0xFFFF: GPL-licensed flasher for n770 and n800

The past week I released a gpl-licensed flasher for both
Nokia Internet Tablets.

On this first release, the flasher can:

 - get some information of the device (nolo version, boot
device, etc..)
 - (un)set the usb host mode
 - (un)set the R&D mode
 - extract the firmware pieces from the device
 - flash separately firmware pieces
 - identify firmware pieces
 - reboot the mother board

The homepage of the project is:

  http://www.nopcode.org
/0xFFFF/

I have recorded a termcast video as a demonstration of its
usage:

  http://www.
youterm.com/?video=n770/0xFFFF

I'm planning to implement a GTK+ frontend for flashing and
backuping the device
in a user-friendly way.

Feedback is welcome and feel free to join the mailing list:

  htt
p://www.nopcode.org/0xFFFF/nospam.php?for=list

Here is a list of tips for people working on flashers and
bootloaders on this platform:

  http://www.nopcode.org/0xFFFF/?p=docu&q=nokia-tips



  --pancake
_______________________________________________
maemo-developers mailing list
maemo-developersmaemo.org
h
ttps://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers

On Sat, Apr 07, 2007 at 12:07:33PM +0200, pancake wrote:
> The past week I released a gpl-licensed flasher for
both Nokia
> Internet Tablets.

Yay!

Marius Gedminas
-- 
Q:      What's tiny and yellow and very, very, dangerous?
A:      A canary with the super-user password.

_______________________________________________
maemo-developers mailing list
maemo-developersmaemo.org
h
ttps://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers

>The past week I released a gpl-licensed flasher for both
Nokia 
>Internet Tablets.

I haven't tried it yet but only for the idea and the
release:
congratulations, cool. 

Flasher is one of those closed components with openness
wheels currently
moving. Good to see movement in the same direction. Today
you have been
faster and tomorrow we may end up sharing contributions and
improvements.

>I'm planning to implement a GTK+ frontend for flashing
and 
>backuping the device in a user-friendly way.

Yeah, good point.

Quim

PS: May I ask... any reason not to use garage.maemo.org? We
want to keep
improving this service and any feedback is appreciated.
_______________________________________________
maemo-developers mailing list
maemo-developersmaemo.org
h
ttps://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers

On Sat, 7 Apr 2007 12:07:33 +0200, pancake wrote:
> The past week I released a gpl-licensed flasher for
both Nokia
> Internet Tablets.

Fantastic!

I've been very much looking forward to the time where there
would be
instructions for downloading an entirely Free flasher and
Free image
to flash to bring the unit into a bootable state from
scratch.

So this addresses an essential missing piece in that.

What else might be missing?

What elements go into the Nokia fiasco image that cannot be
built from
Free source?

Of those, which must not be left out in order to have a
bootable
device?

And of those, which do not come with a license that at least
allows
for re-distribution?

If there's anything left at this point, then it's going to
be really
hard for the community to make any progress at supporting a
Free
operating system on this device.

Or did the announcement of 0xFFFF suggest that it can
extract some of
these elements from the device itself so that
re-distribution outside
of the device wouldn't strictly be needed?

If there's nothing left at this point, then we can ask what
functionality would be missing from a device booted with an
image
created in this way. And that should give the community a
todo list if
more work is desired to maintain this, (or a decision to
look
elsewhere for cute hardware suitable for running Free
operating
systems).

-Carl

_______________________________________________
maemo-developers mailing list
maemo-developersmaemo.org
h
ttps://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers

On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 06:59:55PM -0700, ext Carl Worth
wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Apr 2007 12:07:33 +0200, pancake wrote:
> > The past week I released a gpl-licensed flasher
for both Nokia
> > Internet Tablets.
> 
> Fantastic!
> 
> I've been very much looking forward to the time where
there would be
> instructions for downloading an entirely Free flasher
and Free image
> to flash to bring the unit into a bootable state from
scratch.
> 
> So this addresses an essential missing piece in that.
> 
> What else might be missing?

