their cards stopped working after upgrade. If you are in such situation report this as a comment to this bug in OpenEmbedded bugtracker.

UPDATE: Also report if you are using 3.5.4.1-alpha2 and you got eth0 instead of wlan0 - we prefer hostap over orinoco driver so proper kernel patch will be generated.

Comment should contain cardctl ident output (or pccardctl ident for 3.5.4.1-alpha2 users). Part of dmesg output (card insert part) will be usefull too - some cards can be used with orinoco drivers.

New Build Of Qt/e For Testing

Marcin Juszkiewicz April 3rd, 2006

Today I prepared new libqte2 packages rebuild for all OZ supported machines. Users of OpenZaurus 3.5.4/3.5.4.1 (OPIE flavour) are requested to install it and tell does it works or not for them. You can download them from this directory (you can use it as feed too).

We want to have it tested before it will be added into upgrades feed.

UPDATE: version upgraded to r32 should work OK on cxx00 Zauruses.

UPDATE: libqte2 r32 added into upgrades feed.

All this work cannot been done without patches from ROAD GmbH. Let me quote mail from Holger ‘zecke’ Freyther:

The ROAD GmbH was kind enough to give their fixes to the kernel-keymap patch back to the community. I finally found the time to merge these fixes back into our copy of the kernel-keymap.patch.

I’m glad we have fixes for:

  • Workaround broken KeyMaps. This means no more ‘dead’ keyboards for Opie users yipee
  • Fix handling of function keys
  • Fix handling of NumLock keys
  • Fix handling of Auto Repeats
  • Handle keys > 7Bit
  • Add Handling for ShiftL and ShiftR modifiers
  • many more small fixes.

The keyboard support now is way more mature than it was before. I would like to thank the ROAD GmbH and I personally wish them good luck on their product and I sincerly hope they will release it soon!

SL-C3200 ‘terrier’ support

Marcin Juszkiewicz March 31st, 2006

As many of people noticed Sharp released new model: Zaurus SL-C3200 which differ from C3100 only in keyboard color and microdrive size. We added this model to updater.sh used by spitz (C3000) and borzoi (C3100) images.

OpenZaurus 3.5.4.1-alpha1 should work on ‘terrier’ without problems - if someone notice any kernel problems then please report them - more info in that post.

BTW: we united all SL-C3×00 models into one in OpenEmbedded. Currently we use ’spitz’ as MACHINE for them - this will be changed to “c3×00″ in future. Akita (SL-C1000) will be separated from spitz/c3×00.

OpenZaurus 3.5.4.1 Alpha1 release

Marcin Juszkiewicz March 21st, 2006

It’s available from http://ewi546.ewi.utwente.nl/tmp/hrw/3.5.4.1-test/alpha1

Notes: Spitz (sl-c3000) and Borzoi (sl-c3100) images are the same so we united them. C7×0 machines have issues with sound which will be fixed before release.

test it and report bugs, fixes, ideas:

  • OE Bugtracker: http://bugs.openembedded.org/
  • GPE Bugtracker: http://handhelds.org/bugzilla/
  • OPIE Bugtracker: http://opie-bugs.oszine.de/

All feedback goes to openzaurus-devel@lists.sourceforge.net

Kernel modules are provided in modules/ subdirs. You can use them as a feed:

src/gz c7x0 http://ewi546.ewi.utwente.nl/tmp/hrw/3.5.4.1-test/alpha1/c7x0/modules
src/gz akita http://ewi546.ewi.utwente.nl/tmp/hrw/3.5.4.1-test/alpha1/akita/modules
src/gz spitz-borzoi http://ewi546.ewi.utwente.nl/tmp/hrw/3.5.4.1-test/alpha1/spitz-borzoi/modules

Ofcourse select proper one ;)

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