OM on a non-neo divice: HTC Himalaya

[pHilipp Zabel]

Hi Esra,

On Jan 18, 2008 11:09 AM, Esra Kummer <esra at kummer.to> wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I got an HTC Himalaya (as well known as: Qtek 2020, i-mate PDA, O2 Xda
> II, Krome Navigator, T-Mobile MDA II, Orange SPV M1000, Vodafone
> WirelessPDA, Dopod 696 and movistar TSM500) for free. Unfortunatelly
> there is WindowsMobile Edition installed. Yeah i know...
>
> Thatswhy I would like to change it. I found in the wiki that the HTC
> Magican is supported
> (http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/OpenMoko-supported_hardware)

Nobody has been working on Himalaya kernel support for quite some
time, so a little bit of kernel work might be needed. The best way to
get some help is jumping into #htc-linux on freenode at the right
time.
Basically you'd have to build a Himalaya kernel (from handhelds.org
CVS) and boot it with HaRET
(http://www.handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/HaRET).

> Has anyone some information or better success with the HTC Himalaya as
> well? I really would love to have OM (I'm a student, so no money for a
> Neo :( ).

As far as I know, Himalaya has the same phone chipset as both Neo and
Magician (and Blueangel), and I think hardware-wise it is more similar
to Blueangel (see
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Himalaya,
http://www.handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/Himalaya), as it is based on
PXA263.

> How does it work? I would need it productive (just phonecalls, SMS and
> adressbook needed) or in the worst case I take it to play (if i can
> install OM but can't use it productive) and try to get a Nokia 3210 for
> normal use :P

I don't think it is ready for productive use yet.

> Is it difficul/dangerous to install? I have no money to let flash a
> bricked phone.

Difficult? Probably. Only if some kernel work is needed.
Dangerous? No, unless you write something to the flash memory _on
purpose_. To the PXA263's internal 32MB NOR flash we could write, but
for the external M-Systems DoC chip I believe we don't even have
drivers capable of doing that.

regards
Philipp