Marcin Juszkiewicz March 18th, 2006
On behalf of the OpenEmbedded, OpenZaurus, Opie and GPE teams, I am proud to present to you the fourth OpenZaurus release based on the BitBake build system and the OpenEmbedded metadata repository.
The highlights of this release are:
- OPIE 1.2.1
- GPE 2.7
- Cross SDK provided
- Native SDK provided
- WPA support on all machines
- Linux Kernel 2.6.14-rc1 for C7×0
- nearly 3000 source packages which result in 12000 packages to install
- Various corrections to keymaps for all machines have been made
- Fixed keyboard repeat on c7×0 machines
- Suspend/resume issues on collie, poodle, tosa have been fixed
- Bluetooth improvements all over the place, especially in the base system
- some 802.11g CF cards probably work now
- Enlightenment DR 17 images (experimental)
This release supports the following Sharp Zaurus models:
- collie (SL-5000, SL-5500)
- poodle (SL-5600, B500)
- tosa (SL-6000)
- c7×0 (C700, C750, C760, C860, SL-7500)
Due to a lot of problems with 2.4.20 on cxx00 machines we have decided to not release 3.5.4 for those machines. It does not makes sense to release 3.5.4 with crappy cxx00 support and then lose our reputation when some weeks later we could have 3.5.4.1 with proper cxx00 support.
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 ReleaseNotes for important notes before you install OpenZaurus 3.5.4.
Also see Installation for Installation instructions.
Marcin Juszkiewicz
OpenZaurus 3.5.4 Release Manager
Marcin Juszkiewicz March 6th, 2006
I want to inform all of you that I tagged OpenZaurus 3.5.4 in .oz354fam083 branch.
What does it mean for you:
- if you are user then you will get OpenZaurus 3.5.4 soon (few days)
- if you are OE/OZ developer then you can start working on OZ 3.5.4.1 :)
What was changed in OpenZaurus 3.5.4? List is too long to be even created but I want to note few things:
- OPIE 1.2.1 (with lot of hires fixes made after 1.2.1 release - mostly by me :)
- GPE 2.7 (also with some fixes which was done after 2.7 release)
- 2.4.18 kernels with APM fixes so no more suspend/resume problems
- WE18/WE19 in kernels so WPA should work out-of-box
- cleaned pcmcia configs so CF cards should work out-of-box too
- some of 802.11g CF cards probably will work
- Enlightenment DR 17 images (experimental)
Now we need to start build machine and after few days we will release it.
OpenZaurus 3.5.4 test program is closed now.
REMIND: Due to lot of problems with 2.4.20 on cxx00 machines we decided to not release 3.5.4 for those machines. It does not makes sense to release 3.5.4 with crappy cxx00 support and then lose again our reputation before some weeks later we could have 3.5.4.1 with proper cxx00 support.
Marcin Juszkiewicz January 9th, 2006
OpenZaurus 3.5.4 will be build by Michael ‘Mickeyl’ Lauer when we resolve all build problems. Decision who will be Release Manager are nearly taken and it looks like I (Marcin ‘Hrw’ Juszkiewicz) will be that person.
Current plans:
- build bootstrap/opie/gpe images for all machines
- test images on several machines
- build ‘world’ and prepare feeds
- build any extra images (xfce, e17 for example)
For testing I need voluntaries as I have only collie (sl-5500) and husky (c760) available. Such people will get access to images from 2. point but will need to provide bugreports with info what is not working (fixes welcome ofcourse). If some bugs will get fixed then new images could be created.
Decision about images other then bootstrap/opie/gpe is not yet taken - probably they won’t be released as they are not wide tested.
OpenZaurus 3.5.4 will be released with 2.4.20 kernel for SL-Cxx00 machines. After release we will prepare another release for clamshell devices (c7×0 and cxx00). This will be named 3.5.4.1 and will contain 2.6.15 kernel with ALSA sound.
UPDATE: Many people wonder why at all we are going to release OpenZaurus 3.5.4 with 2.4.20 kernel for Cxx00 instead of going to 2.6 for it. The main reason is that 2.6 support is not widely tested yet - we know that it works on spitz (sl-c3000) or borzoi (sl-c3100) but it was not so tested on akita (sl-c1000). And users have more SD/CF cards and other stuff then we can test for working.
UPDATE: Due to lot of problems with 2.4.20 on cxx00 machines we decided to not release 3.5.4 for those machines. It does not makes sense to release 3.5.4 with crappy cxx00 support and then lose again our reputation before some weeks later we could have 3.5.4.1 with proper cxx00 support.
