GP32 Gp32linux


Only having 8mb and no possibility of a swapfile kinda makes it infeasible for anything but an embedded linux kinda offering. You'll only be able to run things like bash, so whats the point? Don't think you'll ever get X working properly.
 
anything useful? Doub't you'll be able to play any games, or install X - not possible to do tcp/ip, so what is there left?
 
Running X or some some other GUI shouldn't be any problems, there are lots of stuff for smaller embedded systems out there.
I ran X on my 80386 with only 4mb of ram.. was a while ago though..:D

And about TCP/IP, SLIP or PPP etc should be possible with the UARTs.


---
mithris
 
I'm quite interested. What kind of state is it in? i.e. what else is needed?

I'd like to run qemu on the gp32_console! I've been thinking about porting it, but it has quite a lot of Linux dependencies. Might be easier to help with this than remove them. Also will probably need 32MB (my chip is on order from Farnell).

I guess what we need for that is SDL support (done for GP32, but may need porting to GP32 linux), chatboard support (again, needs porting to GP32 linux) and smartmedia support...

Who else is working on this? Is there an active mailing list for discussion?

Having said all that I have very little time. Maybe 30 mins to an hour a day:-( And I know little about Linux. Just ordered some device driver books though for another project I'm working on.

Mark
 
Squidge. For all of your word i know a good story.

It was some years, maybe the older guys here can remember, it was in 2001. There was a guy that started a apache portage to the GBA. Realy - it was an simply apache portage. Woooa. For what?

So. This freak was wise. And so the wrote on the top of his page:

So often ppl would ask "Why the hell you do that?" and i allways will tell them "its because i can"

So dont ask. Just let them there fun on a epic project
 
foft posted on May 12 2004 at 09:05 PM said:
I'm quite interested. What kind of state is it in? i.e. what else is needed?

I'd like to run qemu on the gp32_console! I've been thinking about porting it, but it has quite a lot of Linux dependencies. Might be easier to help with this than remove them. Also will probably need 32MB (my chip is on order from Farnell).

I guess what we need for that is SDL support (done for GP32, but may need porting to GP32 linux), chatboard support (again, needs porting to GP32 linux) and smartmedia support...

Who else is working on this? Is there an active mailing list for discussion?

Having said all that I have very little time. Maybe 30 mins to an hour a day:-( And I know little about Linux. Just ordered some device driver books though for another project I'm working on.

Mark
Click to expand...
SDL support would be overkill. SDL is basically just an X11 wrapper, and pretty slow even on fast machines (well, "pretty"...). What's missing is a SMC block driver for the specific "card reader" of the GP32. Chatboard support should be piece of cake.

Now to answer Squidge's questions... Basic X support isn't that hardware hungry. I have some linux running on an old Mac LC3 with 8mb (or was it 6 only?) with X and fvwm which runs PRETTY usable. And that's only some 68030/25. And we're talking about a fully fledged debian install without any dietlibc optimizations! About missing tcp/ip, one of the developers was working on tcp via usb AFAIR.

And well... I don't care about playing linux games on a GP32 - that's what my desktop is for. I just love seeing my favourite OS on my favourite handheld, and that's well worth the effort. ;)
 
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Enslaved posted on May 12 2004 at 05:51 PM said:
I shouldn't be in this forum but I would like to see this. Would it have a desktop?
Click to expand...
You could put one on it, TWM most likely...ugly but functional. I am sure there are a couple others that would fit with the memory requirements and size requirements to be on the GP32. You wont be getting KDE or Gnome any time soon.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well chatboard support is already there i have chatboard driver for Linux and there is code for it.

the chatboard is used in the VERADA or something PDA which is a linux PDA and the driver for linux and the code is available we prob just have to change the UART or maybe not???

anyway if the C64 can be a web server why can't the gp32?

what id love to see would be the gp32 linux OS gamepark made for the old gp32 that used linux and ARM 7 that would be sweet to see what they already implemented :)

but anyway dont worry about the chatboard i can send u the linux driver source if needed but u can find it pretty easily look for verada (think thats it?) pda with chatboard :)

:ph34r:
 
I tried several times to get in contact with the developpers, and they don't seem to want to open the projects to many developers... I tried linux actually, thanks to Don which has precompiled kernels, and it boots!
At least you see a pinguin on your GP32, and a bash prompt... but there is no way to interact, except with a serial cable.

One good point if linux was ported would be that we would instantely benefit of many applications... like image viewers, sound players...

And with a little tweaking (put the USB controler in host mode) it could be possible to plug anything on the usb port, like harddrives or webcams!

Actually I tried to cross compile mplayer, with the resulting binary was too big to fit in the ramdisk.
I then tried to compress in bz2 it and decompress it in the GP32's ram, but it didn't work either...

Apparently some things are not really working... for instance, the time seems to be slow (ie: sleep 1 will pause more than 1s)

I tried to cross compile mpg123 and tiny image viewers as well, but none worked... I stopped working on it because I don't have any serial cable, but I might get one...

It would be great if the USB cable was used instead!

I'd like to help the developpers, but it seems they don't want any help yet! Anyway I hope the project will succeed soon.
 
i think a useable linux would be worth the ramupgrade and perhaps some big modding shops would do the upgrade.
Hope the progress goes on
 
Very true... though tbh, if there was a place that offered the RAM upgrade and had a reasonably reputation, I'd get it done just to have a superGP. Who cares if its useless; its the mod that counts lol!
 
we can interact with the chatboard !

and there are projects like tinyx
and directfb
that are made for small embeded devices

have a look at http://www.directfb.org/documentation/GTK_...dded/cover.html
if you read all
u will the last slide : Statically linked GTK+ DirectFB / dietlibc 2528k 2.0M

i use directdb on my desktop to watch tv, play movies, connect to remote vnc server , ....

so there is hope with only 8MB !!!!


and we can use the usb cable to connect to a network
[ have a look at some games , u can play online using the usb game link !!! ]
 
Is there any member of the gp32linux project that could tell us its status and where they need help?
 
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