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ScummVM: “1.2.1 – Børk Børk Børk release”.
It’s been a hectic few weeks but I finally had time to get the 1.2.1 builds uploaded for my all backends following the main Dec. 19th release. Sorry about the delay
.The 1.2.1 release is mainly a bugfix and cleanup release for 1.2.0 and also introduces some additional translations of the GUI.
There are few changes to my backend code but all the core changes are rolled in.
Oh, I also just noticed the date so “Happy New Year” everybody.
Maybe I should try and find more hacking time in 2011
.Providing feedback:
If you would like me to consider a feature or fix a bug in my backends help me to help you by ensuring the reports end up recorded in official places.
- Bug Reports (ScummVM’s Sourceforge bug tracker)
- Feature Requests (ScummVM’s Sourceforge feature tracker)
- Source Code Patches (ScummVM’s Sourceforge patch tracker)
- General Forum Feedback (ScummVM’s GPH device forum or ScummVM’s OpenPandora device forum)
Downloads:
All the 1.2.1 releases including my GP2X/GP2XWiz/Caanoo and OpenPandora backends can me found on the main ScummVM download site.
- ScummVM’s Main Download Page: download
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ScummVM: “1.2.0 – FaSCInating release”.
This post is a few days late but as all my releases are now uploaded and available I thought it was work announcing the release.
The entire ScummVM team is rather proud of this release and you can read the official announcement here. One of the major ‘headline features’ is that this is the first release to feature the fruits of the integration/refactoring of the FreeSCI codebase and it’s substantual enhancement and extension by our own SCI engine team.
There are also enhancements for several engines and the addition of support for “Fascination” (An amusing risqué point and click adventure from Coktel) in the Gob engine.
From my point of view the 1.2.0 release marks the 1st official release of 2 new device backends/ports I have put together (GPH Caanoo and OpenPandora) and also features quite a few enhancements and speedups to my existing GP2X and GP2XWiz backends.
It also marks the official release of new backends for Android and Dingux and the unfortunate retirement of the venerable old PalmOS backend.
The upshot is that this should be our best release yet and I would certainly recommend this release over any older versions of ScummVM for the devices I support.
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OpenPandora: Using custom cursors in fullscreen X11 SDL windows without touchscreen drifting/grabbing issues.
Note: This is is quick guide aimed at developers/porters looking to fix issues with custom SDL cursors (Cursors made up using an SDL_Surface) and the OpenPandora touchscreen, if your not using SDL then the chances are your not seeing the issue.
Normally I would not put together quick posts with small code snippets (I tend to direct people to code and tell them to work it out
) but as several people pointed out to me recently ScummVM for the OpenPandora works around a ‘feature’ in the SDL build on the device that causes relative screen coordinates to be returned to the event stack when you hit the screen edges with the touchscreen. In essence this is a code fix for the ‘cursor drift’ bug people report.Nubs, mice, in fact any relative input device are fine, it is absolute input devices like the touchscreen that ‘drift’ and end up offset making some types of application unusable with the touchscreen (ScummVM was one of them).
As the same issue seems to cause problems several other applications on the OpenPandora I thought I would do a quick howto with a work around and give a little background on the issue.
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ScummVM: “1.2.0 preview 1” for the OpenPandora.
EDIT: This release has been superseded, please get the latest release.
This post is to announce the release of a testing preview of the upcoming 1.2.0 ScummVM release for the OpenPandora handheld.
It is a little later (and a bit close to the final 1.2.0 release date) than I would have liked but that’s real life for you, always getting in the way of perfectly good hacking time
.This release supersedes any recent ‘SVN’ builds you may be using and should provide a very good indication of what to expect in the final 1.2.0 release for the OpenPandora.
Note: Please don’t mirror or hotlink these preview/test/alpha etc. releases or put them on download services but rather, direct people to this site.
This helps me ensure that users always have the most recent versions.
Also note that these test releases are not officially (or unofficially) supported
but I will help if I can.I am hoping to get at least another preview release out for the OpenPandora before the final 1.2.0 release as I carry on fixing bugs. This is why it is important to provide feedback, patches, fixes etc.
Please give these releases a go and provide feedback.
Noteworthy features:
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OpenPandora: Development toolchains, SDK’s and build platforms (Part 2).
This is the 2nd of the 2 simple guides I have put together to help you through the process of getting a working development environment and basic SDK going for the OpenPandora allowing you to build applications, compile up code, all of that neat stuff really.
