Open2x That Was Just Uploaded

[PSyMastR]

There should be a version of a fastboot firmware that doesn't have to use some read only file structure that breaks a lot of things. I think the paranoia over "using up" the NAND is unfounded. GPH has said they used a newer NAND that has millions of write cycles, I find it hard to believe any of us is going to use a million write cycles.

Exactly. Isn't the IPod Nano using NAND, and people are constantly transferring songs to and from that thing. Without worry. You guys are a little overparanoid.

 

[aapje89]

There should be a version of a fastboot firmware that doesn't have to use some read only file structure that breaks a lot of things. I think the paranoia over "using up" the NAND is unfounded. GPH has said they used a newer NAND that has millions of write cycles, I find it hard to believe any of us is going to use a million write cycles.

Exactly. Isn't the IPod Nano using NAND, and people are constantly transferring songs to and from that thing. Without worry. You guys are a little overparanoid.

yup, but if its available, why not

 

[sbock]

Exactly. Isn't the IPod Nano using NAND, and people are constantly transferring songs to and from that thing. Without worry. You guys are a little overparanoid.

What do you mean ?

Please show me the point in this thread where a person react paranoid.

Only because I wrote that the filesystem is read-only? Read-only not only protect the NAND, it protects you from rogue software and system crashes. (Now you got me. I'm a real paranoid ! )
It's not the main advantage of open2x. The main advantage is quick boot and high compatibly. The read-only is a side-effect of the squashfs filesystem. You can't change that, even if you don't need it.
So I like the features of open2x, but that has nothing to do with paranoia.

Regards,
Stephan

 

[Mudi]

I haven't messed with my skins, so I'm making some assumptions about the directory layout here... but couldn't we have the skins directory be a mount point to a separate (and writable) partition for skins on the NAND?

 

[bubblejoe]

Now i get the tux loading screen, and it boots really fast, when i go into info it says version 1.4 SquashFS sbock, is this what it should say for Open2x?

Mine still shows "VERSION 1.4.0" on Info screen. What could have gone wrong?
I upgraded the firmware from the Open2x U-Boot menu

Edit: Oops, I wasn't using sbock's modified version... :rolleyes:

 

[minkster]

I just upgraded and while going through the first process it said I had one bad block and I was scared just because it said the word bad and it was on my GP2x. Thank god it didnt matter because it still upgraded successfully

 

[pcklee123]

I haven't messed with my skins, so I'm making some assumptions about the directory layout here... but couldn't we have the skins directory be a mount point to a separate (and writable) partition for skins on the NAND?

What about using unionfs? does anyone have any experience with that?

 

[nickspoon]

The new firmware, 1.5, will use yaffs, which is read-write, and boot in about 14 seconds.

 

[rokdcasbah]

I haven't messed with my skins, so I'm making some assumptions about the directory layout here... but couldn't we have the skins directory be a mount point to a separate (and writable) partition for skins on the NAND?

i'd also been wondering if this is possible/practical. at least with open2x it seems pretty possible. now obviously skins aren't the end of the world, but if at some point when open2x is the preferred firmware it might just make for more seamless upgrades.

 

[aapje89]

I haven't messed with my skins, so I'm making some assumptions about the directory layout here... but couldn't we have the skins directory be a mount point to a separate (and writable) partition for skins on the NAND?

i'd also been wondering if this is possible/practical. at least with open2x it seems pretty possible. now obviously skins aren't the end of the world, but if at some point when open2x is the preferred firmware it might just make for more seamless upgrades.

yeah, that would be nice .

 

[theoddbot]

For sure, decent skin handling is one of the goals of our menu project. It will be able to load skins from either the SD card or a writable partition.

As for progress on other fronts, I've managed to get a stable network driver running, and have telnetd, sshd and a dhcp server going. You need to install a single .inf file in windows to enable the networking, but the dhcp takes care of the other configuration. Transfer speed seems to be exactly 1mbyte/second, more testing needed here.

I also have working nfs and smb mounting, so now you can run programs on the gp2x without even copying them over . Great for testing.

We have a whole new filesystem layout based on oopo's libraries, gcc4, soft-float, which is quite nice. Also we have a compatibility mode for older, dynamic apps. eg. gph's menu runs fine.

Also included (for now) is a full python distribution (with pygame). Lua is also in, with lua-sdl following soon.

 

[sbock]

Nice info !

Thanks, theoddbot !


Regards,
Stephan

 

[Mudi]

Sweet! That means the libs are binary-compatible with gcc4 in the next version?

 

[theoddbot]

Sure does, Mudi. This means smaller binaries and faster loading times for shared apps using these libs. Hopefully devs won't mind releasing 2 versions of their binaries, anyone care to comment ?

 

[K-teto]

I don't mind at all, and samba will help me a lot for testing fresh executables without copying them to the SD all the time

 

[aapje89]

For sure, decent skin handling is one of the goals of our menu project. It will be able to load skins from either the SD card or a writable partition.

As for progress on other fronts, I've managed to get a stable network driver running, and have telnetd, sshd and a dhcp server going. You need to install a single .inf file in windows to enable the networking, but the dhcp takes care of the other configuration. Transfer speed seems to be exactly 1mbyte/second, more testing needed here.

I also have working nfs and smb mounting, so now you can run programs on the gp2x without even copying them over . Great for testing.

We have a whole new filesystem layout based on oopo's libraries, gcc4, soft-float, which is quite nice. Also we have a compatibility mode for older, dynamic apps. eg. gph's menu runs fine.

Also included (for now) is a full python distribution (with pygame). Lua is also in, with lua-sdl following soon.

smb, woot woot!

 

[Crazy Goat]

That sounds great! Since skin support is on the way, I have nothing to complain about. But if someone found a way to forward the MoviePlayer NAND bookmark traffic to the SD, that would fix one of the problems occuring.

 

[AireTamStorm]

Can we compile stuff ON the GP yet?

 

[theoddbot]

Not sure why you'd want to, but anyway.

I've got idea for 'packages', like say gcc or qtopia, which would be distributed as squashfs images, and be automatically mounted on /opt. These could either be on the SD card or copied to the writeable nand. So you would have say, /opt/gcc/ with bin, lib etc under there, same for /opt/qtopia. Comments ?

 

[aapje89]

Can we compile stuff ON the GP yet?

yes, there is a native toolchain, somewhere....