I have gone the angstrom/openembedded/bitbake cross compilation route with success. As for your goal list:
1. CLI web browsing This is trivially possible. Just install links or elinks etc. Remember that there is no "escape" button mapped, but I've had luck with "..." (which is ctrl) plus a couple of other keys to manually send an escape. Also remember that smiley face is tab.
2. GUI web browsing (very light, not looking for FF, maybe Links -g or Dillo at best) Dillo works fine, see my earlier post about the hitchhiker's guide and a custom Dillo search configuration here: http://hunterdavis.com/archives/44
3. Wireless Detection (Kismet / Wellenreiter) Kismet is a no go. The zipit has the same wireless chipset as the iphone, which means you won't be doing any sniffing or packet inspection unless you manage to write a new kernel driver. Ifconfig works fine though, and an ifconfig+dhcp script can go far in making wireless "just work"
4. NES / GB emulation (I love some classic RPGs) This is certainly possible (see my post on recompiling dosbox below). You are going to run into some hurdles though (enabling the kernel sound module on zipit, compiling SDL with sound on, compiling an alsa version of your emulator, etc). Considering the number of devices which now emulate NES/GB for under 30$ (any gba + flash card, any camera or mp3 player on geeks.com or dealextreme.com, etc etc), it may be more trouble than it is worth. http://hunterdavis.com/archives/40
Jabber chat support This is a trivial goal, just figure out which jabber client you wish to use from the angstrom repo and bitbake it.
Good Luck, /Hunter
--- On Mon, 4/6/09, teh.sean <teh.sean@...> wrote:
From: teh.sean <teh.sean@...> Subject: [zipitwireless] Z2 preferred toolchain? To: zipitwireless@yahoogroups.com Date: Monday, April 6, 2009, 12:09 PM
From what I understand, the best way to open this device up is to create a linux build on the mini SD card. What toolchain are folks here using to do things with the Zipit Z2? I believe Scratchbox, BuildRoot and OpenEmbedded are referenced. Are there any benefits to using one over the other?
I would like to get the Z2 to do the following:
CLI web browsing
GUI web browsing (very light, not looking for FF, maybe Links -g or Dillo at best)
Wireless Detection (Kismet / Wellenreiter)
NES / GB emulation (I love some classic RPGs)
Jabber chat support
Do these goals seem reasonable? Has anyone done something similar on the new Zipit?
Also, how is hardware support? I've seen in the group that sound support was recently added, which is awesome. How is power management on the device? Does it support 'standby' mode like the actual ZipitOS claims? What is battery life during 'custom' use?
One last thing: It looks like the linux.zipitwireless .com site is down, and has been for a couple days now. Does anyone have their content archived? I signed up for an account right before it went offline. . :(
From what I understand, the best way to open this device up is to create a linux build on the mini SD card. What toolchain are folks here using to do things...
Seam, I hope you have better luck than I had. I tried for a week to get my Z2 to boot an alternate Linux file system but failed. If you do succeed, please let...
Well, I tried the sample structure 'for testing' in the group files and that was a swing and a miss. I'll have to revisit it and see what wasn't working. Have...
Sean, I got it to build once but would not boot up from SD card. Found a link to a site that had a test configuration but that did not work either! ... -- ...
William, If you are having trouble booting after building an image, it could be that the activate charge time on your SD card is too long. This was the case...
Hunter, I tried three different SD Cards, thinking that was the problem. I finally gave up on the Z2. Too bad, it looked like a good fit for one of my...
Hi, I am the maintainer of the source forge OpenZipit project: http://sourceforge.net/projects/openzipit As of this writing I have a 2.6.29 kernel and userland...
Hi -(e) I've been following your zipit progress on your blog, and am interested in trying out your new tree. Did you happen to cache your irc session where...
Hi Sean, I have gone the angstrom/openembedded/bitbake cross compilation route with success. As for your goal list: 1. CLI web browsing This is trivially...
William, Sounds like the build image or your partitioning is probably the issue then. I can dd an image to file for you to download if you are interested. ...
Hunter, That would be great. I will give it another try. Thanks. ... -- William Estrada MrUmunhum@... Mt-Umunhum-Wireless.net ( http://64.124.13.3 ) ...