nanogui: Thread: Work on ARM?

Hello all!

I am new to NanoGUI mailing list, so sorry if this has been asked before;

Has anyone gotten NanoGUI to work on a StrongARM targets? I have a
StrongARM SA-1100 (in a Brutus eval board) and wanted to get it working on
it.

Any ideas or suggestions would be helpful.

Vasant.

: Has anyone gotten NanoGUI to work on a StrongARM targets? I have a
: StrongARM SA-1100 (in a Brutus eval board) and wanted to get it working on
: it.


Is StrongARM little or big-endian?  Big-endian may involve
writing a quick procedure to read palette entries (GETPALENTRY)

If you're going to run Linux on StrongARM, there's not much
of a big deal, providing you implement a kernel framebuffer.  Otherwise,
you'll have to write your own screen driver.

Perhaps you should describe the video memory layout.

Greg

On Fri, 22 Oct 1999, Greg Haerr wrote:

> Is StrongARM little or big-endian?  Big-endian may involve
> writing a quick procedure to read palette entries (GETPALENTRY)

It's both actually. (One can choose the endiness). I am not sure how the
Linux port sets up the endian; I'll ask Russel King.


> If you're going to run Linux on StrongARM, there's not much
> of a big deal, providing you implement a kernel framebuffer.  Otherwise,
> you'll have to write your own screen driver.

There is a framebuffer driver for Brutus; I'll have to see when it comes
to my own hardware.

> 
> Perhaps you should describe the video memory layout.

The "video" is actually an LCD and the controller is embedded in the
SA-1100. I don't think there is external memory for the LCD; I don't know
how the frame buffer driver for brutus works, I'll find out.

Thanks for the quick response!

How far is NanoGUI? I just want simple dialog boxes, input forms, check
boxes, radio buttons, "basic controls". No heavy duty crazy fast graphics,
just the ability to plot pixels (i.e. for graphing) quickly.

Thanks everyone!

Vasant.

On Fri, 22 Oct 1999, Vasant Ramasubramanian wrote:
> Has anyone gotten NanoGUI to work on a StrongARM targets? I have a

Yes.

> StrongARM SA-1100 (in a Brutus eval board) and wanted to get it working on
> it.

Let us know if it doesn't work out of the box ;)

--------------- Linux- the choice of a GNU generation. --------------
: Alex Holden (M1CJD)- Caver, Programmer, Land Rover nut, Radio Ham :
-------------------- http://www.linuxhacker.org/ --------------------

On Fri, 22 Oct 1999, Greg Haerr wrote:
> Is StrongARM little or big-endian?  Big-endian may involve
> writing a quick procedure to read palette entries (GETPALENTRY)

ARM-Linux is little endian.

> If you're going to run Linux on StrongARM, there's not much
> of a big deal, providing you implement a kernel framebuffer.  Otherwise,
> you'll have to write your own screen driver.

The SA1100 port already has a working framebuffer driver.

--------------- Linux- the choice of a GNU generation. --------------
: Alex Holden (M1CJD)- Caver, Programmer, Land Rover nut, Radio Ham :
-------------------- http://www.linuxhacker.org/ --------------------

On Fri, 22 Oct 1999, Vasant Ramasubramanian wrote:
> There is a framebuffer driver for Brutus; I'll have to see when it comes
> to my own hardware.

It shouldn't need much if any changes, due to the controller being
integrated.

> The "video" is actually an LCD and the controller is embedded in the
> SA-1100. I don't think there is external memory for the LCD; I don't know
> how the frame buffer driver for brutus works, I'll find out.

The video memory is an area of system DRAM which the video controller
transparently DMAs from. This has the disadvantage that at high
resolutions and colour depths, you tend to get some flicker when the
system is doing other things (tying up the memory bus/DMA controller).

> How far is NanoGUI? I just want simple dialog boxes, input forms, check
> boxes, radio buttons, "basic controls". No heavy duty crazy fast graphics,
> just the ability to plot pixels (i.e. for graphing) quickly.

I think the widget set will do most of what you describe.

--------------- Linux- the choice of a GNU generation. --------------
: Alex Holden (M1CJD)- Caver, Programmer, Land Rover nut, Radio Ham :
-------------------- http://www.linuxhacker.org/ --------------------

Hello:


> The video memory is an area of system DRAM which the video controller
> transparently DMAs from. This has the disadvantage that at high
> resolutions and colour depths, you tend to get some flicker when the
> system is doing other things (tying up the memory bus/DMA controller).

True; However the LCD Brutus has is 320x200x8bpp. I will use a
240x192x4bpp for my hardware (or there abouts).

Is there a StrongARM port I can download or am I to compile it on my own?

Thanks, Vasant.

On Fri, 22 Oct 1999, Vasant Ramasubramanian wrote:
> Is there a StrongARM port I can download or am I to compile it on my own?

Of what? The kernel, the distribution, or NanoGUI/Microwindows?

The kernel:
  The latest patch is available from ftp.netwinder.org/users/n/nico

The distribution:
  I'd recommend building one from Titan (we (Zereau) will be distributing
a CD-ROM of TitanVI when it's released, BTW), though you could also use
Debian, or if you ask on the SA1100-Linux list there are a couple of
people who have built their own custom distribution and made it available.
If you're feeling brave, you could even try my own attempt at a basic
palmtop ARM-Linux distribution: ftp://ftp.linuxhacker.org/pub/flatcap/

NanoGUI:
  In general we don't distribute binary versions (apart from the DOS
examples, which currently require a commercial compiler to build them).
However if you have any difficulties building it for StrongARM (as I said,
it /should/ work without any changes), I'd be happy to help out.

--------------- Linux- the choice of a GNU generation. --------------
: Alex Holden (M1CJD)- Caver, Programmer, Land Rover nut, Radio Ham :
-------------------- http://www.linuxhacker.org/ --------------------

On Sat, 23 Oct 1999, Alex Holden wrote:

> The kernel:
>   The latest patch is available from ftp.netwinder.org/users/n/nico

I have the Kernel and Linux working fine =).

> If you're feeling brave, you could even try my own attempt at a basic
> palmtop ARM-Linux distribution: ftp://ftp.linuxhacker.org/pub/flatcap/

I'll attempt this soon; what goodies does this include?
> 
> NanoGUI:
>   In general we don't distribute binary versions (apart from the DOS
> examples, which currently require a commercial compiler to build them).
> However if you have any difficulties building it for StrongARM (as I said,
> it /should/ work without any changes), I'd be happy to help out.

Great! I'll check this out in a matter of days.

Thanks, Vasant.

On Sat, 23 Oct 1999, Vasant Ramasubramanian wrote:
> > If you're feeling brave, you could even try my own attempt at a basic
> > palmtop ARM-Linux distribution: ftp://ftp.linuxhacker.org/pub/flatcap/
> I'll attempt this soon; what goodies does this include?

Glibc, bash, modutils, fileutils, lots of other bits and pieces, and lots
of bugs in a very small package. The ideal would probably be a combination
of the two images which are there (the -lite one has some things the
original one didn't, but has no modutils, and ash (Awful Shell ;) instead
of Bash). If you want a general purpose Linux system, Flatcap isn't it. If
you want a small, general purpose initrd for bootstrapping a larger system
or building an embedded system on top of, Flatcap could well be useful.

--------------- Linux- the choice of a GNU generation. --------------
: Alex Holden (M1CJD)- Caver, Programmer, Land Rover nut, Radio Ham :
-------------------- http://www.linuxhacker.org/ --------------------