ANN: Orbiter image for WebDT 366

[tschak909]

Hello, everyone.

I know some of you bought WebDT 366's at my suggestion, suddenly found yourselves unable to run the WinCE orbiter software, because the version of WinCE was too new for the build currently in 0710.

While we are working on building WinCE versions of the orbiters for newer targets, I have also pursued an altern the ate means of getting these devices to run Orbiter.

I have put together a very tight Debian, with the orbiter bootstrapped over the top of it. It works, and it works very well.

However, there are still things that need to be done, and if you guys can help, please step in.

* Network configuration using the pad only, I do NOT wanna hook up a keyboard at all or a network card to configure this thing

* Respawning the orbiter when its watchdog timer dies (because of something taking longer than 60 seconds to complete.)

* Boot splash

* Fine tuning the boot process to make it faster. We can't do tricks like a fast resume because we'd need twice the flash space that we have on this tablet.

* expanding to other tablet types, so we can have an image for an appropriate tablet.

* an install procedure that would work simply by plugging in a USB stick.

is anyone interested in helping me finish this sucker so that I can release it to the general public?

-Thom

[totallymaxed]

Hello, everyone.

I know some of you bought WebDT 366's at my suggestion, suddenly found yourselves unable to run the WinCE orbiter software, because the version of WinCE was too new for the build currently in 0710.

While we are working on building WinCE versions of the orbiters for newer targets, I have also pursued an altern the ate means of getting these devices to run Orbiter.

I have put together a very tight Debian, with the orbiter bootstrapped over the top of it. It works, and it works very well.

However, there are still things that need to be done, and if you guys can help, please step in.

* Network configuration using the pad only, I do NOT wanna hook up a keyboard at all or a network card to configure this thing

* Respawning the orbiter when its watchdog timer dies (because of something taking longer than 60 seconds to complete.)

* Boot splash

* Fine tuning the boot process to make it faster. We can't do tricks like a fast resume because we'd need twice the flash space that we have on this tablet.

* expanding to other tablet types, so we can have an image for an appropriate tablet.

* an install procedure that would work simply by plugging in a USB stick.

is anyone interested in helping me finish this sucker so that I can release it to the general public?

-Thom

Hi Thom,

We're interested in this for sure - I've always thought it a little crazy we dont have a linux based stand alone Orbiter. But since we did not buy WebDT's we'd want to target another ARM based Wince device. I'll need to look at what other stuff we have lined up in the next few weeks but pending that not being too heavy we can commit some time to the overall effort.

I'll let you know tomorrow if thats ok?

All the best

Andrew

[tschak909]

sounds good to me.  the end result should be nothing short of a usb stick that you can cram into the tablet's port, that does the wipe, install, configure.

given the nature of embedded devices and the lack of space, we'll have to make versions for the tablets we wish to support...

for example, the system compliment of my WebDT 366 is:

* AMD (NSC) Geode GX2/533mhz
* AMD CS5536 supporting chipset
* AMD Geode display chip
* Penmount DMC9000 4-wire resistive display attached to /dev/ttyS0 at 19200bps
* Cisco Aironet 350 PCMCIA 802.11b card

all in all, a fairly well supported unit. I was surprised. I did have to get Penmount's driver (which did have source code, but you can't use the driver in xorg).

as an aside, Do you have ANY idea how challenging it is to shoehorn a "well, it needs to be embedded and then some" setup into 512 megs of flash? whee.. it took me 6 tries to get a system build small enough to fit. The irony? it was less painful than trying to get a working WinCE orbiter. 

-Thom

[jondecker76]

I just missed the boat on the WebDT 366s - when I wnet on ebay to check, the auction had already ended. I emailed them to see if they had more, but never got a response (I would have bought at least 4 of these)

I see some other WebDT devices (don't remember the model number) going cheap, though they don't look quite as nice.. Maybe I'll have to check them out.

Anyways, I still run 4 Datalux iPix touchscreens (running WindowsXP), and I have interest in a Linux based orbiter on these - I'll have to try to catch you on IRC one of these days and try to put an x86 linux build together.

[tschak909]

trust me, unless it's a webdt 310, 360, 366, or 375...YOU DON'T WANT IT!

This particular build only runs on WebDT 366 units

-Thom

[slampt]

Hey Thom,

Any chance of getting it to run on the Webdt 375s and if there is anything I can do to help let me know?
I don't know if it is just me or if my 375s are dodgey but the orbiter on them likes to crash a lot.

Cheers
Slampt.

[tschak909]

in short. no.

-Thom

[tschak909]

Okay fellas, after much work, it's finally here:

Release 1.0 of the PadOrbiter for WebDT 366 is now released:

What it has over the original beta release:

* An autonomous installer. Just flash the stick... plug in the stick...and go. No keyboard or any other devices needed.
* A tablet configurator... easily set your network parameters, complete with on-screen keyboard
* Fully configurable orbiter. Orbiter has been patched to create the correct orbiter template and everything automatically, no need to manually configure anything in web admin.
* Nice splash screens
* All buttons work and are mappable, including the 4-way pad on the right.
* Suspend-to-ram when power button is pressed. Hold for full shutdown.

In short, it's complete.

and can be gotten here: http://www.localeconcept.com/private/webpad-gamma1.dd.bz2

it is a bzip2'd image containing a raw disk dump. Simply uncompress and use dd or an equivalent utility to write the raw disk image onto a USB stick.

That's it.

Let me know how it works, guys.
-Thom

[jimmejames]

Quite possibly I'm doing something wrong, but I downloaded the file, ran the following as root after unzipping the file:

dd if=webpad-gamma1.dd of=/dev/sda1

13148640 records in and the same out
673184792 bytes (673 MB) copied


and upon starting the 366 it boots from the usb stick but says:

USB Boot Device :  MASS Storage Class [00F9h/FFh/3Fh]
Missing operating system.
No boot device present. Halting.


Any suggestions?
Thanks

[tschak909]

dude, make sure you use a 1GB stick minimum.

-Thom

[jimmejames]

it's a 2 gb stick

[tschak909]

hmm something's up.. tkmedia was able to use the stick on a few of the tablets.

-Thom

[jimmejames]

I just downloaded the file again and am trying to find a different usb stick... will let you know of any progress.   Going to be for tonight, but will try again tomorrow and let you know.


Thanks for the help

[asplodzor]

Perhaps I may be dense in this, but where does one go about acquiring a WebDT 366 from? I've checked around occasionally on ebay and craigslist, but have never even once seen one available.

[totallymaxed]

Perhaps I may be dense in this, but where does one go about acquiring a WebDT 366 from? I've checked around occasionally on ebay and craigslist, but have never even once seen one available.

Contact tkmedia he has some for sale currently and can ship them with Thom's Orbiter installed and ready to go.

All the best

Andrew