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. .  :(



Thanks for any and all input!

Sean

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 me know how you did it.





teh.sean wrote:

> >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. .  :(

>

> Thanks for any and all input!

> Sean

>

>

>

> ------------------------------------

>

> Yahoo! Groups Links

>

>

>

>

>





--

William Estrada

MrUmunhum@...

Mt-Umunhum-Wireless.net ( http://64.124.13.3 )

Ymessenger: MrUmunhum

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!









Sean Lowry wrote:

> 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 you tried building a new rootfs using OE or the

> like? I know there are a couple explanations out there on how to use

> OE to at least get a command line linux environment up and running. I

> think openzipit.org <http://openzipit.org> might have had something?

>

> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 1:58 PM, William Estrada <MrUmunhum@...

> <mailto:MrUmunhum@...>> wrote:

>

>     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 me know how you did it.

>

>

>     teh.sean wrote:

>     > >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

>     <http://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. .  :(

>     >

>     > Thanks for any and all input!

>     > Sean

>     >

>     >

>     >

>     > ------------------------------------

>     >

>     > Yahoo! Groups Links

>     >

>     >

>     >

>     >

>     >

>

>

>     --

>     William Estrada

>     MrUmunhum@... <mailto:MrUmunhum@...>

>     Mt-Umunhum-Wireless.net ( http://64.124.13.3 )

>     Ymessenger: MrUmunhum

>

>

>

>

>     ------------------------------------

>

>     Yahoo! Groups Links

>

>

>        mailto:zipitwireless-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com

>     <mailto:zipitwireless-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com>

>

>

>

>

>

>





--

William Estrada

MrUmunhum@...

Mt-Umunhum-Wireless.net ( http://64.124.13.3 )

Ymessenger: MrUmunhum

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 projects.





Hunter Davis wrote:

> 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 for me.  What worked for me was going to "global reset all

> settings" in the regular zipit menu.  This would do a soft-reset that

> did not power down the SD card, and thus allowed a boot to linux.

>

> Good Luck,

> /Hunter

>

> See my zipit postings on hunterdavis.com

>

> --- On *Mon, 4/6/09, William Estrada /<MrUmunhum@...>/* wrote:

>

>

>     From: William Estrada <MrUmunhum@...>

>     Subject: Re: [zipitwireless] Z2 preferred toolchain?

>     To: zipitwireless@yahoogroups.com

>     Date: Monday, April 6, 2009, 4:47 PM

>

>     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!

>

>     Sean Lowry wrote:

>     > 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 you tried building a new rootfs using OE or

>     the

>     > like? I know there are a couple explanations out there on how to

>     use

>     > OE to at least get a command line linux environment up and

>     running. I

>     > think openzipit.org <http://openzipit. org

>     <http://openzipit.org>> might have had something?

>     >

>     > On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 1:58 PM, William Estrada

>     <MrUmunhum@popdial. com </mc/compose?to=MrUmunhum%40popdial.com>

>     > <mailto:MrUmunhum@popdial. com

>     </mc/compose?to=MrUmunhum%40popdial.com>>> wrote:

>     >

>     > 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 me know how you did it.

>     >

>     >

>     > teh.sean wrote:

>     > > >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

>     > <http://linux. zipitwireless. com

>     <http://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. . :(

>     > >

>     > > Thanks for any and all input!

>     > > Sean

>

>

>     --

>     William Estrada

>     MrUmunhum@popdial. com </mc/compose?to=MrUmunhum%40popdial.com>

>     Mt-Umunhum-Wireless .net ( http://64.124. 13.3 <http://64.124.13.3> )

>     Ymessenger: MrUmunhum

>

>

>

>

>





--

William Estrada

MrUmunhum@...

Mt-Umunhum-Wireless.net ( http://64.124.13.3 )

Ymessenger: MrUmunhum

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 built on top of

OpenEmbedded available on the project site. Also, via anon SVN is an OE build

enviroment setup system, should you wish to build your own.



At the moment the only way to flash the kernel is to have a serial connection to

the Z2 and use "xdownload ..." where "..." is the kernel zImage and then "flash

kernel" to flash the kernel to the device.



Last night on IRC (freenode #zipit) I managed to sucessfully assist another user

in flashing this kernel without a serial cable, however this method is not fully

tested and relies on the old OE fatroot / userland build available from the

http://linux.zipitwireless.com site.