Note: These guides and toolchain/SDK packages do not constitute an ‘official’ OpenPandora SDK or anything of the sort, they are just what I have put together during the development process in the hope somebody may find it useful.
There will be things missing libs and odd littke things that did not end up in the SDK package etc. at first and this article and the toolchains will evolve as time goes on.
Consider this 2nd part of the guide a work in progress.
With the OpenPandora you have 2 primary options for code development…
Want to write code for the OpenPandora on the OpenPandora, have a little read of this. Not the way I would recommend doing normal development but handy sometimes.
The is covered in part 1 of this article.
- Cross compiling
The most common method of code development for a device such as the OpenPandora. Requires access to a regular PC to using for building code.
The is covered by this part of the article.
I’ll aim to outline how you can start to develop code using either setup, and provide a really simple test app to prove your setup is working.
This is mainly aimed at C, C++ and Assembler developers who are familiar with GCC, build tools and Linux in general.
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OpenPandora: Development toolchains, SDK’s and build platforms (Part 1).
This is the 1st of 2 posts that I hope will form simple guides to help you through the process of getting a working development environment and basic SDK setup for the OpenPandora allowing you to build applications, compile up code, all of that neat stuff really.
Note: These guides and toolchain/SDK packages do not constitute any ‘official’ OpenPandora SDK or anything of the sort, they are just what I have put together during the development process in the hope somebody may find it useful.
Some of the information in these articles has already been covered, I just got tired of covering the same ground helping people so I figured I could refer them here so everyone benefits.
With the OpenPandora you have 2 primary options for code development…
- Native (on device) software development
Want to write code for the OpenPandora on the OpenPandora, have a little read of this. Not the way I would recommend doing normal development but handy sometimes.
The is covered by this part of the article.
The most common method of code development for a device such as the OpenPandora. Requires access to a regular PC to using for building code.
The is covered in part 2 of this article.
I’ll aim to outline how you can start to develop code using either setup, and provide a really simple test app to prove your setup is working.
This is mainly aimed at C, C++ and Assembler developers who are familiar with GCC, build tools and Linux in general.
Native (on device) software development:
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OpenPandora: Building your own ROOTFS image (Part 1).
Updated: 7th June to expand the setup scripts section and tell people to get them from GIT.
This is the 1st of 2 articles I will be publishing on getting started with building the Linux distribution installed on the OpenPandora, from source code, from scratch.
Note: This is not a guide to using OpenEmbedded or bitbake, or writing package recipes. It’s just a guide to getting an OpenPandora build setup running.
This 1st article will cover the basic setup of OpenEmbedded environment and the building of our Ångström distribution derived ROOTFS, the 2nd will detail how you can run the resulting images on your OpenPandora from SD cards, or if you really want to, the NAND.
I also plan to write a separate related article will show how you can setup toolchains and SDK’s to help you develop applications for (and natively on) the OpenPandora using some of the strengths of OpenEmbedded to make this easier.
As I write these posts in my own time I can’t promise to do anything quickly. Nor can I make any promises about how accurate they may be
. As always, feedback is welcome.Most application developers/porters will only be interested in the related article on setting up SDK’s and toolchains, these 2 are really for the hardened Linux hackers who want to mess about with the ROOTFS/distribution development.
Health (and sanity) warning: Building the entire ROOTFS from scratch is pretty technical in nature, if you have no desire to rebuild the ROOTFS or hack with the inner workings of you’re OpenPandora this is probably not for you.
You can’t really damage anything on your OpenPandora but if your not familiar with compiling your own apps, kernels etc. and fixing things when they don’t work this will present a VERY steep learning curve. You also have the potential to make a mess of your build host if you are not careful with the setup.
I’ll focus showing how you can build a ‘one <> one’ version of the 1st official release (GIT tag: “Release-2010-05/1”).
Once you have that going feel free to build the tips of the metadata GIT’s if you want to work with the latest and greatest or get stuck in modifying the metadata to suit whatever purpose you may have in mind.
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ScummVM: Unofficial test “1.1.1” release for the OpenPandora.
EDIT: This release has been superseded, please get the latest release.
This is just a quick post to let people know I have uploaded a test build of ScummVM for the OpenPandora. For those that care, the belated GP2X Wiz 1.1.1 releases will follow when I get back from a few days away at some point next week.
Note: Please don’t mirror or hotlink preview/test/alpha etc. releases or put them on download services but rather, direct people to this page. This helps me ensure that users always have the most recent versions and stops me being swamped with requests for help with ancient test versions.
Nothing especially exotic about the code as it stands (it’s mainly a plugin enabled ARMv7 optimised build of ScummVM packaged up as a PND file) but it works quite well and at least a fair selection of games are very playable.
I am only releasing this so people have some ScummVM goodness for their new OpenPandora consoles (you can stop emailing me now
). It’s largely untested and has been hanging around on my build box for a few days. All 1.1.1 game engines should be working but I have only tested SCUMM, Tinsel (Discworld) and SAGA, and played a little bit of The Curse of Monkey Island .It does not represent what the final backend will look like and a lot of the OpenPandora specific graphic and input handling is disabled in this release (nothing is mapped to the DPad and game buttons/triggers for example). It does support the keyboard, nubs and touchscreen fine however (for the most part) and most regular ScummVM keyboard shortcuts should work fine.
My plan is to commit the changes to the ScummVM codebase as soon as I have things cleaned up a bit and make the backend official (and manage releases accordingly) but as I am now away for the next few days I thought I would do a quick test release 1st so people have something to mess about with it on there new toy.
To install just download and unzip the file and copy the resulting scummvm-openpandora-2010-05-26.pnd to the following folder on your SD card (or USB2 stick):
/pandora/menu –> This will cause the ScummVM app icon to show up in the Xfce menu sorted by category.
/pandora/desktop –> This will cause the ScummVM app to appear as an icon on the Desktop of Xfce.Either folder will also ensure the application icon shows up in MiniMenu.
To run, just select the icon as normal, the ScummVM GUI will start up and you can add games as you would normally do with any other ScummVM release (including Mass Add).
Note: On the OpenPandora /media is the root mount folder for removable storage devices. Your SD cards are known by the driver name (MMC) and the card number so the root of your 1st SD card is normally /media/mmcblk0p1, 2nd SD card is normally /media/mmcblk1p1. When you 1st add games you will need to select the SD card you are using (or a folder on your USB2 stick).
Downloads:
Feedback:
Any feedback, please leave comments or drop me a mail.
Regards,
John Willis
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OpenPandora: Booting, NAND layouts and general firmware fluff.
One of the common questions I get now and then on IRC (#OpenPandora on FreeNode) or email concerns how the OpenPandora booting and firmware is setup, what technologies are used in it’s setup and how we try and prevent things like accidental bricking and the like.
With this in mind I thought I would knock up a quick post detailing how these things are setup as a starting point to expand on.
I’ll start off with a technical overview of how the system boots and then detail how this will work for normal end users (and that includes ‘most’ developers).
There are 3 main sections to this post.
Only of interest to hacker types
.Normal users who want to play with alternative firmware, boot there own firmware and such look here.
Want to know a little about how is the stock firmware organised on the NAND? What setup is used? etc. – read this.
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A quick video demo of the OpenPandora using the PowerVR SGX core.
Whilst I have had PowerVR support working on the Pandora for some time now with the recent public release of the OMAP3 3.0.0.6 PowerVR SDK I now feel comfortable showing some demos using the 3D core.
It is also worth mentioning that from today all the Angstrom file system images available to Pandora developers will also include the drivers for the PowerVR SGX (taken from the above SDK) so expect to see other developers pick this up and run with it (I hope). I’ll admit I am quite looking forward to people getting stuck into really giving the core and the drivers a good workout.
As I am making this post it also seems worthwhile to give a little background on PowerVR support on the Pandora as it has frequently been a source of consternation.
A little while ago TI released the 3.0.0.5 drivers for the OMAP3 PowerVR core and this lead to posts like this one that unfortunately created some misunderstandings.
The 3.0.0.5 drivers TI released were basically old even at the time of release and required all manor of patching to even work on the Pandora/Beagle et al. They had been build for a 2.6.22 kernel paired with an old user space. Whilst they could be made to work on the Pandora they required dropping back to a quick port we did of TI’s 2.6.22 reference kernel and this was hardly an attractive prospect when everything else was fitting nicely with the 2.6.27 kernel we have lined up for the 1st release (don’t worry, we also keep our kernel current and stuck firmly to mainline Linux-OMAP).
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