[clug] Linux on Palm

[Alex Osborne]

Hey Fred,

On 15/09/2008, at 12:34 PM, Pilcher, Fred wrote:
>
> There are lots of references on the web about installing Linux on the
> T3, but they're generally either a couple of years old, in Spanish,
> and/or far beyond my technical expertise.
>

http://hackndev.com/ is the main site for the palm ports.  Although  
most of the developers don't speak english as a first language and  
just work on this out of personal interest so haven't written much in  
the way of easy to understand user documentation.

> Has anyone actually done it and, if so, would they be willing to  
> give me
> a hand?

I haven't worked much with the T3 specifically, but you should be  
able to get some binaries from kEdAR's website:

http://kedar.palmlinux.cz/

Create directories /palm/launcher and /linux2ram on a FAT-formatted  
SD or MMC card, if they don't already exist.

The style of kEdAR's page is a little creative but the pieces you  
should need, and where to put them on the memory card are:

1. Kernel: /
http://kedar.palmlinux.cz/zImage.k106

2. Bootloader: /palm/launcher
http://kedar.palmlinux.cz/palm/launcher/cocoboot-0.4.prc

3. Bootloader config: /
http://kedar.palmlinux.cz/cocoboot.conf

4. Initrd: /
http://kedar.palmlinux.cz/initrd.k106.gz

5. Kernel modules: /linux2ram
http://kedar.palmlinux.cz/linux2ram/modules-k106.squashfs

6. Root filesystem: /linux2ram
http://kedar.palmlinux.cz/linux2ram/rootfs-OpieMini20070719- 
xscale.squashfs

7. Device nodes: /linux2ram
http://kedar.palmlinux.cz/linux2ram/dev_tt3.squashfs

8. kEdAR's patches to the filesystem for T3: /linux2ram
http://kedar.palmlinux.cz/linux2ram/kedar_changes.squashfs

Chuck in the card and you should find a new program "Cocoboot" with  
tux icon in the PalmOS launcher (you might need to select the card's  
category from the drop down menu).  Run it and hit boot and see if it  
works.

If it doesn't work, let me know.  I have an old partly broken T3  
lying around somewhere which I can dig up and give it a go on.  Given  
I originally wrote Cocoboot, I guess I should have a decent chance of  
debugging it. ;-)

Cheers,

Alex