Depends on what you mean by 'from scratch'.  If the unit
does not have a
bootloader _at all_, then you need to flash a bootloader via
JTAG.  But
that's mildly convoluted.

> What elements go into the Nokia fiasco image that
cannot be built from
> Free source?

The bootloaders (xloader, 2nd, secondary).

> Of those, which must not be left out in order to have a
bootable
> device?

If your device already has bootloaders, you don't need to
flash them
again, but you do need to execute this piece of non-free
code every time
you boot, or flash.

Cheers,
Daniel

_______________________________________________
maemo-developers mailing list
maemo-developersmaemo.org
h
ttps://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers

On Fri, 2007-04-13 at 09:23 +0300, ext Daniel Stone wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 06:59:55PM -0700, ext Carl
Worth wrote:
> > On Sat, 7 Apr 2007 12:07:33 +0200, pancake wrote:
> > > The past week I released a gpl-licensed
flasher for both Nokia
> > > Internet Tablets.
> > 
> > Fantastic!
> > 
> > I've been very much looking forward to the time
where there would be
> > instructions for downloading an entirely Free
flasher and Free image
> > to flash to bring the unit into a bootable state
from scratch.
> > 
> > So this addresses an essential missing piece in
that.
> > 
> > What else might be missing?
> 
> Depends on what you mean by 'from scratch'.  If the
unit does not have a
> bootloader _at all_, then you need to flash a
bootloader via JTAG.  But
> that's mildly convoluted.

Serial console is the usual way to go. There is rom code
that provides
this facility. Of course a serial programmer (aka flasher)
is needed.
> 
> > What elements go into the Nokia fiasco image that
cannot be built from
> > Free source?
> 
> The bootloaders (xloader, 2nd, secondary).
> 
> > Of those, which must not be left out in order to
have a bootable
> > device?
> 
> If your device already has bootloaders, you don't need
to flash them
> again, but you do need to execute this piece of
non-free code every time
> you boot, or flash.

The alternative would be for us to publish the required mux
settings and
so on.

Which i think is pretty silly that we haven't done so far.

Disabling muxing in kernel as we are doing now, certainly
doesn't
prevent one from usinig the kernel to write directly to the
supposedly
inaccessible registers.


-- 
Cheers, Igor

Igor Stoppa <igor.stoppanokia.com>
(Nokia Multimedia - CP - OSSO / Helsinki, Finland)
_______________________________________________
maemo-developers mailing list
maemo-developersmaemo.org
h
ttps://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers

On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 09:11:34AM +0200, ext Frantisek
Dufka wrote:
> Daniel Stone wrote:
> >On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 06:59:55PM -0700, ext Carl
Worth wrote:
> >>What elements go into the Nokia fiasco image
that cannot be built from
> >>Free source?
> >
> >The bootloaders (xloader, 2nd, secondary).
> 
> And the initfs too. Without it it is hard to initialize
wi-fi nad bt 
> chips properly.

Ah, I thought the initfs source was public.  Apparently
not.

> Kernel is free to modify too but (closed) wi-fi modules
depend on it so 
> you can't deviate too much.

Well, only umac.ko, and Kalle has a public cx3110x project,
so you
should be able to rebuild it to run on whichever kernel you
create?

> It looks like you also need to have bme running in your
free solution 
> for charging to work.

This is true.

> At boot time you also need dsme but I guess/hope 
> it can be killed once it does its job of letting initfs
stuff work and 
> you have replacement for the dsme part that keeps the
HW watchdog happy. 
> Killing it gives you control of display brightness and
blanking.
> What dsme manages can be guessed from names of
libraries in
> /mnt/initfs/usr/lib/dsme/

Indeed, most of DSME can be relatively trivially
reimplemented.  There
are very few parts which require actual reverse-engineering;
the main
part, I'd imagine, would be the Retu RTC.  The rest (e.g.
display
blanking) is already publicly documented.

