A quick video demo of the Pandora 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).

I think the confusion at the time came from the fact that 3D did work on the Pandora with our 2.6.27 kernel but required a combination of drivers that were, at the time, not distributable (even to other Pandora devs). With the 3.0.0.6 public release this all becomes a rather moot point.

That is about all there is to it really. The PowerVR works well and we are working to sort the few remaining little snags (default clocks, wrappers etc.) in plenty of time for the release so you will be able to enjoy 3D on your freshly unpacked Pandora.

I’ll apologize in advance for the really crappy video quality but all I can get my hands on is an old digicam that happens to also produce AVI’s . I am sure Ed will produce some decent high res videos of the demos for the official page soon enough.

Oh, and ignore the slight flicker in the bottom right, I had an optical mouse connected when I did the demo that likes to ‘twitch’.

‘Mobile Broadband’ on the Pandora?

One of the little things I have been asked several times is can people use Mobile Broadband (GPRS/UMTS/HSDPA etc.) USB adaptors on the Pandora (in Europe we are lucky enough to have easy and fairly cheap access to cellular broadband tariffs).

While the real answer to this is ‘most probably’ with some caveats about Linux support for your chosen adaptor, USB 2 device support etc. etc. I decided to try and get my own adaptor working on my Pandora development board and this is a post about that exercise.

It is worth remembering that I am messing with the my own development images and this should not be considered anything ‘official’, it is just me having a hack about for the hell of it.

What adaptor am I using?

For this exercise I am using my Huawei E220. It has been upgraded with the 7.2Mbps firmware (version 11.117.09.04.00).

Under Windows this will appear as a USB CDROM (well CDFS on a USB Mass Storage device for the pedantic) and then prompt you to install the included software to drive the modem side of the adaptor. It is all actually quite tidy to be honest and makes use of the device pretty painless on Windows.

How is it connected?

Unfortunately my USB stick is a USB 1.1 full speed (USB OHCI) device so connecting it straight to the Pandora gets us nowhere. Remember the USB host socket on the Pandora is an EHCI (i.e. USB2 high speed) host so it needs a hub inline to step down to USB 1.1 speeds.

So out comes a USB hub and into a hub port goes the USB stick.

What happened?

Well, the first time I plugged it in (as you might imagine) not a lot happened other then the USB stack spitting out some info about the device and installing the mass storage side of things.

usb 1-2.4: new full speed USB device using ehci-omap and address 7

usb 1-2.4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

usb 1-2.4: New USB device found, idVendor=12d1, idProduct=1003

usb 1-2.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0

usb 1-2.4: Product: HUAWEI Mobile

usb 1-2.4: Manufacturer: HUAWEI Technologies

usb-storage: device found at 7

usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning

usb 1-2.4: USB disconnect, address 7

usb 1-2.4: new full speed USB device using ehci-omap and address 8

usb 1-2.4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

usb-storage: probe of 1-2.4:1.0 failed with error -5

usb-storage: probe of 1-2.4:1.1 failed with error -5

scsi7 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

usb 1-2.4: New USB device found, idVendor=12d1, idProduct=1003

usb 1-2.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0

usb 1-2.4: Product: HUAWEI Mobile

usb 1-2.4: Manufacturer: HUAWEI Technologies

usb-storage: device found at 8

usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning

scsi 7:0:0:0: CD-ROM            HUAWEI   Mass Storage     2.31 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2

sr0: scsi-1 drive

sr 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0

sr 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 5

usb-storage: device scan complete

Ok, a quick check of the shipped kernel modules shows that I forgot to build that into the image so off I trek back to my OpenEmbedded build system and after a quick edit to the defconfig for our kernel recipe and a bump of the kernel package revision I now have a nice usbserial.ko included in the image.

After deploying the new image I plugged it in and things got a whole lot more interesting. A couple of /dev/ttyUSB devices had been created, just what every modem connection needs.

usb 1-2.4: new full speed USB device using ehci-omap and address 4

usb 1-2.4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

usb 1-2.4: New USB device found, idVendor=12d1, idProduct=1003

usb 1-2.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0

usb 1-2.4: Product: HUAWEI Mobile

usb 1-2.4: Manufacturer: HUAWEI Technologies

usb-storage: device found at 4

usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning

usb 1-2.4: USB disconnect, address 4

usb 1-2.4: new full speed USB device using ehci-omap and address 5

usb 1-2.4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

usb-storage: probe of 1-2.4:1.0 failed with error -5

usb-storage: probe of 1-2.4:1.1 failed with error -5

scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

usb 1-2.4: New USB device found, idVendor=12d1, idProduct=1003

usb 1-2.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0

usb 1-2.4: Product: HUAWEI Mobile

usb 1-2.4: Manufacturer: HUAWEI Technologies

usb-storage: device found at 5

usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning

usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial

usbserial: USB Serial support registered for generic

usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic

usbserial: USB Serial Driver core

usbserial: USB Serial support registered for GSM modem (1-port)

