open handheld on arm processor, a.k.a. xscale

second_exodous

Ok, I got the book Hacking Video Game Consoles by Benjamin Heckendorn, the book that shows you how to turn old NES's and PSone's into portables, and thought "why not make a case like he does (CNC cutting machine) to house a gumstick/expansions, LCD, and whatever means of d-pad and make a handheld Linux video game console?"

The graphics would lack with current gumstix expansions, but who knows, maybe they'll release an expansion with a nVidia goForce if enough people make a open protable with their hardware. In it's current state however it could do game emulators, gaim, and web browsing, and of corse everything non graphical. I looked into running a LCD off of it, seems possible, the xscale chip has an lcd controller right on it, so if you have the specs for the LCD you're using then there isn't a need for a separate control board, saving space and battery power.

I'm not much of a programmer, is there any projects that deal with getting a system on a gumstix? I want a basic gui to do chat, maybe web browsing, and emulators. I asked on the gumstix forum, and even though it has lots of graphical capabilities all they are interested in doing is clustering them and sewing them into their cloths.

I'm not successfully with Linux at all, gentoo is the first distro that I was able to get enough working for me to dump windows. I want to use gentoo on this, but maybe I'll need to do this with their Linux first, get enough people interested, and maybe Gentoo will follow?

Anyone else thinks this sounds interesting and want to get the gumstix stuff along with me to try? Make a community around it, 'The frist open linux handheld'? I'm going to have a basic CNC cut box made with just a ethernet port for internet and a USB connector for input just to get it working, then go over board and ad wifi and everything else later. I think I'm going to use the LCD in Ben's Phoenix portable, pricy but 3.5" and comes with a small(emphesise on small) contorler board if forwhatever reason the gumstix can't control it.

Did anyone hear about the Gizmondo? We couldn't do GPS or the graphics(yet) but we could make a handheld that's open. Well, give people the option to make one. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have linked to the specs of it, but the processor will be better on a Gumstix. I would rather have it open to where I could do what I want with it.

Wow, I didn't link Gumstix, they are amazing little computers, I'm going to start with a 'waysmall'.

Thanx,
Stan

slugworth · Apprentice Joined: 21 Aug 2004 Posts: 189

You are one brave man...

second_exodous · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 5:33 pm Post subject:

Eh, I guess if I do it and show people, maybe others will follow.

Thanx,
Stan

stillbourne · n00b Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Posts: 33 Location: Denver, CO

See I was thinking about doing something similiar. What I was planning on doing is making a thin client with a 7.4 inch touchscreen and run openembedded and opie on it. I purchaced a cfstix which make it more versitial. the lcd panel I was looking into is http://store.earthlcd.com/s.nl/sc.7/category.39/it.A/id.1027/.f I was also planning on getting a cfstix because I found and interesting cf controller with a usb host controller!!! http://www.ratocsystems.com/english/products/subpages/cfu1u.html as far as building the software for it I don't think it will be that hard as I would think it would be. I have done a couple of embedded linux projects before but don't know about embbeded gentoo. I would almost think that would be masichism. anyways keep me uptodate.
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NeddySeagoon · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 5:44 pm Post subject:

second_exodous,

Have a look at familiar at familliar.org, it runs on xscale, drives an LCD and has an X server too.
Its in my iPaq in place of PocketPC
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stillbourne · n00b Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Posts: 33 Location: Denver, CO

whats the fun in that

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second_exodous · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 2:34 am Post subject:

stillbourne:

Wow, 7.8 is a big screen, I was thinking more of a smaller handheld. 3.5 even seems a little big to me, I originally tried to look for one that's about the size of a GBA or SP, 3", but this one has a controller board if for some reason I couldn't get the gumstix to run it. I do like the idea of a touchscreen though, I looked into handwriting recognition, and couldn't find any good open source programs, and very few (two I think) that ran on Linux. It would greatly improve the navigation however.

Open embedded looks really interesting, but what is 'opile'? I googled but didn't find anything relevant.

You mentioned you got the cfstix twice, did you mean you have a waysmall or a gumstix connex? I'm guessing you have a gumstix connex since you're going to get a cfstix for the cf to usb card. Instead of getting a cfstix for usb why not get another expansion with USB on it? I don't like how the waysmall doesn't have a 92-pin connector, just the 60, it would make things a lot easier if the waysmall had a 92 on it.

I'm actually going to make a PSone portable before I get into this, see how the CNC case goes, hacking LCD's, kinda like a basic handheld 101 for me. I have everything for the PSone protable and will start that this weekend or early next week, then I'll purcase from gumstix.

What are you going to use your tink client for? I was thinking of making a carputer. In the car it would power my music and gps, and detached it would be a, well, thin client. This would prevent theft of a large LCD screen in a car also. I was looking at the pepperpc for this purpose, but a bit pricey. I've since forgot about this, maybe I'll make my own thin client now that I found out about gumstix computers.

