linux distro on wm8850
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lee jones
Apr 6, 2014, 12:14:50 PM4/6/14
to vt8500-wm8505...@googlegroups.com
Hello all :-) !
I must confess I'm really not 100% sure how to go about doing this. Though from what I have read elsewhere online (eg linuxquestions, here ) it appears possible that a linux distro can be run successfully on the wm8850. BTW My wm8850 based device is one of those cheapo chinese units -- underneath it says it is using a WM8850 CPU @ 1.25Ghz, 800x480 display and 512MB ram. I do not know how large the flash ram is on this device unfortunatly.
BTW you can see a picture of the device I'm taking about here.
I understand that what I need to do is the following;
- Get some sort of arm based distro (e.g. slackware arm ) . Make two partitions on an SD card (eg an 8 GB card); the first small partition (e.g. 100MB) as FAT32, the rest ext3.
- Get some sort of WM8850 compatible kernel (Wikipedia states that the WM8850 is an armv7 device) .
- Run mkimage on a linux box to create an image file and script. Put these files onto the 100MB partition. (what should these files be called btw?)
- Try to boot!
Only snag is I'm finding there's precious little information on how to do this! There's not even any generic wm8850 or wm-based device distro about. One or two places online I've seen link to large files which claim to work but often lead onto spammy "download" websites x.x .
What I'm trying to work out is which kernel to use and how to create the images and scripts needed. Looking again at slackware arm I'm finding it has 3 kernels, labelled as kirkwood, versatile and tegra. I am not sure but they do not seem to be armv7 specific at all (can they be used on a WM8850 at all?). Also I read that the WM8850 uses the mali 400 chipset for graphics/video so I'm not really expecting graphics/video to work all that well as there are no drivers for that chipset ready at present (though this is making inroads!).
Can anyone help on this at all, a bit "lost in the dark" so to speak on this one!
ljones
I must confess I'm really not 100% sure how to go about doing this. Though from what I have read elsewhere online (eg linuxquestions, here ) it appears possible that a linux distro can be run successfully on the wm8850. BTW My wm8850 based device is one of those cheapo chinese units -- underneath it says it is using a WM8850 CPU @ 1.25Ghz, 800x480 display and 512MB ram. I do not know how large the flash ram is on this device unfortunatly.
BTW you can see a picture of the device I'm taking about here.
I understand that what I need to do is the following;
- Get some sort of arm based distro (e.g. slackware arm ) . Make two partitions on an SD card (eg an 8 GB card); the first small partition (e.g. 100MB) as FAT32, the rest ext3.
- Get some sort of WM8850 compatible kernel (Wikipedia states that the WM8850 is an armv7 device) .
- Run mkimage on a linux box to create an image file and script. Put these files onto the 100MB partition. (what should these files be called btw?)
- Try to boot!
Only snag is I'm finding there's precious little information on how to do this! There's not even any generic wm8850 or wm-based device distro about. One or two places online I've seen link to large files which claim to work but often lead onto spammy "download" websites x.x .
What I'm trying to work out is which kernel to use and how to create the images and scripts needed. Looking again at slackware arm I'm finding it has 3 kernels, labelled as kirkwood, versatile and tegra. I am not sure but they do not seem to be armv7 specific at all (can they be used on a WM8850 at all?). Also I read that the WM8850 uses the mali 400 chipset for graphics/video so I'm not really expecting graphics/video to work all that well as there are no drivers for that chipset ready at present (though this is making inroads!).
Can anyone help on this at all, a bit "lost in the dark" so to speak on this one!
ljones
lautriv
Apr 6, 2014, 2:42:54 PM4/6/14
to vt8500-wm8505...@googlegroups.com
It is in progress but not that easy you imagine.
The main purpose of the kernel is to control underlying hardware where the wondermedia entirely lacks on documentation.
For the userland this problem is rather trivial since it is mainly software which has a common base ( armhf in this case )
The whole vtwm project is nothing else the attempt to get the vt/wm8xxx SoCs to work where most parts must be found by
trial and error or some rotten code from the fork. Tony and Alexey did already a good job but none of them owns a crystal-ball
and for the 8850 is not even a block-diagram available like it is for e.g. 8505,8650,8750...
Actually the 8850 is "somewhat" working but has rough edges where you are welcome to help.
The main purpose of the kernel is to control underlying hardware where the wondermedia entirely lacks on documentation.
For the userland this problem is rather trivial since it is mainly software which has a common base ( armhf in this case )
The whole vtwm project is nothing else the attempt to get the vt/wm8xxx SoCs to work where most parts must be found by
trial and error or some rotten code from the fork. Tony and Alexey did already a good job but none of them owns a crystal-ball
and for the 8850 is not even a block-diagram available like it is for e.g. 8505,8650,8750...
Actually the 8850 is "somewhat" working but has rough edges where you are welcome to help.
Ivan Krylov
Apr 6, 2014, 2:23:38 PM4/6/14
to vt8500-wm8505...@googlegroups.com, slot...@gmail.com
Hi!
> it appears possible that a linux distro can be run successfully on the
> wm8850. BTW My wm8850 based device is one of those cheapo chinese units
> -- underneath it says it is using a WM8850 CPU @ 1.25Ghz, 800x480
> display and 512MB ram. I do not know how large the flash ram is on this
> device unfortunatly.
>
> BTW you can see a picture of the device I'm taking about here.
> <http://slothpuck.no-ip.org/tmp/wm8850netbook.jpg>
I have a similar device. It looks nearly the same, but it's black and
has 1G of RAM and 4G of flash memory.
> - Get some sort of arm based distro (e.g. slackware arm
> <about:invalid#zClosurez> ) . Make two partitions on an SD card (eg an 8
> Only snag is I'm finding there's precious little information on how to
> do this! There's not even any generic wm8850 or wm-based device distro
> about. One or two places online I've seen link to large files which
> claim to work but often lead onto spammy "download" websites x.x .
There are two kernels avaliable for WM8850: wondermedia's "3.0.8+"
<https://github.com/wondermedia/wm8850> with a lot of kludges (they
emulate a PCI bus to make theit drivers work without a real PCI bus) and
community-developed 3.x <https://github.com/linux-wmt/linux-vtwm>.
The former didn't work quite well for me, so I built the latter and am
using it now (though not as a netbook, but as a server).
> What I'm trying to work out is which kernel to use and how to create the
> images and scripts needed. Looking again at slackware arm I'm finding it
> has 3 kernels, labelled as kirkwood, versatile and tegra.
> <about:invalid#zClosurez> I am not sure but they do not seem to be armv7
These are the instructions on how to configure the kernel for WM8850
device: <https://github.com/linux-wmt/linux-vtwm/wiki/Build-the-source>.
Framebuffer graphics work, you can start X, but no hardware acceleration
is available, AFAIK. Sound does not work, either. Ethernet can be set up
to work, Wi-Fi works OK after you enable the right GPIO.
> Can anyone help on this at all, a bit "lost in the dark" so to speak on
> this one!
After you build the kernel, set up the bootable partition
<https://github.com/linux-wmt/linux-vtwm/wiki/Boot-from-sd-card> and
obtain a valid ARM rootfs. I used `debootstrap --arch=armhf --foreign
wheezy /mnt/root` to obtain a Debian Wheezy installation. Make sure that
your kernel works by booting with init=/bin/bash (don't forget to
compile in SD drivers and your filesystem driver; also rootwait kernel
parameter might be needed), complete your installation
(`/debootstrap/debootstrap --second-stage` in my case) and install
packages you want.
Good luck!
> it appears possible that a linux distro can be run successfully on the
> wm8850. BTW My wm8850 based device is one of those cheapo chinese units
> -- underneath it says it is using a WM8850 CPU @ 1.25Ghz, 800x480
> display and 512MB ram. I do not know how large the flash ram is on this
> device unfortunatly.
>
> BTW you can see a picture of the device I'm taking about here.
I have a similar device. It looks nearly the same, but it's black and
has 1G of RAM and 4G of flash memory.
> - Get some sort of arm based distro (e.g. slackware arm
> GB card); the first small partition (e.g. 100MB) as FAT32, the rest ext3.
> - Get some sort of WM8850 compatible kernel (Wikipedia states that the
> WM8850 is an armv7 device) .
> - Run mkimage on a linux box to create an image file and script. Put
> these files onto the 100MB partition. (what should these files be called
> btw?)
> - Try to boot!
You are right, these are the steps you need to do.
> - Get some sort of WM8850 compatible kernel (Wikipedia states that the
> WM8850 is an armv7 device) .
> - Run mkimage on a linux box to create an image file and script. Put
> these files onto the 100MB partition. (what should these files be called
> btw?)
> - Try to boot!
> Only snag is I'm finding there's precious little information on how to
> do this! There's not even any generic wm8850 or wm-based device distro
> about. One or two places online I've seen link to large files which
> claim to work but often lead onto spammy "download" websites x.x .
<https://github.com/wondermedia/wm8850> with a lot of kludges (they
emulate a PCI bus to make theit drivers work without a real PCI bus) and
community-developed 3.x <https://github.com/linux-wmt/linux-vtwm>.
The former didn't work quite well for me, so I built the latter and am
using it now (though not as a netbook, but as a server).
> What I'm trying to work out is which kernel to use and how to create the
> images and scripts needed. Looking again at slackware arm I'm finding it
> has 3 kernels, labelled as kirkwood, versatile and tegra.
> specific at all (can they be used on a WM8850 at all?). Also I read that
> the WM8850 uses the mali 400 chipset for graphics/video so I'm not
> really expecting graphics/video to work all that well as there are no
> drivers for that chipset ready at present (though this
> <http://limadriver.org/> is making inroads!).
> the WM8850 uses the mali 400 chipset for graphics/video so I'm not
> really expecting graphics/video to work all that well as there are no
> drivers for that chipset ready at present (though this
These are the instructions on how to configure the kernel for WM8850
device: <https://github.com/linux-wmt/linux-vtwm/wiki/Build-the-source>.
Framebuffer graphics work, you can start X, but no hardware acceleration
is available, AFAIK. Sound does not work, either. Ethernet can be set up
to work, Wi-Fi works OK after you enable the right GPIO.
> Can anyone help on this at all, a bit "lost in the dark" so to speak on
> this one!
<https://github.com/linux-wmt/linux-vtwm/wiki/Boot-from-sd-card> and
obtain a valid ARM rootfs. I used `debootstrap --arch=armhf --foreign
wheezy /mnt/root` to obtain a Debian Wheezy installation. Make sure that
your kernel works by booting with init=/bin/bash (don't forget to
compile in SD drivers and your filesystem driver; also rootwait kernel
parameter might be needed), complete your installation
(`/debootstrap/debootstrap --second-stage` in my case) and install
packages you want.
Good luck!
lee jones
Jun 16, 2014, 1:49:28 PM6/16/14
to vt8500-wm8505...@googlegroups.com
Still not really very sure where to start with all this btw :-( pity no sd card image exists! I did see this ( https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/vt8500-wm8505-linux-kernel/rWjZu4PWmiM ) though unfortunatly debian jessie (that's the linux distro I'm using) cross-compiling for arm dosen't appear to be ready x.x
ljones
ljones
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