Marcin Juszkiewicz December 21st, 2005
Few days ago Dropbear author released 0.47 version and security fix for older versions. Today I added fixed dropbear 0.45-r2 into ‘upgrades’ feed on our main mirror.
Upgrade is recommended.
Upstream note:
This release also fixes a potential security issue, which may allow authenticated users to run arbitrary code as the server user. I’m unsure exactly how likely it is to be exploitable, but anyone who’s running a multi-user server is advised to upgrade.
Marcin Juszkiewicz December 1st, 2005
From time to time I have to moderate comments and during that I notice that many users use comments system instead of bugtrackers. This way we will lose many errors or fixes because time which we have to spend on checking all source where users complain result in less time used for bugfixing, developing.
If you flashed OpenZaurus and something does not work then report it in OpenEmbedded bugtracker with info which machine you have, which distro, which flavour of distro (opie/gpe/bootstrap) and how you find bug, is it reproductable etc. Too much info is better then too less.
You do not have to be a developer to report but if you find a bug and not report it then do not complain about it.
OpenZaurus team November 15th, 2005
As many of you noticed openzaurus.org is slow. Few days a go mirror was created here - it should be much faster.
In next few days it will be main feed location as we have to free space on SourceForge server.
OpenZaurus team November 8th, 2005
Our kernel hacker Richard Purdie prepared both a opie-image and gpe-image for Borzoi (aka SL-C3100) for testing. It uses the 2.6.14-git3 kernel from OpenEmbedded repository - a development kernel. Its also built against the development branch and not the release one as it uses several more recent packages.
Download from here and tell us how it works (feed not provided for testing images - only kernel modules will be provided).
UPDATE: You may need to repartition the microdrive to get it working. Borzoi could have a different partition scheme compared to Spitz (SL-C3000) which we based the borzoi image on (lack of borzoi users in OZ team). OpenZaurus boots from first partition on the microdrive and this needs to be fairly large to make things work (say approimately 75MB+). You will need to repartition the microdrive before flashing an image.
Sound: use that script to load kernel modules. We will add autoload for them later.
UPDATE: images were removed - thanks for testing.
Marcin Juszkiewicz November 5th, 2005
Some time ago we released 3.5.4 Release Candidate. It has only images and kernels for testing - no feed provided (software from 3.5.3 can work). Some more infos here, bug raporting into bugtracker please (some stuff can be found also here).
Our 2.4.18 kernels got APM fixes so collie (5000/5500), poodle (5600) and tosa (6000) should now resume properly after suspend.
So if you have some spare time then backup your Zauruses and try 3.5.4-RC - we are waiting for any infos.
Remember to check md5sums before flashing!
Marcin Juszkiewicz July 27th, 2005
Method of upgrading OZ 3.5.3 into r21 kernel:
- install OZ 3.5.3 with default kernel (may be skipped if you already have 3.5.3)
- add upgrades/collie into ipkg.conf
- run
ipkg update;ipkg upgrade to get r21 kernel modules installed
- copy r21 kernel from “upgrades/collie” into CF card and flash it (ONLY kernel)
- boot Zaurus and be happy user of OZ 3.5.3 with r21 kernel
That method works for me with plain OZ 3.5.3 (opie-image + 64/0 kernel). To upgrade I used r21 kernel from “upgrades/collie”.
Marcin Juszkiewicz June 30th, 2005
Today I pushed fixed 2.4.18 kernel for collie (Zaurus 5000/5500) into 3.5.3 “upgrades” feed. This version has fixed all Suspend/Resume problems:
- suspend on right-arrow button
- suspend on menu button
- suspend after resume
Update to that kernel is HIGHLY recommended.
Md5sums:
4aef6f1fac09668220b34f7a30f24c92 zImage-collie-24-8-r21.bin
a46961d53eaa38ad2aa6cd09fa8c49b1 zImage-collie-32-0-r21.bin
24415d7794140e1854deaf400e5d437c zImage-collie-32-32-r21.bin
dadb8903d76bddbb15f69cb0c3b62948 zImage-collie-40-24-r21.bin
9bbfb575237c2762e1aead2926f37383 zImage-collie-48-16-r21.bin
9ded1bbb4a326f9984997ea107fbda55 zImage-collie-58-6-r21.bin
e179cc1991729d931f47d8031843aa0a zImage-collie-64-0-r21.bin
Complete instruction how to make it is available here.