The kernel currently supports most devices including wifi (which is built from a

patch from the libertas-dev ml and the wireless testing kernel git branch) and

progress is being made on other fronts.



I am usually found hanging out in #zipit should you wish to try the kernel out.

These are early days and setup documentation is very sparse. I intend to address

this next week after the easter holidays.



At any rate, I thought I would introduce myself via this post :)



See you on #zipit in about a week

-(e)

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 you

set up your new kernel with the old fatroot method?  I successfully built then

extracted to the ext3 side of SD, however the z2script.sh is failing (bad

newroot /sysroot).



Anyway, glad to hear things are picking up again on Z2 dev. and I'll be pushing

patches up to your sourceforge repo once I get things working.



Cheers,

hunter@...



--- In zipitwireless@yahoogroups.com, "sweetlilmre1" <sweetlilmre@...> wrote:

>

> 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 built on top of

OpenEmbedded available on the project site. Also, via anon SVN is an OE build

enviroment setup system, should you wish to build your own.

>

> At the moment the only way to flash the kernel is to have a serial connection

to the Z2 and use "xdownload ..." where "..." is the kernel zImage and then

"flash kernel" to flash the kernel to the device.

>

> Last night on IRC (freenode #zipit) I managed to sucessfully assist another

user in flashing this kernel without a serial cable, however this method is not

fully tested and relies on the old OE fatroot / userland build available from

the http://linux.zipitwireless.com site.

>

> The kernel currently supports most devices including wifi (which is built from

a patch from the libertas-dev ml and the wireless testing kernel git branch) and

progress is being made on other fronts.

>

> I am usually found hanging out in #zipit should you wish to try the kernel

out. These are early days and setup documentation is very sparse. I intend to

address this next week after the easter holidays.

>

> At any rate, I thought I would introduce myself via this post :)

>

> See you on #zipit in about a week

> -(e)

>

Hi,



> 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 you

set up your new kernel with the old fatroot method?  I successfully built then

extracted to the ext3 side of SD, however the z2script.sh is failing (bad

newroot /sysroot).



There is a new, better way of doing things using a z2script hack to flash the

new kernel. Check it out at

http://apps.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/openzipit/index.php?title=AutoFlasher_Soft\

ware



Get the software from the SF site (AutoFlasher, kernel and userland).

A newer kernel should be available soon which fixes wifi issues (under the

original wifi firmware, the new firmware seems troublesome). It should have been

up already but RL has interfered somewhat :).



Check out the wiki, some more info has been added.



-(e)





--- In zipitwireless@yahoogroups.com, "huntergdavis" <huntergdavis@...> wrote:

>

> 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 you

set up your new kernel with the old fatroot method?  I successfully built then

extracted to the ext3 side of SD, however the z2script.sh is failing (bad

newroot /sysroot).

>

> Anyway, glad to hear things are picking up again on Z2 dev. and I'll be

pushing patches up to your sourceforge repo once I get things working.

>

> Cheers,

> hunter@...

>

> --- In zipitwireless@yahoogroups.com, "sweetlilmre1" <sweetlilmre@> wrote:

> >

> > 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 built on top of

OpenEmbedded available on the project site. Also, via anon SVN is an OE build

enviroment setup system, should you wish to build your own.

> >

> > At the moment the only way to flash the kernel is to have a serial

connection to the Z2 and use "xdownload ..." where "..." is the kernel zImage

and then "flash kernel" to flash the kernel to the device.

> >

> > Last night on IRC (freenode #zipit) I managed to sucessfully assist another

user in flashing this kernel without a serial cable, however this method is not

fully tested and relies on the old OE fatroot / userland build available from

the http://linux.zipitwireless.com site.

> >

> > The kernel currently supports most devices including wifi (which is built

from a patch from the libertas-dev ml and the wireless testing kernel git

branch) and progress is being made on other fronts.

> >

> > I am usually found hanging out in #zipit should you wish to try the kernel

out. These are early days and setup documentation is very sparse. I intend to

address this next week after the easter holidays.

> >

> > At any rate, I thought I would introduce myself via this post :)

> >

> > See you on #zipit in about a week

> > -(e)

> >

>

Hunter,



   That would be great. I will give it another try. Thanks.





Hunter Davis wrote:

> 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.  Here is another gotcha that I found.  The script that is

> referenced at openzipit to pre-initialize your SD card is flawed.

