Linux on 7" mini netbook ARM-VT8500 ?

[alchark]

Thanks for your offer.
I'm still trying to make the wireless with WPA working.
I'm using the rt3070 driver from the Ralink site, changed the source code according to the readme and the Gentoo wiki. It runs, it works, but somehow it doesn't want to authorize with the AP

I personally use the in-kernel driver (rt2800usb). It behaves quite strangely, but still it is somewhat usable (at least it authenticates fine, and with some patience you can download stuff over the link).

rt3070 from Ralink site is in bad shape. Its equivalent in staging is at least cleaned up a bit by the community, but still it breaks every now and then with new changes to the rest of the kernel, so I gave up on that.

PS You may also wish to try out compat-wireless, as there are some massive improvements scheduled for 2.6.38, which are not part of the kernel sources at Gitorious.

[gymophett]

Does no-one know how to get Android to work?
People seem to have gotten it working quite easily. It installs for me off of the SD card. I remove the card, and it says to reboot, so I hold the power off button, then turn it back on to a black screen..
Can someone please help ASAP? Christmas is tomorrow and it's for my sister. ):

[gymophett]

Okay, I can't get Android on it, but does anyone have the WinCE link?
I am looking through this thread but have yet to find it.

[murr4y]

Does anyone know if you can install Linux/Android on those netbooks with the "mw8505" processor with 600mhz?
I actually don't know if that's a typo there but there seem to be some tablets with that processor.

[agashka]

Hey guys I've been trying to get Android working on my EasyPC E700 (ARM926 - WM VT8500) I've downloaded the package from page 66, copied the script folder to the FAT formatted SD card, but once I start my netbook, it hangs to the "Windows CE loading" screen. Any tips to get rid of WIN CE asap?

[banderkin80]

I have 8505 device with WinCE 6 with spanish language inside and this is terrible!!!
I think so. There is only one problem with installing Android on ours 7'' devices. After the inserting SD card with script we have nothing (all instructions at https://sites.google.com/site/gyplac...dia-wm8505-and done), just WinCE loading. Tell me, for dummy russian guy who solved this???!!! And sorry 4 my english

[plymouthHemi]

Hi everybody.

I have a mini netbook too, same as mentioned on this thread.
When i working to installation Debian Armel, I erased u-boot part on serial flash (EEON F40-100GCP). Device doesn't boot any more. But when i connect with serial port, i can see w-loader result messages. Here is the w-load output:

WonderMedia Technologies, Inc.
W-Load Version : 0.17.00.00
ethaddr............found

That's all folks

Few month ago, I saw an article and picture about jtag-port for vt8505. But i can not find again.
Does anyone know where is the jtag pins? Does anyone have experience to use jtag on that?

Thanks ~ Fatih.

[banderkin80]

Also one thing that I found out on my machine, was a neat little program called SerialView.exe It is located in the C:\Windows folder. It shows a lot of information about your machine. That is how I found out that Benign was the maker of the board that is in my machine...without opening it up.

I had not this file in windows folder, but i copied it from one of the images from net. i'm starting it and saw the blank window without any info about system

[WendyB]

I personally use the in-kernel driver (rt2800usb). It behaves quite strangely, but still it is somewhat usable (at least it authenticates fine, and with some patience you can download stuff over the link).

rt3070 from Ralink site is in bad shape. Its equivalent in staging is at least cleaned up a bit by the community, but still it breaks every now and then with new changes to the rest of the kernel, so I gave up on that.

PS You may also wish to try out compat-wireless, as there are some massive improvements scheduled for 2.6.38, which are not part of the kernel sources at Gitorious.

I have tried all of your options. The in-kernel 3070sta driver doesn't support wpa_supplicant or iwpriv
the 2x00usb drivers don't work at all.
so I ended up again with the Ralink driver from the manufacturer.

It all seems to be memory related. I have cleaned up the system from unneeded services (like consolekit, networkmanager and policykit) and completely uninstalled networkmanager en wpa_supplicant. now it works quite reliable.

Before, when I did this:
ifconfig ra0 up
I got this in syslog:

