Status of gprs? (and a bit of a hello world)

[Simon]

Hey Tobias, thanks for the reply!

> So...
> Do I get you right, you want to install OpenMoko on your HTC?
> Or do you have another device (PDA) you want to install it on?
>
> I don't want to discourage you, but if Linux does not already run on
> the device in question, than you'll likely have to reverse engineer
> the booting/flashing process and hardware details for the Phone/PDA.
> (If no one else has done it yet)
>
> At least the herm100 seems to be somewhat supported:
> http://www.anytux.org/hardware.php?system_id=1210
> http://vivien.chappelier.free.fr/typhoon/index.html

I wish to install linux (preferably openmoko) on my current htc
(herm100).  I know linux works on it as i've seen extensive
documentation on how to achieve this on forums.  There seems to be all
the tools already available for setting up a proper bootloader.
But one thing i wasnt able to find is this:
There is currently windows mobile on it and as much as i dislike it,
it does work.
Would it be possible to change the bootloader to do some kind of dual
booting?  Where the WM would remain on phone's memory and my linux
install would be on the external 2gb microSD...  is this possible or
would the process wipe WM or make it inacessible? (I guess my question
is, does WindowMobile require a special bootloader?)

> The biggest problem is getting the Linux kernel to boot.
> Both because of lack of hardware documentation (e.g. how are things
> hooked up physically, what kind of hardware is inside the device,
> how does the hardware work) and possibly also measures that try to
> prevent the user from flashing third party firmware.
>
> This is quite different from a PC, where everything is standardized.

The device is unlocked, i guess it was unlocked by some previous owner.
I  have found some documentation, specific to my phone on getting the
kernel to boot, the documentation is just very unclear on what happens
next (but i guess this exactly when openmoko comes into play).

>> Is there a way i can find out exactly what hardware is inside (like an
>> equivalent of lspci, lsusb) but without playing with the bootloader
>> yet? (specs on internet arent clear about it, it gives an idea but no
>> more precise than that).
>
> Usually not, in embedded devices like Phones and PDAs the
> peripherals are not on a standardized enumerable bus.
> Instead they are usually hooked up directly to the CPU.

Hmmm, well, i wanted to work in assembler these days! haha, i'd still
prefer not having to reverse engineer anything though, i'm just
curious, what would i reverse engineer?  I believe the CPU will
contain a real ROM that was burnt from the begining to tell the cpu
that it has to read the EEPROM and execute it...  so i guess i would
have to study that 'thing' and the current bootloader?

> However, once you have managed to get Linux up and running,
> porting OpenMoko to your device should be the easiest part. ;)

Ah, relief!  So you mean, as soon as the kernel starts and works until
it starts init, at that point all i need is to setup the root
filesystem with openmoko as the distribution and load the kernel with
root=... and since i'm considering using the uSD i might have to add a
delay=...  I guess OM also comes with some kind of initrd (i actually
prefer to avoid those and have the necessary builtin to the kernel if
possible).

Did i miss anything?

Thanks a lot!