Open2x bootloader 1.0 - unfinished business..

[Orkie]

I thought I'd post this up since it's now feature complete (at least enough for a first release).

I've written an entirely new GP2X bootloader from scratch, which can do a few things the original u-boot can't like loading bare metal executable files (more on this to come), kernels and even other bootloaders from SD. It may even be a little faster to boot.

You can still boot (directly if you wish) into whatever Linux firmware you like, and flash new kernels to NAND. This isn't exactly a new release of the Open2x firmware, just the bootloader.

One binary works on all GP2X models, both F100 and F200 (NOT Wiz, Caanoo or F300).

Of course you can brick your GP2X installing this, and getting JTAG working to recover them seems easy on some units, horribly unreliable on others, so you do so at your own risk.

Download gp2xboot.img here: https://github.com/Orkie/open2x-bootloader/releases/tag/v1.0
Instructions on installing and use here: https://github.com/Orkie/open2x-bootloader/wiki

 

[alxm]

Good to see you back Orkie, thank you for all your cool work!

My F200 is happy running Open2x dr7 and I still have the precompiled GCC 4 toolchain from way back, it continues to work on modern Linux.

I'll keep an eye on this and probably bite the bullet once you have more info about bare metal bins.

 

[Orkie]

I see you've already found it on github! The bare metal library and build setup are quite usable - you can build the bootloader, and I have a couple of simple examples. The big thing which is missing at the moment is audio, I'll post more about it once I get that working and it is useful for more people. The 940 example may be of particular interest, it is very simple to use - you wouldn't know you weren't on the 920 when writing code (MMU/PU excepted of course!).

If anybody wants to have an early poke around now though, have a look at the initial documentation: https://gp2x.dev/orcus/a00011.html

 

[rSl]

so cool!
thanks from my good trusty f100, and me too!

 

[EvilDragon]

Woooot, what a throw back to an awesome time
Nice to see a new update here

 

[hitbyambulance]

this is good to hear, i'm going to install this later.

any idea on a future Open2x update... ?

 

[Orkie]

this is good to hear, i'm going to install this later.

any idea on a future Open2x update... ?

Out of interest, how did you get on if you did install it?

I suspect a full Open2x release is unlikely, as far as I'm aware one the last remaining things to improve was the TV support which has become somewhat irrelevant with the passage of time. Plus, to compile Linux 2.4, you need a 2.95 gcc toolchain which is actually very difficult to build on a modern machine - the old gcc code itself no longer compiles with modern versions of gcc! Old versions of binutils also have issues when compiled with recent versions of gcc.

 

[jutleys]

I installed this on my F100 works well would love to see more development of this classic handheld a Pico8 emulator would go down well