option 1-2.4:1.0: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected

usb 1-2.4: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB0

option 1-2.4:1.1: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected

usb 1-2.4: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB1

usbcore: registered new interface driver option

option: USB Driver for GSM modems: v0.7.2

scsi 4:0:0:0: CD-ROM            HUAWEI   Mass Storage     2.31 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2

scsi 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 5

usb-storage: device scan complete

Driver 'sr' needs updating - please use bus_type methods

sr0: scsi-1 drive

Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20

sr 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0

ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 1

ISOFS: changing to secondary root

ls /dev/ttyUSB*

/dev/ttyUSB0  /dev/ttyUSB1

The first thing that jumps out at me is why the kernel has helpfully installed the Option driver when this it not an option card ‘option: USB Driver for GSM modems: v0.7.2’. That does not look right but lets give it a try anyway.

After a quick read it seems that if you don’t have any other USB serial devices connected the modem will be assigned to /dev/ttyUSB0 and the user interface device to /dev/ttyUSB1. So far so good.

Now to wrap all this up and see if we can connect to the Internet.

It is worth noting at this point that our images currently have NetworkManager 0.7.0 in them as I have been evaluating that for managing the WiFi connection (along with Connman) so my plan is to see just how good the NetworkManager integration with the underlying adaptor is using the command line tools (I do not have the nm-applet GUI working with 0.7.0 yet).

So I booted up the resulting image on the Pandora, plugged the USB stick in to the hub and waited a few seconds for that to settle and get connected then started to setup the connection.

netm-cli -l

GSM Devices:

ttyUSB0:

        Udi: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_12d1_1003_noserial_if0_serial_usb_0

        Driver: option

        Capabilities:

                - Supported

        State: Disconnected

        Managed: True

        IP config:

                No IP settings found

Excellent, ok, NetworkManager sees that we have a ttyUSB0 GSM device. Now lets try connecting to the internet with it using my Vodafone SIM.

netm-cli --connect --gsm=ttyUSB0 --user=web --passwd=web --apn=internet --number=*99#

Device ttyUSB0: activating the connection

Device ttyUSB0: created connection '/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/1'

/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager - State: Connecting

Device ttyUSB0: state - Prepare

Device ttyUSB0: state - Config

Device ttyUSB0: state - Need Auth

Device ttyUSB0: state - IP Config

/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager - State: Connected

Device ttyUSB0: state - Activated

/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/1 - State: Activated

Wonderful, NetworkManager has talked to the modem and negotiated a connection to the internet.

Sparking up a Firefox session on the Pandora proves this and shows that it is working just fine. FTP and all the usual IP services are all working as expected. The connection has been up for a good few hours now and seems very stable.

So, what does this all prove. Well Mobile Broadband sticks (at least the Huawei E220) will work on the Pandora, NetworkManager is happy to configure the connection and as soon as I can get the NetworkManager 0.7.0 GUI going this whole process should be ‘plug and play’ just like it is on other major distributions like Ubuntu.

I am not 100% sure at this stage about choosing NetworkManager or Connman for the final images (it is rather dependent on some tweaks that need doing to our TI1251 Wireless driver to properly support Linux Wireless Extensions and further stability/signal tests) but either way NetworkManager will be available in the Pandora repositories and, as proven here, provides a perfectly viable and quick way to connect to Mobile Broadband if you have supported hardware.

John

Unpacking the GP2X Wiz

I was recently fortunate enough to be sent a ‘near release’ prototype of the new GamePark Holdings (GPH) portable games console, the GP2X Wiz. Considering that, it only seems fitting to put together a quick post with some random observations and pictures.

Remember that these observations are not based on a long period of testing so come with the caveat that my opinions may change!

Now, obviously this is the successor to the GP2X (and spiritually the GP32).

What is interesting from my point of view is the direction GPH have taken the Wiz.

First thing you note is that it’s a tiny little console (only a little bigger then a GameBoy Micro). It’s small. Not really small but somehow much smaller then I was expecting.

Secondly, GPH seem to be betting a lot of making the device accessible to Flash developers (this really does feel like it is the focus for the device as the front end ‘launcher’ is flash based). This is quite a marked departure from the GP2X and feels more like a step into the casual game market that is often dominated by mobile phones. I guess this change makes sense for their Korean markets.

Time will tell what effect this has on the wider markets and the adoption of Flash on the device. I suspect very little to start with as a lot of GP2X devs will no doubt get a Wiz and treat it as a logical extension of what they have done there and start hacking the hardware and giving flash little more then a glance . Given time however Flash could lower the entry level for apps and open the door to creative non-coders and that can only be a good thing for homebrew.

