dingoo-scene

Over at Booboo's forum, there is news, all good: * new Kernels to solve the alternative LCD controller problems posted on Google Code * Dual boot making excellent progress; information on Google Code as well Go Booboo! Click here to learn more!

This is a pivotal time for the Dingoo and Linux. Booboo was kind enough to spare some time and answer some questions for the community.   > Hi Booboo! Hi Larry! > The release of the your Linux kernel has created a lot of buzz. How does this make you feel? Great!. Really great. I'm not the love-lots-of-attention kind of person, but it's extremely rewarding to receive acknowledgement for your effort and encouragement to go on. > So, are things at this stage, going as you hoped with Linux? Yes. As soon as a working kernel/rootfs became available a bunch of coders started playing around with it. > Now, some people have compiled apps. ezelkow1 is working on the toolchain. Do you know of anything else going on in development world which you are excited about? Not really. That's pretty much everything we need for the final user: ...

Happy days! Booboo writes: A quick news flash: looks like my framebuffer code for the newer A320 works , so we can say all known A320 hardware variants are supported. I'll go the easy way and will be releasing one kernel binary image for each A320 variant, until I get my hands on one of the newer A320 and can implement and test the LCD model detection/selection. Read more on Booboo’s blog .

Booboo has confirmed the following: Looks like the latest A320s do have a different LCD controller. The unbricker tool doesn't work and the current kernel doesn't support it, though I think I have found a way to solve this. As I was thinking of opening a blog too to post linux-on-the-a320 specific progress reports, I've done it and posted instructions to dump the first chunk of the A320 internal NAND flash. The LCD initialization code needed for the unbricking tool and for making the linux framebuffer work is there, so all I need is that someone with one of the newest A320 send me the flash dump. Then I will reverse engineer the LCD initialization sequence as I did before. The bad part is that either it works at the first try or it won't work until I can get hold of one of the A320 with the new LCD. So I placed a donat...

Booboo has updated his linux kernel. Get it here: http://code.google.com/p/dingoo-linux/downloads/detail?name=zImage-200905030&can=2&q= The label says this: Linux kernel, fixed 8 bit sound mode, keymap changed to mimic GP2X . From the Spanish GP2x forums: The problem with the audio one in 8 bits. Booboo: I finish correcting it. The code of driver of sound OSS gives miedito. It does not arrive nor at alpha. Ominous quality, shoddy work and errors by a acojonante tube…. Also I have changed the one of the keyboard. Now soon I hang in google code new a binary one of kernel (the code in repositorio svn, obvious). You could verify that the keyboard map now is correct. Please good test the subject of the sound because it has been hung to me once. Only one, and I has not returned to happen, but you observe any rare thing, I occurred it. Another thing: you could try what so the gain control works. It is only...

Booboo sent me the following; thanks Booboo: Boboo: I think I can add some clarification to the toolchain concept. Your post is not technically wrong but is a bit misleading. In a programming context a toolchain is the group of tools needed to write a program. If the program is interpreted (Python for example) the toolchain would include a simple text editor used to create the program and the runtime environment (the Python interpreter and libraries) for the target system. If the program is compiled (C, C++), the toolchain usuarrly refers only to the compiler, linker, some other auxiliary tools and a minimal set of libraries needed to build basic programs (libc in linux). Toolchains can be "native" or "cross". A toolchain "native" runs in one platform and produces code for the SAME platform. This is the ca...

There are simply not enough dingoo forums around, of course, so I’ve set up another one, in response to a discussion thread on the Spanish GP2x Boards, where they asked for a dedicated Booboo Linux forum site. Welcome all to forum.dingoo-scene.com ! At the moment, it’s about as busy as a one legged man at a bum kicking contest.  However, I’m hoping it won’t be too long before guys like these appear: There is only one forum on it at the moment – but feel free to let me know how else we can help.

Another pulse racing video!: However, Booboo would like to clarify as follows: "It's not going to be a "release" understood as a more or less finished work. It's just a way of saying that I will be posting all the information and all the work I've done. In fact, I just haven't done it before because I was too busy and so excited that I didn't want to lose time organizing and publishing the info. Now that all the basics are working, I've reached a milestone where people can actually program under dingoo linux, and it's time to dedicate some effort to publish all the info, so others can advance in parallel with me towards a full firmware replacement. Once what I have now is available to anyone, I intend to: 1- Make dual boot work. 2- Complete hardware support. Dual boot is not necessary for programmers (which can develop using USB boot) but is for users, so it will be soon required after programmers start releasing programs for dingoo linux. So,...

Booboo says: Status update: - video + sound + keyboard working. - SDL working, madplay working (20% CPU with a 192Kbps stereo MP3). Have a look: More very very soon: Booboo intends to post it all on Google code. Watch out for it!

From the Spanish GP2x forums (untranslated link here ), it’s clear Booboo hasn’t been idle this Friday night: Hello, I finish implementing the keyboard and what I have done it is not to warm up the head to me and to use the mapeo of keyboard of the SNES9X: D-DAP: you shoot with an arrow Button A: “d” Button B: “c” Button X: “s” Button and: “x” Button left shoulder: “to” Button right shoulder: “z” START: to enter SELECT: space If somebody has some better suggestion, please it says than it. For the subject of the volume of audio and the retroiluminación of the screen me a pair of things has been happened and also it would want to hear commentaries: In both cases his it is to implement these functions in drivers corresponding. This is very well for a system of escritiorio but it seems to me that very it is not adapted for the...

Here’s an excruciatingly exciting update from Booboo on Linux: Status update: Sound is working. Turns out that the ALSA support in the Ingenic kernel just doesn't work. OSS does, though the implementation is a bit buggy the sound quality is not affected as far as I know. I just need to get the keys working and we'll have miniSD + video + sound + keys, just enough to play emulators and other apps, as long as one doesn't mind booting into linux just for that and resetting when finished to get back to the original firmware. Using linux as a full blown firmware substitute won't be possible until the rest of the hardware is supported. Key support is trivial and I'm sure I'll get it working this weekend. At the moment the only way to boot linux is by using the USB boot mode, so a host PC is required. As you know...

Booboo explains about the challenges of getting Linux to dualboot below.  Hello, I am trying to obtain the dual boot. On ccpmp.bin I know that: 1 - Load in 0x80004000. 2 - The size of data to load is in the second DWORD. 3 - Once loaded, loader 0x80004008 jumps to the position. Ccpmp.bin complete occupies 5MB, but only a little more 2MB is occupied. The rest is free to put what we want, although will be only loaded if DWORD modifies suitably secondly. I have verified that putting 0x00500000 (=5MB) in the second DWORD everything continues working correctly. The strategy is: 1 - To carry u-boot and to form it so that carge kernel and root filesystem of miniSD. This already is done and works perfectly if position directly this u-boot in memory I execute and it. 2 - To modify u-boot so that their direction of load is 0x80404000 (0x80004000 + 4MB). 3 - “To inlay” u-boot in offset +4M of the file, which would be equivalent to once loaded in mem...