Linux on the HTC Universal
Posted by George Wright Sun, 31 Dec 2006 02:26:00 GMT
For those of you that don’t know, I have an HTC Universal phone. I have two main priorities for this thing - firstly, to get Linux booted on it with the phone hardware working nicely, and secondly to get NX working on it (yes, I’m strange).
Today was the first day in ages that I’ve actually decided to do anything. Those of you that met me in Ireland at aKademy will know that I was working on bootstrapping Debian Sarge on it without much success. Well, today, I managed to bootstrap an almost fully working Etch system without too much difficulty (and by that I mean it only took me 14 hours to do..).
Anyway, it was installed by running
debootstrap --include=wireless-tools,hotplug --arch arm --foreign etch /etch http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian
at first on my desktop, then copying the entire directory over to my 2GB SD card. I had to create /dev/mmcblk0p1 and /dev/mmcblk0p2 though, and pass the kernel parameters rootdelay=3 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 init=/bin/bash for it to be usable. When I got to bash I could then run debootstrap --second-stage which finished the bootstrap process.
After all that I installed kdrive from the 720degrees project but ended up having to replace the Xfbdev binary with that from one of the pre-built Universal GPE tarballs as it didn’t seem to have support for VGA modes.
In any case, I’ve now got X11 to run semi nicely, but the lack of a working touch screen is a bit infuriating at the moment.
I’m still trying to work out how tslib works - it seems to be a bit of a weird library. I can create the device /dev/input/event0 and get output from it when I tap on the screen, but Xfbdev always moves the cursor to the top right if I try and specify that as the tslib device. If anyone knows about how tslib works I’d be grateful if they could share it with me as documentation on it seems to be rather sparse.
I intend to get more working soon, but for now, I’m pretty washed out after all the fiddling I’ve done today. On the todo is to get the phone hardware to work, write a telepathy backend for the phone hardware and experiment with various desktop environments or window managers to find which one is suitable (I have a pet hatred for qtopia/opie/gpe. They’re all rubbish.). I’d also like to get the wireless working more reliably (I’m having to use the usbnet at the moment) and also write a keymap for the keyboard that isn’t rubbish. Ah the joys of embedded Linux.
maybe you should give opie2 a try, it looks very cool and is Qt4.2 based http://opie.home.linuxtogo.org/screenies.html
I think Lorn Potter from trolltech is woring on it http://blogs.qtdeveloper.net/archives/2006/12/30/shadow-building-qtopia/
Any hope that similar techniques will work on the HTC TyTN? I’m in the US and will need quad-band GSM for my next phone. [Which *will* run linux.]
Get a clue, this helps you and others.
As of tslib. create your /etc/ts.conf, run tscalibrate, run tstest to test the calibration. If you have a patched tinyX/X.org you can use xcalibrate to calibrate the screen.
Other useful tools are tsprint and tsprint_raw cheers z.
I’ve a HTC TyTN and I’m interested in port linux to this device. I’m newbie in this. Can you give me some hints, links where to find doc or something similar, please?
Thank you very much
Hello
I also own a HTC TyTN! It is super but runs on Windows. So as soon as you have your thing running, I’d be highly interested in being able to install it as well. Will u use qtopia for GUI? how about cam functionality? please keep me on current. Thanks
oooooooo this would be awesome to have linux on… i suppose it doesnt work as a cell phone anymroe tho :P
Does Linux available for HTC TyTN II?… now… i wud love to test if need be
Do you have the datasheet for the MSM7200? Please send to andrethomas at lantic dot net
thanks
Well, for all you out there looking for running Linux on the newer devices (HTC TyTn, TytnII, Trinity, …) I have to say: patience.
xda-developers.com and a lot of other developer groups have been and are working on it, but the lack of details on hardware and internals, and the lack of bootloader replacements on lots of these devices, make it almost impossible to have a decent (read: user-friendly) way right now, to install or at least try to run a Linux kernel on them.
The only thing here: patience. Some of the older devices (like the Universal, the BlueAngel(Qtek9090), the Magician (S100), etc) are currently running a Linux kernel without much or great problems, but it’s still considered for ‘developer’ or ‘technical/IT skilled’ people… Not really user-friendly, and most of the devices still use a Windows base to run an extra boot loader to actually start the Linux kernel. Most of the devices still don’t allow access to the bootloader or several parts of the internal flash.
For progress on the ‘older’ devices, and to have a working kernel package, plus software, just check here: http://www.linuxtogo.org/~htcpxa/ That’ll get you started ;) I use these on my Universal and my BlueAngel…
Any updates on this at all? Been searching around since I just bought an ATT Tilt and I am sad to go back to Win!
hi i am using touchkit for rt linux the driver able to create node /dev/input/event0 and i am able to get events from that, but when i started startx it is giving the following error “cannot open tslib device ‘/dev/input/event0’
i configured xorg.conf correctly can any one pleae explain why above problem is coming
mistar 6e mi pomognete li s tfa za telefona