Anyway, onto some hardware information.

The GP2X Wiz is based on the MagicEyes Pollux SoC clocked at 533MHz and powered along by its ARMv5 ARM926EJ core. Paired with that you have the usual large page NAND, 64MB of RAM, touch screen and an SDHC slot for storage. Oh, and finally a decent fitted lithium-ion battery (that proudly tells you not to let Children and Pets chew or lick it as it may be a health risk).

I was initially a little surprised that GPH did not opt for the MagicEyes MMSP2+ SoC in the Wiz (the GP2X used the older MMSP2 SoC) as moving to the VRender range means you loose some very handy features (The ARM94* 2nd core, the basic 2D engine, RGB scalar etc.) but on the flip side you do get an OpenGL ES 1.1 3D core. Unfortunately, as it stands, no one has got the said 3D core doing much yet (but I know Pickle was doing a little investigation work). As there are only a few dozen of these devices out and about in hackers hands that is no surprise. It is something I want to dabble with time permitting .

One interesting thing I want to test sometime is to discover if the Pollux used in the Wiz suffers the same issues with strangled RAM bandwidth that the MMSP2+ suffers with. When I get time I will try the apps I built to test RAM bandwidth on the MMSP2+. If the Pollux is as bad as the MMSP2+ when it comes to RAM bandwidth that could be a bit of a snag.

The form factor.

It’s really shiny. To say the plastic used smudges easily is a massive understatement . That said it feels well made and fairly solid to hold with no flex (a pleasant continuation of the GP2X F200 level of build quality rather than a slide back to the dire quality of the 1st GP2X’s). It even has a slot for the stylus now, something the F200 GP2X did not manage.

The control layout is not quite to my tastes (big hands so it can tend to feel a little cramped). Buttons seem responsive and have a fairly positive feeling. The dPad is not as bad as all that but I have not really tried it in games yet. Not sure I am a convert to the ‘split dPad’ button layout for the right hand side mind you. This also raises the point that the L and R triggers are inset from the edges of the unit. That feels a little odd but you get used to it I guess. All in all, the controls are not great but not bad. They do the job.

The screen (when it is not suffering something like a vsync tear) is very nice. Its OLED technology and is nice and bright. Assuming the screen setup issues are software its a classy screen despite the low (comparatively) resolution of 320*240.

Something else that jumped out at me was the interesting choice GPH has made by deciding to move everything other than the headphones to the EXT port on the bottom. This includes things like the USB (device and host), TV out and charging. You won’t be connecting your Wiz to a PC directly without some additional fly leads due to the lack of a USB device port on the unit.

I suspect GPH plans to ship (as an extra or included, not sure) a dock or clip-on unit that provides at least USB and TV out and maybe WiFi if the picture below is accurate.

The software platform.

The 1st thing that greats you is the Flash menu GPH have developed for the unit.

Not a lot to say about it really. It feels like a sloppier version of the menu used on the GP2X. I hope this is down to the unit being pre-release but the menu crashes regularly and does a generally poor job of being a menu. Another aspect of the pre-release software is the lack of a lot else on the unit (that reliably works) so there is not a lot of software to talk about.

It is Linux 2.6 based but I have yet to get hold of the source to have a look at how clean the MagicEyes/GPH changes are. Looking at the file system and kernel it seems safe to assume that AESOP Embedded did the kernel porting work like they have done for other MagicEyes chips.

It seems to ship with a decent set of libraries and SDL. It is not clear if the stock SDL features some basic hardware acceleration.

I’ll update this and add more pictures when there is final software available as it is more then a little unfair to draw real conclusions from early code such as this

So what do I plan to do with it?

Not a lot right now (for at least the next few days) as I have some other projects to clear off my plate but once they are out of the way the 1st thing I want to do is clean up my basic ScummVM port then look at what is needed to add the Wiz as a supported machine to OpenEmbedded and look at what funky stuff can be done towards supporting stuff like kexecboot and a full Ångström distribution .

What about the Pandora?

Well it’s no secret that I look after the Ångström based operating system for the Pandora (among other things) and I guess that could represent a conflict of interests (yeah, right) but I would draw your attention to one little fact. I am a geek who likes to mess around with electronics . The more the merrier. I could not give a stuff about ‘community politics’. I just simply look at something and ask myself ‘does that look interesting’ and ‘will I mess about with it’.

Having now had a little time to mess about with the Wiz it is obvious to me that I will be doing some hacking about with it and I can’t really see how it and the Pandora are in any way directly ‘competing’. Different design goals, different software goals, different platforms and different price points . Both look like decent hacking platforms in there own way. When they are out, and if you can afford it, get both or just ask yourself what you want to do with it and ignore anyone who sounds rather too devout about one platform or the other.

The Wiz with some other consoles to get an idea of size.