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Dell Axim x50(v) News

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Recent News

27 March 2006 Dell Customer Service is helpful

I've not been active as I am not a developer, but I decided to contact Dell to see if they would be of any assistance, because I understand that they do not provide hardware specs like HP does. Not really knowing what I was talking about, I found the rep very helpful and willing to answer specific questions. He even did quite a bit of googleing, by the looks of it. You can read the conversation we had at: http://dotancohen.com/eng/dell.php

I encourage others to try the online chat with Dell. It was frustrating getting to chat with Tech Support, but once there, I was happy.

3 November 2005 Touchscreen

There's not happening much on this page but the project is'nt dead. Fisherss has recently managed to get the touchscreen working on his Axim X50. The framebufferdriver for the X50V seems to be lost though.

18 July 2005 Snapshots (Fisherss)

[WWW]framebuffer with logo.

[WWW]GUI, opie environment.

http://axim.narcotize.com/img/booting.mpg

15 July 2005 Got GUI on X50 416 (Fisherss)

Snapshots will be posted later.

17 June 2005 First linux booting on X50v (Richard)

We have now confirmed that the kernel that boots on the x50 also boots on the x50v, but with no framebuffer.

USB networking seems to work, but I can't prove it since I don't have a serial cable that also has USB on it :-/

the SD/MMC driver looks like it works, at least it shows a valid device, but I haven't gotten it to mount yet -- I'm pretty certain that this is due to a kernel problem, not anything serious. I should be able to test this more tomorrow.

Framebuffer does *not* work. I need to learn more about how framebuffers work in linux and learn more about the 2700 graphics controller, and then I'll see if I can write a driver for it. I was hoping the vsfb driver would work, but I haven't been able to make it work as of yet. Again, something I'll play with tomorrow. (no time today)

Anyone with the experience to help at this level, please let me know. I could really use the help. Most things for the x50 and x50v are the same, but framebuffer in particular I want to get working, and fisherss can't help me much there =]

14 June 2005 First Linux booting on X50 by Fisherss and Richard Bateman (Fisherss)

We have successfully booted kernel, and the framebuffer also works fine :)

The details will be posted later.

26 May 2005 Good news (Fisherss)

We have gotten serial output, the first linux booting on x50 may appear few days after.

Dell Axim x50(v) Old News

22 May 2005 Pics of x50v internals and wild speculations (Richard)

I decided to follow Fisherss' lead and disassemble my x50v. I found out after that he already had a few pics of an x50v, but they aren't quite as detailed as the ones I took. If anyone wants to look at them, you can find them at http://bateman.dhs.org/~richard/tmp/arm/x50v_pics/ (be warned, I have left them at the full size my 4mp digital camera took them at, so some are very big)

I'm trying to figure out how the memory is interfaced with the x50v. Since I don't completely undersand the architecture, I am speculating a little bit. This is my current set of theories:

I'm pretty sure of these:

I'm formulating wild theories about these:

19 May 2005 Preliminary GPIO Map Complete (Richard)

Despite the lack of news updates, Fisherss and I have been very busy. Anyone who understands ARM architecture and has a few spare minutes, drop us a line... we could really use your help. I have gone through and identified all the GPIOs that during normal use (read: any mode I could think of to set it to) are set to special functions, as well as several other misc GPIOS and what their functions are. You can find the list at http://bateman.dhs.org/~richard/tmp/arm/gpio_map.xml

9 May 2005 Some GPIOs found (Richard)

I have been looking for GPIOs used by the serial port. While looking for those, I found some others as well. I'll be experimenting with it a bit more later. I have posted what I found down below under "Hardware"

7 May 2005 Haret status (Richard)

Alright, I spent the last few nights hacking with haret on my x50v. I have been working with Fisherss trying to figure out how to get a kernel to boot, and my current hypothesis is that haret isn't actually starting the kernel correctly.

I have a working serial cable, and I have been able to run haret (compiled from source) and get output over IP with the wireless. I have never done a port before, so I'm not certain what information I need to find out about the device in order to get it to work.

The first problem I ran into is that it was detecting the processor wrong. I have fixed that in my source copy of haret, and I have made it so that it outputs a lot of additional debug information. I'm curious as to whether my detection fix works on one of the lower two types of x50s, I only have an x50v to try it with.

http://bateman.dhs.org/~richard/tmp/arm/haret.zip is the new binary (you have to talk to it over ip, serial is not supported)

http://bateman.dhs.org/~richard/tmp/arm/cpu-pxa.cpp is an update to src/wince/cpu-pxa.cpp from the haret cvs http://bateman.dhs.org/~richard/tmp/arm/linboot.cpp is an update to src/linboot.cpp from the haret cvs

I don't know of any reason why a kernel that works on an ipaq hx4700 shouldn't at least give some serial output on an axim x50, since they use the same processor and the UART is a function of the processor. If anyone knows differently, *please* tell me. richard@bateman.dhs.org.

If anyone has any experience porting to other processors, and would be willing to give me 25 minutes on the phone, please email me. I think fisherss and I can do a lot of the work, but we need some help figuring out where to start. it's slow going without help. Information is all I need right now, and I'm willing to make long distance phone calls to get it. =]

If you run my haret on your axim, please email the resuts to richard@bateman.dhs.org . Here is what I get on my axim from my modified haret (put in a list for formatting):

- Richard

2 May 2005 Need help (Fisherss)

Need someone who has serial cable help test kernel output.

If you can do this, please download the following files, get serial output and mail it to me.

www.fisherss.com/files/HaRET-0.3.2c.exe

www.fisherss.com/files/default.txt

www.fisherss.com/files/initrd.txt

www.fisherss.com/files/zImage.txt

Just download them and delete the last two's expansion name (".txt").

Set your serial communication software (minicom) to 115200 8N1, and run haret to load kernel, then you will get output. Please tell me what it is. fisherss@gmail.com

29 April 2005 - more internal photo's: x50v (jelle)

The FCC also has some (sharp!) internal photo's of the x50v on-line [WWW]here ([WWW]index page) and different photo's starting page 5 of [WWW]this document ([WWW]index page).

26 April 2005 - obtained machine number (Fisherss)

Obtained machine number : 740 from www.arm.linux.org.uk

See http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/developer/machines/ for details.

24 April 2005 - Connector Item (Jeremy)

For anyone seeking a connector for the X50:

http://store.yahoo.com/gomadic-new/connectors.html

24 April 2005 - Found X50's Naked photos! (Jeremy)

Photos found on some post's links to FCC site with some stuff on the X50.

[Photos]
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/forms/blobs/retrieve.cgi?attachment_id=464067&native_or_pdf=pdf
[All the FCC stuff]
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/cf/eas/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm?mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout=500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=436164&fcc_id='NM8HC3UL'

7 April 2005 - Have done a serfmade serial cable, the following steps should be quick (Fisherss)