Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!
 

yes, mtd3 is initfs, mtd2 kernel, mtd1 config partition (where flasher flags - r&d mode, lifeguard reset flag,.... and possibly also device specific configuration like wlan and bt MAC address are stored). mtd0 is bootloader (maybe few layers of them)

boot process is

1. some early boot loader directly on omap chip with nand flash chip driver
2. one or more bootloaders in /dev/mtd0 which initialize higher level hardware (video chip at least) and provides flashing support over USB and in normal situation just loads linux kernel from mtd2
3. linux kernel (with jffs2 driver) with root device set to mtd3 (=initfs)
4. /linuxrc in (uclibc based) initfs which starts dsme, bme (battery management) and loads firmware to wlan and bt chips and finally reads root device from config partition, mounts it, then changes root to it via pivot_root (i.e. exchages / and /mnt/initfs mount points) and runs /sbin/init
5. /sbin/init runs normal /etc/rc* scripts


what is possible is to hack kernel in mtd2 to
1. boot something else then initfs in mtd3 (i.e. directly some mmc partition) - looks like the easy one

and/or

2. allow to load and jump to different kernel (from mmc) - this is the harder one but already implemented in LAB (Linux As Bootloader) in handhelds.org CVS

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!
 

Hi can anyone tell me if it is possible to repartition SD/MMC card in the N800 if you do not have linux PC and/or a card reader. I have tried following

http://maemo.org/maemowiki/ExtendedR...ht=%28fdisk%29

and although cfdisk is not in the same place it does not work. As I have stated before I am new to Linux and am learning slowly. I have searched here and the web but cannot find a useable solution so far. Thanks in advance for any pointers.

Regards

Arch

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!
 

Can't be done on the N800 as cfdisk was only ever ported to OS 2005. You'll need a Linux PC and cfdisk or sfdisk to partition the SD/MMC cards. As long as you have access to a PC, even a Windows PC, your best bet would be to download a LiveCD ISO (eg. DSL - Damned Small Linux) and boot from it. You may also find the LiveCD useful when it comes to flashing your N800 with updated firmware as the Linux flasher has far more functionality than the Windows flasher.

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!
 

Well you could get by w/o the card reader, you can use your N800 as a reader when your card isn't inuse. And I recommend using a LiveDVD linux if you are a PC guy. The true is you can get by w/ a LiveCD, but something might came up short w/ it. Also, if you an old HD laying around, and your PC is decent enough, grab a USB chassis for like $15-20 buck, and slap the linux on there, compile your own kernel, and voila, you got your own external USB HD w/ linux on it.

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!
 

Are you sure? I guess it makes available only specific partition from the card, not whole card. So you can't partition since you don't see partition table from PC.

This may work (have not tried)
http://sebas-nokia770.blogspot.com/2...ithout-pc.html

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!
 

I'm pretty sure it work, w/ certain condition.
1. you have to boot off the flash, can't boot off the mmc w/ that.
2. the card cannot be inuse, that mean, no swap partition or swap file on the card either. Then, the system will work.
How would I know, well at least it will work on n800, cuz I don't have an SDHC card reader. But I manage to get the setup on my 8GB SDHC card.
On windows, you might only see the fat partition, but on linux, you see the whole thing. w/ 1 problem though, after any change to the partition, you have to reboot your nokia IT unit, otherwise the system won't see the change.

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!
 

Yes indeed you can :) , using sfdisk, done it myself:
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...disk#post20172

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!
 

Hi Arch. I've just done it, this very last weekend. I've got a Linux PC, but haven't got a card reader. Besides, I liked the idea of doing everything from the 770 device, without using PC.

Yes, I wrote this link:
http://sebas-nokia770.blogspot.com/2...ithout-pc.html

But it only explains how to do the partition. It doesn't go on with the rootfs mounting on the mmc card. If you wait till tomorrow, I'll update the WIKI so that everyone can extend their rootfs to the mmc (as I've already done on my 770) without PC and without complicated tricks.

Everything is based on excellent Fanoush's binaries and procedure. Wait just one day more and you'll be able to safely complete the whole process. I haven't just had time enough to update the Wiki. Besides, I was waiting a couple of days to be sure everything worked fine. And it does.

Thanks to Fanoush.

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!
 

Hi Arch. I've finally got it. You may look at it in Maemo Wiki:
http://maemo.org/maemowiki/HowTo_EAS..._From_MMC_card

Or if you only want to learn how to partition the MMC:
http://maemo.org/maemowiki/HowTo_EAS..._your_MMC_card

It's been tested on N770. I think it also works for N800. Please let me know.

Salut.
Sebas.

Re: Booting from MMC on N800 Now Available!!
 

Nice howto :-)

as for sfdisk there is also option -uM which according to man page does "Accept or report in units of megabytes. The default is cylinders, at least when the geometry is known." With this the partition size specification may be a bit easier. Not tried if it works.