I had been frustrated for years with the dire support for connecting mobile phones (cellphones..) on Linux. Bluetooth support to phones was patchy, to say the least, and has been completely re-written for KDE, but still has very limited functionality.. I can (just about) connect to my Samsung Android phone, but can only transfer files to the … Continue reading →
The availability of additional kernel code – and functionality – is good news, but the APC kernel version is still a relative antique.. 2.6.32.9 is over 2 years old, now, and the latest ‘mainstream’ Linux kernel is 3.5.4, and 3.6 will soon be released… Assuming the focus is still on Android, then an update to Android 4.1 … Continue reading →
First we had ‘EFI Secure Boot‘ limited to Microsoft control, and now Intel and AMD have both – somewhat coincidentally – announced that their new tablet-focussed CPUs – ‘Clover Trail‘ and ‘Hondo‘ respectively – will be ‘Windows 8 Only’, with Intel even going so far to state categorically that ‘Linux will not be supported’.. I can only … Continue reading →
Still trying to find a way round the ‘always boot to rom’ conundrum, and the results of my latest test are not looking too positive.. Instead of running the various parameters in the U-Boot environment, I entered the basic commands by hand: WMT # usb reset (Re)start USB… wmt.usb.param: 11:3 usb select port D scanning bus for … Continue reading →
On the hunch that there may be something within the U-Boot parameters that causes the boot-to-ram problem, I removed almost all the ‘wmt.xxx‘ parameters. The only one remaining was wmt.usb.param=11:3, which enables the USB subsystem – as I was booting from a USB-attached ‘disk’.. You can effectively ‘remove’ U-Boot parameters by setting their values to <blank>: setenv … Continue reading →
My goal is to have a ‘standard’ flavour of Linux (in my case – Fedora) running on the APC, and one of the major pre-requisites was to have the system boot from the micro-SD card, instead of the internal ‘flash memory’.. Looking at all the U-Boot parameters, I had expected this to be a real pain, but … Continue reading →
Starting to ‘explore’ the system, and it looks very different from the typical Linux system I have been used to since 1997.. The base directory structure is different, with many ‘additions’.. This is probably standard for Android, but not what I am accustomed to! I decided to format a (micro) SD card, and insert it, as this … Continue reading →
The APC(s) have finally arrived, after payment of ransom and ‘fees’ to the appropriate revenue authorities, and shipping organisations.. As expected, this is a typical Android 2.3 system, with a Linux heart, but many proprietary drivers and scripts, and reduced Linux command functionality.. I connected a USB/UART serial converter, and – so far – have a root … Continue reading →
As the complete source code for the APC is still unavailable, and it seems that the ‘standard’ Android OS on the device does not include some sort of console, the only way to get control (at least of the boot process) would appear to be by using the UART port on the board, and a pinout / … Continue reading →
As the APCs are still ‘awaiting customs clearance’, I decided to try to cross-compile the kernel source available at github: https://github.com/apc-io/apc-8750 Unfortunately, many of the APC-specific drivers (‘wmt’) are currently missing.. The system is an Android 2.3 one, and the kernel is based – as you would expect – on Linux kernel version 2.6.32. (In this case … Continue reading →