Cheers,
Daniel

_______________________________________________
maemo-developers mailing list
maemo-developersmaemo.org
h
ttps://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers

Igor Stoppa <igor.stoppanokia.com> writes:

> Disabling muxing in kernel as we are doing now,
certainly doesn't
> prevent one from usinig the kernel to write directly to
the supposedly
> inaccessible registers.

Most definitely not.  I've desoldered the audio chip from a
couple of
Nokia 770s and replaced it with a GPS radio instead turning
the device
into a software GPS.  And getting that to work required
changing the
mux registers.  

   /Christer

-- 
"Just how much can I get away with and still go to
heaven?"

Christer Weinigel <christerweinigel.se>  http://www.weinigel.se


_______________________________________________
maemo-developers mailing list
maemo-developersmaemo.org
h
ttps://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers

On Fri, 13 Apr 2007 09:47:01 +0300
Igor Stoppa <igor.stoppanokia.com> wrote:


> > Depends on what you mean by 'from scratch'.  If
the unit does not have a
> > bootloader _at all_, then you need to flash a
bootloader via JTAG.  But
> > that's mildly convoluted.
> 
> Serial console is the usual way to go. There is rom
code that provides
> this facility. Of course a serial programmer (aka
flasher) is needed.

Are you telling me that the N770 has a ROM (not EEPROM or
FLASH) that allows one to rewrite the Flash no matter how
badly you screwed any part of the programmable memory?
I'm asking as I have until now been quite cautious in my
experiments with the Nokia, knowing that there is a way to
recover the device (by my self) would put my mind at ease


If it has such a marvellous ROM bootloader, is it by any
chance one with any documentation regarding the
"protocol"?
Something like UBoot would really nice 

_______________________________________________
maemo-developers mailing list
maemo-developersmaemo.org
h
ttps://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers

On Fri, 13 Apr 2007 21:47:47 +0200
Visti Andresen <talpagalnet.dk> wrote:

> On Fri, 13 Apr 2007 09:47:01 +0300
> Igor Stoppa <igor.stoppanokia.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> > > Depends on what you mean by 'from scratch'. 
If the unit does not have a
> > > bootloader _at all_, then you need to flash a
bootloader via JTAG.  But
> > > that's mildly convoluted.
> > 
> > Serial console is the usual way to go. There is
rom code that provides
> > this facility. Of course a serial programmer (aka
flasher) is needed.
> 
> Are you telling me that the N770 has a ROM (not EEPROM
or FLASH) that allows one to rewrite the Flash no matter how
badly you screwed any part of the programmable memory?
> I'm asking as I have until now been quite cautious in
my experiments with the Nokia, knowing that there is a way
to recover the device (by my self) would put my mind at ease

> 
> If it has such a marvellous ROM bootloader, is it by
any chance one with any documentation regarding the
"protocol"?
> Something like UBoot would really nice 
> 

I have been digging around and it actually seems that a
omap1710 has a boot rom?

On some development boards one has to move a jumper for the
bootloader to be run (changes the memory map), and it isn't
uboot but an iboot/ihost bootloader, capable of flashing
over usb?
Do we have to hold down some button in order for the boot
loader to start(at powerup)?



An omap1710 could be seen as an OMAP5912 according to http://focus.ti.co
m/general/docs/wtbu/wtbusplashcontent.tsp?templateId=6123&am
p;contentId=4753
http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/omap5912.ht
ml contains data sheets for this processor

http://tree.celinuxforum.org/CelfPubWiki/FlashRecov
eryUtility seems to be an open source "iboot a
like" program to be able to flash an omap cpu over
USB.
The protocol seems quite straight forward
_______________________________________________
maemo-developers mailing list
maemo-developersmaemo.org
h
ttps://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers