[ANN] GTA04 Status
Hi all, I think it is time to share some update on the GTA04 overall status and where I think it can go. 1. Software appears to be in a quite good shape now, QtMoko as well as SHR. Last Thursday we had a meeting (Stammtisch) in Munich with approx. 5 or 6 working GTA04 in many different configurations :) And the SHR developer team now has several GTA04A4 boards to do further testing. BTW: this meeting was the best visited ever - 10 participants in total. 2. Bootloader I have revisited the MLO/X-Loader code. Major changes: * check the SDRAM when fetching U-Boot from SD card * serial x-loader (for recovery) is now built from the same sources * optional command line interpreter for ram tests etc. * sources on GIT: http://git.goldelico.com/?p=gta04-xloader.git;a=summary 3. GTA04A4 general availability We finally have finished the backlog of preorders and now (for the first time) have two or three boards in stock. So the promise to be able to deliver from stock finally became true. 4. Group Tour For the Group Tour, all components have arrived and the first 10 boards have been built this week. Unfortunately, again with some soldering problems. We have discussed and tried almost everything and the production company has checked every step twice, but we still have shorts and too many not working boards to continue straight ahead and produce all ordered boards. Although the boards usually can be repaired (by identifying the crucial chips and replacing them on a SMD rework station) this is too much manual work and the worst thing is that it costs a lot of money and time. This week the company will try again another stencil for solder paste printing since short circuits indicate too much solder paste. And failed boards will go to a new 3D X-Ray service center where we may be able to magnify single solder joints. 5. Wishlist, Preorders and future Group Tours One thing is clear: we definitively want to organize and run more Group Tours! As soon as the production issues got under control. Therefore, we have invented a new feature for the Handheld Linux Shop: a Wishlist. From the experiences of the GTA04 Group tour we found that it is problematic to define a fixed deadline and collect money in advance. And then we do not meet the number of units that were assumed for the original price calculation. This comes mainly from lack of market knowledge (which may change on a daily basis). Now, the Wishlist may become a much better solution. It is not a real preorder, but we kindly ask you to state your interest in buying the GTA04 [1]. And the number of units you are interested in. This does not mean any obligation to buy a device at any time in the future, but it gives us an indication how many of you are really interested. And at which price. For the price, we have added a surprising function: you can state your price wish! This does not mean that you eventually can buy at this price, but it also gives us a better indication where to go. And if you give a higher price, the likelihood increases that you can buy it sooner at that price. You can also change your wishes anytime and delete them [2]. From time to time we make a statistical evaluation of the Wishlist and can see what a reasonable price is and how many of you would buy units at that price. And compare with component and production cost. Then, we make a call for real pre-orders. If we make new developments - let's say a feature upgraded GTA04 - we will also announce that and then everyone can decide to adjust the price and increase the likelihood that we really can produce it. And, we have plans to use this Wishlist not only for the already developed GTA04 but other, new product ideas. As soon as we have some prototype and feel that it is feasible, we will just publish the product concept on the shop and you can express how much you are interested. This will help to make the hardware supply more continuous and predicable. So if you have new hardware ideas, please discuss them and let us know. Some are already being worked on... The idea is to make this community again a first-class address for new open and independent mobile hardware! Will it work? We will see! Nikolaus [1]: http://www.handheld-linux.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04 [2]: http://www.handheld-linux.com/wiki.php?page=Wishlist ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04_This is my Fantasy
Hi Travis, Am 23.04.2012 um 01:39 schrieb Travis Bachelder: What if you(I) wanted more than 32 gb? The largest micro SD (NOW) is 64 gbs right? What if you needed larger than that? 250 gb or even 500 gb? The original SD cards were up to 2 GB The SDHC cards are up to 32 GB and the newest SDXC cards are much more (I think they can go to the Terabytes range) Is larger drive space in the GTA04 just a matter of waiting for the micro SD card technology to support larger storage space? There are two limitations. One is the interface. The current GTA04 supports SD and SDHC, but not SDXC. So the current limit is 32 GBytes. But future variants of the TI OMAP processor may support the SDXC interface. This is just a small change within the Silicon and some additional driver. So you can expect that to come sooner or later. The other limit is the availability and price of such SDXC cards. But I have seen some with 128 GByte: http://www.amazon.com/Lexar-SDXC-Flash-Memory-LSD128CRBNA133/dp/B004SAMZW4/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8qid=1335167722sr=8-5 But as said it will not work in a GTA04. And the one linked here is a SD and not microSD format. I.e. it does not fit mechanically. But you can extrapolate what the SD card manufacturers will come up with. If the micro SD is limited on it's storage space, then is the GTA04 board even capable of supporting a built in