Re: Nokia Internet Tablets

[Otto Solares <solca@guug.org>]

On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 02:27:57PM +0200, Felipe Balbi wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 04:34:22AM -0600, ext Otto Solares wrote:
> > Hi all!
> > 
> > I want to resurrect missing support for the Nokia Internet Tablets
> > starting with the N8x0s for my NITdroid project, which uses just
> > standard Linux kernel APIs.
> > 
> > So first I would like to ask some very newbie questions:
> > 
> > -Is there any ongoing effort to support these devices in latest kernels
> >  at the same level as the latest Nokia production kernel (2.6.21-omap)?
> 
> n8x0 devices should boot fine with current linux-omap and I'd say we
> have all the drivers here as well, besides audio, camera and wifi (me thinks)

Yea it boots fine minus power management.

> > -I don't plan to suspend but just sleep while idling, is this a good
> >  approach to power management (pm)?
> 
> That's broken afaict.
> 
> > -I read about the pm branch, where can I pull it?
> 
> from linux-omap git.
> 
> git pull \
> git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tmlind/linux-omap-2.6.git pm
> 
> should do it
> 
> > -Same for the camera drivers, why it was removed and what is required
> >  to port it back?
> 
> get the patch out of linux-omap and send it through v4l2 maintainer.
> 
> > -AFAIK the recent removals of the N800 sound driver was because it was
> >  not written for ALSA OMAP SoC API, right?
> 
> yes.
> 
> > -Can the retu RTC be ported to the CONFIG_RTC_CLASS API?
> > 
> > -Are the CONFIG_REGULATOR and CONFIG_POWER_SUPPLY APIs of any use for
> >  the Internet Tablets?
> 
> hmm... it could be used for charging but it won't work unless you get
> documentation of the charging chips used on n8x0. Also, you'd need to
> change BME I suppose, which you can't :-s

It would be nice that the driver expose the current interface for BME
plus the standard Linux API so battery metering works out of the box
for distributions other than Maemo.

I put a new project to kickstart all the required Nokia proprietary
software so the NITs works with other distros without booting trhu
initfs:

http://guug.org/nit/nitboot

Eventually I would like that NIT drivers expose just standard kernel
APIs so no need for nitboot.  The only hard part as I see it is BME
which I'm pretty sure it is not a trivial task to supplant.

> > If it is lack of time of the original developers, I would like to step
> > in, willing to try to complete this work as long as you are willing to
> > support me with answers to my newbie questions as this devices are in
> > plenty operation today but the Nokia kernel is getting really old and
> > it's a good thing if we can port all the drivers to standard Linux API.
> 
> Sure, I totally agree with you. If I had more time I'd help cleaning up
> some of the old drivers and send them upstream myself, but unfortunately
> I don't.
> 
> If you wanna hack, go for it.

Cool thx for the support!

-otto