> Here is the script below:

>

> ./prepSDcard.pl --partitions

> --fatroot=zipit2-angstrom-pkgs/fatroot/fatroot.zip

> --tarball=tmp-zipit2-angstrom/deploy/glibc/images/zipit2/base-image-zipit2.tar

>

> Basically it is creating a small fat16 partition and a larger ext2

> partition.  The fat16 partition holds the extracted contents of

> fatroot.zip, and the ext2 partition holds the extracted

> base-imiage-zipit2.tar

>

> The script creates a fat16 partition of a very small size (like 5 megs

> or something).  The problem is, modern linux systems will not

> automatically format or automatically mount fat16 partitions under a

> certain size mark (I believe it is 16 megs, but it could be 32 megs or

> more).  In order to get my SD card in proper order, I manually created

> a 64-meg fat16 partition on the card (which I also marked as

> bootable), then I manually created an ext2 partition that filled the

> rest.  Then I unzipped the fatroot to fat, and the base-image to the

> ext2 partition.  THEN it booted.

>

> /Hunter

>

>

>

> --- On *Tue, 4/7/09, William Estrada /<MrUmunhum@...>/* wrote:

>

>

>     From: William Estrada <MrUmunhum@...>

>     Subject: Re: [zipitwireless] Z2 preferred toolchain?

>     To: zipitwireless@yahoogroups.com

>     Date: Tuesday, April 7, 2009, 11:32 AM

>

>     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 projects.

>

>     Hunter Davis wrote:

>     > 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 for me. What worked for me was going to "global reset all

>     > settings" in the regular zipit menu. This would do a soft-reset

>     that

>     > did not power down the SD card, and thus allowed a boot to linux.

>     >

>     > Good Luck,

>     > /Hunter

>     >

>     > See my zipit postings on hunterdavis. com

>     >

>     > --- On *Mon, 4/6/09, William Estrada /<MrUmunhum@popdial. com

>     </mc/compose?to=MrUmunhum%40popdial.com>>/* wrote:

>     >

>     >

>     > From: William Estrada <MrUmunhum@popdial. com

>     </mc/compose?to=MrUmunhum%40popdial.com>>

>     > Subject: Re: [zipitwireless] Z2 preferred toolchain?

>     > To: zipitwireless@ yahoogroups. com

>     </mc/compose?to=zipitwireless%40yahoogroups.com>

>     > Date: Monday, April 6, 2009, 4:47 PM

>     >

>     > 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!

>     >

>     > Sean Lowry wrote:

>     > > 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 you tried building a new rootfs using OE or

>     > the

>     > > like? I know there are a couple explanations out there on how to

>     > use

>     > > OE to at least get a command line linux environment up and

>     > running. I

>     > > think openzipit.org <http://openzipit. org

>     > <http://openzipit. org <http://openzipit.org>>> might have had

>     something?

>     > >

>     > > On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 1:58 PM, William Estrada

>     > <MrUmunhum@popdial. com </mc/compose? to=MrUmunhum% 40popdial. com>

>     > > <mailto:MrUmunhum@ popdial. com

>     > </mc/compose? to=MrUmunhum% 40popdial. com>>> wrote:

>     > >

>     > > 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 me know how you did it.

>     > >

>     > >

>     > > teh.sean wrote:

>     > > > >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

>     > > <http://linux. zipitwireless. com

>     > <http://linux. zipitwireless. com

>     <http://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. . :(

>     > > >

>     > > > Thanks for any and all input!

>     > > > Sean

>     >

>     >

>     > --

>     > William Estrada

>     > MrUmunhum@popdial. com </mc/compose? to=MrUmunhum% 40popdial. com>

>     > Mt-Umunhum-Wireless .net ( http://64.124. 13.3 <http://64.124.

>     13.3 <http://64.124.13.3>> )

>     > Ymessenger: MrUmunhum

>     >

>     >

>     >

>     >

>     >

>

>     --

>     William Estrada

>     MrUmunhum@popdial. com </mc/compose?to=MrUmunhum%40popdial.com>

>     Mt-Umunhum-Wireless .net ( http://64.124. 13.3 <http://64.124.13.3> )

>     Ymessenger: MrUmunhum

>

>

>

>

>





--

William Estrada

MrUmunhum@...

Mt-Umunhum-Wireless.net ( http://64.124.13.3 )

Ymessenger: MrUmunhum