Dec 27 22:42:10 easypc rc-scripts: net.ra0 is not allowed to be hotplugged
Dec 27 22:42:23 easypc klogd: Allocate 8192 memory for BA reordering
Dec 27 22:42:23 easypc klogd: MAC_CSR0  [ Ver:Rev=0x30700201]
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: <=== RtmpAsicLoadFirmware (status=0)
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: --> RTMPAllocTxRxRingMemory
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: --> NICInitTransmit
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: ifconfig: page allocation failure. order:6, mode:0x20
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<c002f7f8>] (unwind_backtrace+0x0/0xf4) from [<c0086aec>] (__alloc_pages_nodemask+0x4dc/0x59c)
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<c0086aec>] (__alloc_pages_nodemask+0x4dc/0x59c) from [<c0030250>] (__dma_alloc+0x88/0x27c)
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<c0030250>] (__dma_alloc+0x88/0x27c) from [<c00304c0>] (dma_alloc_coherent+0x50/0x5c)
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<c00304c0>] (dma_alloc_coherent+0x50/0x5c) from [<bf344e04>] (RTMPAllocUsbBulkBufStruct+0x44/0xb0 [rt3370sta])
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<bf344e04>] (RTMPAllocUsbBulkBufStruct+0x44/0xb0 [rt3370sta]) from [<bf344f1c>] (NICInitTransmit+0xac/0x4f8 [rt3370sta])
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<bf344f1c>] (NICInitTransmit+0xac/0x4f8 [rt3370sta]) from [<bf3454fc>] (RTMPAllocTxRxRingMemory+0x40/0xc8 [rt3370sta])
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<bf3454fc>] (RTMPAllocTxRxRingMemory+0x40/0xc8 [rt3370sta]) from [<bf333964>] (rt28xx_init+0xe4/0x610 [rt3370sta])
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<bf333964>] (rt28xx_init+0xe4/0x610 [rt3370sta]) from [<bf340e78>] (rt28xx_open+0x3c/0xe4 [rt3370sta])
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<bf340e78>] (rt28xx_open+0x3c/0xe4 [rt3370sta]) from [<bf341250>] (MainVirtualIF_open+0xec/0x160 [rt3370sta])
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<bf341250>] (MainVirtualIF_open+0xec/0x160 [rt3370sta]) from [<c0247098>] (__dev_open+0xb0/0x100)
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<c0247098>] (__dev_open+0xb0/0x100) from [<c0243b5c>] (__dev_change_flags+0x78/0x13c)
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<c0243b5c>] (__dev_change_flags+0x78/0x13c) from [<c0246fb0>] (dev_change_flags+0x10/0x48)
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<c0246fb0>] (dev_change_flags+0x10/0x48) from [<c029895c>] (devinet_ioctl+0x6e0/0x7c0)
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<c029895c>] (devinet_ioctl+0x6e0/0x7c0) from [<c02335fc>] (sock_ioctl+0x74/0x26c)
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<c02335fc>] (sock_ioctl+0x74/0x26c) from [<c00bd178>] (do_vfs_ioctl+0x7c/0x62c)
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<c00bd178>] (do_vfs_ioctl+0x7c/0x62c) from [<c00bd760>] (sys_ioctl+0x38/0x60)
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: [<c00bd760>] (sys_ioctl+0x38/0x60) from [<c0029dc0>] (ret_fast_syscall+0x0/0x2c)
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: Mem-info:
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: Normal per-cpu:
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: CPU    0: hi:   18, btch:   3 usd:  17
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: active_anon:59 inactive_anon:687 isolated_anon:2
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd:  active_file:1268 inactive_file:2775 isolated_file:24
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd:  unevictable:0 dirty:13 writeback:20 unstable:0
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd:  free:6745 slab_reclaimable:353 slab_unreclaimable:935
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd:  mapped:644 shmem:1 pagetables:121 bounce:0
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: Normal free:26980kB min:1016kB low:1268kB high:1524kB active_anon:236kB inactive_anon:2748kB active_file:5072kB inactive_file:11100kB unevictable:0kB isolated(anon):8kB isolated(file):96kB present:65024kB mlocked:0kB dirty:52kB writeback:80kB mapped:2576kB shmem:4kB slab_reclaimable:1412kB slab_unreclaimable:3740kB kernel_stack:928kB pagetables:484kB unstable:0kB bounce:0kB writeback_tmp:0kB pages_scanned:26 all_unreclaimable? no
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: lowmem_reserve[]: 0 0
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: Normal: 1961*4kB 1112*8kB 322*16kB 57*32kB 15*64kB 16*128kB 1*256kB 0*512kB 0*1024kB 0*2048kB 0*4096kB = 26980kB
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: 4518 total pagecache pages
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: 463 pages in swap cache
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: Swap cache stats: add 19659, delete 19196, find 5580/7864
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: Free swap  = 98516kB
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: Total swap = 102396kB
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: 16384 pages of RAM
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: 7011 free pages
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: 2147 reserved pages
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: 1288 slab pages
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: 1742 pages shared
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: 460 pages swap cached
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: <-- ERROR in Alloc Bulk buffer for HTTxContext!
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: <-- RTMPAllocTxRxRingMemory, Status=3
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: ERROR!!! RTMPAllocTxRxMemory failed, Status[=0x00000003]
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: ---> RTMPFreeTxRxRingMemory
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: <--- RTMPFreeTxRxRingMemory
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: !!! rt28xx Initialized fail !!!
Dec 27 22:42:24 easypc klogd: rt28xx_open return fail!

[BrooksEakin]

So, I have tried to install numerous operating systems on my WM8508 machine, and all have been unsuccessful.

Debian: can't find extpart.tgz (and yes, I tried Abrasive's suggestion in post #720. When I try "mount /dev/mtdblock9 /mnt/mtd" I'm given an error message saying that mtdblock9 doesn't exist)

Android: numerous builds, when it says to remove SD card and reboot, I am rebooted to a blank screen.

WinCE: the "system disk no existed!" error

It's possible that I've done something wrong here, but I've been at this for days with numerous SD cards, and I've still had no luck. Is there any really obvious thing I've just been messing up all this time, or is it possible that I have a defective machine?