external hard drive? Or is that make for a serious design change? Mechanical hard drives are generally too big. The smallest one I know of was the IBM/Hitachi Microdrive in Compact-Flash format. I think currently, the smallest ones are 1.8 inch diameter. This does not fit into the case of a smartphone... Here: http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Toshiba-MK2x39GSL/ you can see the physical dimensions. And the interfaces of such drives (e.g. SATA) are not available on the OMAP processor. So they may need additional glue logic. What you also could do is to connect an external hard drive through the USB/OTG port. But that would no longer allow you to use the same USB port to connect to a desktop PC as you have planned. Thanks, Travis Bachelder BR, Nikolaus -- Forwarded message -- From: Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com To: List for Openmoko community discussion community@lists.openmoko.org Cc: Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:36:32 +0200 Subject: Re: GTA04_This is my Fantasy Hi Travis, Am 22.04.2012 um 15:09 schrieb Travis Bachelder: Thanks for you input Lionel, Actually: What I am thinking isn't remote. More like having the operating system installed onto the GTA04 (outfitted with a larger hardrive of course). Plug the phone into a computer (via usb perhaps?) then restart computer to boot from the OS installed onto you slick 60 gb GTA04. yes you should be able do that. Just configure the USB gadget driver of the GTA04 so that the GTA04 behaves like an external SD card reader and provides access through the USB cable. Then, you plug in the USB cable to the host machine and boot... This seems possible, the only hurdle I see is the hardware, what would it take to outfit a GTA04 phone with a larger hardrive? There is no need for a built-in harddrive. Just a 32 GByte Micro-SD card. And in some future the OMAP CPUs will even support 32 GByte. Thanks, Travis Nikolaus This email was sent by Howell Laboratories, Inc. or Shively Labs. It may contain information that is confidential or privileged. If you suspect you were not intended to receive it, please delete it without copying or forwarding it, and notify the sender by reply email or by calling 207-647-3327. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04_This is my Fantasy
On Monday 23 April 2012 10:02:17 Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Hi Travis, Am 23.04.2012 um 01:39 schrieb Travis Bachelder: [snip discussion of SD types and limitations] If the micro SD is limited on it's storage space, then is the GTA04 board even capable of supporting a built in external hard drive? Or is that make for a serious design change? Mechanical hard drives are generally too big. The smallest one I know of was the IBM/Hitachi Microdrive in Compact-Flash format. I think currently, the smallest ones are 1.8 inch diameter. This does not fit into the case of a smartphone... Are you sure? I just put a Tosh MK1216GSG on top of a GTA02 and it looks like a perfect fit for a new case layer, giving just enough room at the corners for wall thickness. It probably fails for needing a custom USB-microSATA adapter to fit the available space, and there may not be enough power available (3.3V 700mA), as well as making the phone rather bulky. I don't remember whether there's a USB port available internally on GTA04. Here: http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Toshiba-MK2x39GSL/ you can see the physical dimensions. And the interfaces of such drives (e.g. SATA) are not available on the OMAP processor. So they may need additional glue logic. What you also could do is to connect an external hard drive through the USB/OTG port. But that would no longer allow you to use the same USB port to connect to a desktop PC as you have planned. If you've got an external drive you don't need the phone as an intermediary. The 1.8 drives are available in external USB enclosures, perhaps the best bet. Or you could keep a USB stick on your keyring... If you _really_ want it as part of the phone you could embed the USB stick, or a USB SDXC reader, in a replacement back for the phone. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: QtMoko v44 for Freerunner now available
On Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:27:11 +0200, Radek Polak wrote
On Tuesday, April 17, 2012 03:00:54 PM Tiago Bortoletto Vaz wrote:
I'm not sure which version I had in my freerunner before trying to update it
to v44. I'd suggest you to write next qtmoko version in /etc/issue{.net}
files as it's not a pure Debian chroot. So users will be able to easily
identify which is the current qtmoko version they have installed.
Hi,
oki, like the idea. It seems that i have messed up with v44 kernel
version version, it's now 34 instead of 44.
Also, your linux-image postinst script checks if the /boot/uImage.bin file
exists and makes dpkg database broken for a fresh v44 ubi image:
root@neo:/media# apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up linux-image-2.6.34-qtmoko-gta02 (v44-1) ...
ln: creating symbolic link `/boot/uImage.bin': File exists
dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6.34-qtmoko-gta02 (--configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
configured to not write apport reports
Errors were encountered while processing:
linux-image-2.6.34-qtmoko-gta02
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
You can fix this using -L rather than -e in the following code:
# Create the /boot/uImage.bin symlink
if [ $1 = configure ]; then
UBOOT_IMAGE=/boot/uImage.bin
if [ ! -e $UBOOT_IMAGE ]; then
cd /boot ln -s uImage.bin-$VERSION $UBOOT_IMAGE
fi
fi
Thanks for your work,
--
Tiago Bortoletto Vaz
http://tiagovaz.org
0xA504FECA - http://pgp.mit.edu
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