NeddySeagoon:

Did you post that link correctly? I can't get it to work.

Thanx,
Stan

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 1:05 pm Post subject:

second_exodous,

No, I got it badly wrong. Sorry about that - this will answer your Opie questions too.
http://www.handhelds.org/
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Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

stillbourne · n00b Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Posts: 33 Location: Denver, CO

second_exodus:
7.4 is a decent screen size for a thin client as 3.5 would be good for a pda. I'm not interested in building a pda I know that can be done. As for opie NeddySeagoon provided a link to where you can find that information. Handwriting isn't importanat to me as long as I can get graffiti to work with it. As for the gumstix I have a connex platform and a waysmall on there way. They have not arived yet. I already hav eall my tools built to load the flash I would like to on it and I'm getting ready to order the usb host cf card and lcd screen tommorow. As for the usb modules for the gumstix platform all of there are client side none of them are usb host controllers which is what I need. That is why I need the usb cf host adapter. Anyways I'm off to church it being Easter Sunday and all.
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z3ro · Apprentice Joined: 16 Jun 2004 Posts: 261

I have always wanted to build an embedded system which would run Linux too - actually design the hardware so I could include exactly what I want without extra unnecessary hardware. I recently found the LART, which is a small modular embedded platform that has schematics available in PDF format, so you would probably have to copy them manually into a schematic editor if you wanted to modify them...

Perhaps some of the information on the LART web-site will be helpful to you. They managed to get an LCD connected and running with it.

On a side note: does anyone know of some good, open-source schematic and printed circuit board design software for Linux? I've also been looking for a book or project log documentation making a small embedded platform from scratch, but I have not found anything yet. I guess it is a pretty specialised area.

triplah · n00b Joined: 11 Mar 2005 Posts: 30

I know this is bumping an old thread, but it has to be done

Has anyone thought about gentoo on gumstix anymore? I'm thinking of buying a waysmall to muck around with some development. Of particular interest to me is the bluetooth capabilities.

I'd definatly like to help with getting gentoo onto these things.

Meico · n00b Joined: 06 Jun 2005 Posts: 54 Location: Iowa

Another bump for an old thread. I am also looking into putting gentoo onto one of these. Is there a wiki with this in mind. I am saveing right now for this. I plan on buying gumstix connex 400-bt http://www.gumstix.com/spexboards.html
I want to hook it up with a 3-4 inch touch screen. Useing the audiostix and the netCF boards and setting up a carcomputer. I have a ford focus and there is a nice pannel in the celing about four inches back from where the rear view mirror is attached. I have been dieing to set up a small computer in there.....

zefrer · n00b Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 16

This seems like a good experiment, granted most applications wouldn't work since they need to be cross-compiled for XScale(instructions on their wiki) but since you can change mostly everything on it you could go about much the same way you would go about starting a stage1 install. Compile it, scp compiled version on the flash drive etc.

Jinidog · Guru Joined: 26 Nov 2003 Posts: 593 Location: Berlin

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_setup_gentoo_on_a_pda_or_embedded_system

Contact us if interested
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firemoth · n00b Joined: 28 Nov 2005 Posts: 3

Im glad to see some other people are trying to finagle something usefull out of the gumstix.. has anyone had any luck getting nanoX or anything working on it? I can compile my own (simple) programs on it, but trying to use make seems to be almost impossible. I can harrang it into making the object files, but it always fails the linking. on another note the xscale's lack of an FPU makes programs that require one *very* slow.
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linuxguy · n00b Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Posts: 7

Hagra · n00b Joined: 24 Jun 2004 Posts: 74

I have been working on a gentoo port for the gumstix for a few months.

I have found a few problems which portage people have helped me with. However, I have hit a major stumbling block when it came to cross-compiling libraries. I've posed numerous times on the Gentoo-Embedded mailing list asking for some direction on how things should work and been ignored each time. I've now switched my attention to developing an OpenEmbedded port instead, which I must admit I have not progressed so much on. Craig Hughes over at Gumstix has been quite supportive of the project as he is currently looking for a replacement for buildroot (which, if you follow the gumstix mailing list at all, is getting to be a pain to support). If the gentoo port worked well it's entirely possible that the next-gen gumstix (based on a PXA270) would run gentoo out of the box. This has certainly been discussed on the Gumstix mailing list.

If anyone wants to pick up the Gentoo port where I left off, let me know and I'll e-mail the profile & config-root I was working on. Having said that, I may post my mailing-list questions to the forums as the I suspect I'll actually get a response. I was getting pretty close to a bootable image, so I guess it's a shame to drop it all together. I'm quite willing to put in the time to get a port out of the door, I just need a few policy-type questions answered first.

Hagra · n00b Joined: 24 Jun 2004 Posts: 74

Ok, I've checked and I have already posted this library question here in "Gentoo on Alternative Architectures". I've re-posted in Portage & Programming. Hopefully I'll get a response, maybe even an answer.