To-Do
This page replaces the old plans page, it's
supposed to give you an impression of how much works yet, and what's still
missing in our opinion. It's not quite complete yet, but it hopefully
gives you a nice impression.
| Kernel |
|---|
| Item | Status |
|---|
| Working bootloader |
+ |
Using an adapted version of Anders
Larsen's nk.bin Linux Loader. The bootloader is pretty complete now. Added
memory counting and extended the command-line interface a bit. |
| Boot over NFS |
+ |
OK |
| Boot from initrd |
+ |
OK |
| Boot from USB-stick |
+ |
Works, although it requires an initrd (or kernel patch) for now, because
of the usb-storage initialization delay. |
| Hardware support |
|---|
| Item | Status |
|---|
| Serial ports |
+ |
Works, we use these ports as our console since the beginning. |
| Parallel port |
? |
Didn't try it yet. |
| PS/2 keyboard and mouse |
+ |
Both work perfectly. |
| SO-DIMM socket |
+ |
If you find the right module, it works! Also, the bootloader now has
some simple memory detection algorithm. |
| Flash memory (Toshiba TC58V64AFT, 8MB) |
+ |
We got a simple Linux MTD module for this chip now, except for some
timing issues it works pretty well. Including a FUSE driver for the
WYSE filesystem. |
| Network card (NS DP83815) |
+ |
Works, but not always very stable and fast. Gives
lots of kernel messages
with 2.6 kernels. Speed varies from 500KB/s to 5MB/s, heavily depending
on the kernel version. |
| Video card (NS CS5530) |
+ |
Kernel framebuffer works perfectly (only in 2.4 kernels so far) and
is pretty fast. X is a bit troublesome, the XFree86 nsc driver works,
but seems to be slow. Accelerated mode crashes immediately. After shutting
down X you have to reboot to get back a screen.
DirectFB works a lot better and is reasonably fast. Also, it leaves the
framebuffer in a usable state after quitting.
The TinyX server from DamnSmallLinux
works pretty fast too, and seems more stable. (It did seem to have
problems with fonts in some programs though.) |
| Audio chip (NS CS5530) |
+ |
After some small changes, the sound chip now works with the drivers
from AMD! Oggs and MP3's play with just over 50% of CPU usage with standard
ogg123/mpg321 binaries. |
| PCMCIA bridge |
+ |
Seems to work. At least debian-installer detected the inserted cards
correctly, didn't have the dongle to actually test it. |
| CompactFlash reader |
? |
It seems this one doesn't read the usual CF-cards. The cards from WYSE
actually just contain one or two SmartMedia/NAND chips without any
CF-interface around it. With some hardware modifications, you can make the
terminal use an inserted CF-card, while it thinks it's talking to the
on-board memory. |
| USB ports |
+ |
As you could see on the pictures the device doesn't even have USB ports.
However, an USB OHCI controller is present. Also, other models (like the 3360SE)
do have an USB port, and it indeed works! More interesting, we inserted a
3320SE board into a 3360SE box, and the USB port worked. We haven't been able
to add our own USB port to a 3320SE box yet, unfortunately.
|
| Toolset |
|---|
| Item | Status |
|---|
| Read and edit firmware images |
+ |
This tool is there for some time already, just like the ability to insert
new files, as long as the new file isn't bigger than the original. Recent versions
of the tools should be more portable too. |
| Create new firmware images |
+ |
fwpack seems to work perfectly. |
| Firmware upgrade tool for Linux |
+ |
We had reports that the original tool from WYSE works pretty well inside
DosEmu/DosBox/VMware. We have a Linux-tool too, but don't know if we can
release it because of legal reasons. |
| Finish a toolset that is suitable for release |
+ |
There's enough code available on the side to get Linux to boot. It
requires some work and knowledge/experience about/with Linux, but we had
some success stories now! |