ORIGINAL BOOT AND ROOT FILESYSTEM IMAGES
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*** READ THE WARNING AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS FILE BEFORE USING ANYTHING HERE ***
THE THREE BOOT IMAGES
These are not copies of one another. Each is a 256-byte BooSt header
wrapping a zlib-deflated ARM kernel, and decompressing them gives three
genuinely different kernels with different build banners.
nBkProOs.img.psion-autobuild-nexus-20050104 3,613,045 bytes
Linux 2.6.9-rc1-bk18-nb1 (autobuild@nexus) (gcc version 3.4.0)
#1 Tue Jan 4 02:27:32 GMT 2005
*** BUILT ON PSION'S OWN BUILD SERVER. ***
"nexus" is nexus.psiondev.com, the host named throughout oe-netbook.
This is the only genuinely Psion-built binary in the whole release.
It was produced at 02:27 GMT on 4 January 2005. The lost soho image
was built at 07:42 GMT the same morning. They are the matching pair
from one build run -- this is the kernel that went with the
filesystem nobody can find.
nBkProOs.img.fuchs-gibson-20050308 3,403,850 bytes
(fuchs@gibson) (gcc-Version 3.3.4) #1 Tue Mar 8 01:15:53 CET 2005
nBkProOs.img_cf.fuchs-gibson-20050325 3,659,808 bytes
(fuchs@gibson) (gcc-Version 3.3.4) #1 Fri Mar 25 18:13:14 CET 2005
THE CF-BOOT VARIANT. This is the kernel the released images use.
"fuchs@gibson" is a German-locale toolchain -- note "gcc-Version"
and CET -- rebuilding netBook Pro kernels in March 2005, two and a
half years before any PsionLX image was uploaded publicly. Whoever
fuchs is, they had a working system. Nobody has ever identified
them. If the name means anything to you, please say so on
HPC:Factor.
To use one, rename it to exactly nBkProOs.img and put it on the FAT
partition of a CF card. Header flags differ: Psion's image sets
0x00010003, matching HEADER_FLAGS in mk-nBkProOsImg.c; the linuxtogo one
sets 0x00010013.
None of the three contains an initramfs. The cpio and gzip byte
sequences inside them are the kernel's own unpacker error strings.
ROOT FILESYSTEMS
gpe-image-3.5.4.1-netbook-pro.rootfs.jffs2 15,450,112 bytes
gpe-image.jffs2 22,822,912 bytes
The community GPE root filesystem. These two hold byte-identical
content with different padding, so they are one image, not two.
This is what the reconstruction is built on top of, because it is
known to boot on this hardware.
IT IS NOT PsionLX. The giveaway is 43 gpe-* binaries with neither
gpe-appmgr nor gpe-buttonbox among them.
gpe-fs-cf.tar.bz2 14,227,676 bytes
A CF-card root filesystem, March 2005. A genuinely different build
from the JFFS2 above, not a repack -- it carries 277 files the JFFS2
does not, including the Industrial GTK theme engine, the Merlin
handwriting recogniser, a barcode scanner (bcscan -- this was a
Teklogix machine), telnet terminal emulation, and Psion's setuid
apm binary.
TOOLS AND DOCUMENTATION
mk-nBkProOsImg.c
The source of the tool that builds a bootable nBkProOs.img: the
256-byte header format, the platform ID "nBk2", the load address
0x00408000, and the POSIX cksum BooSt validates. Start here if you
want to build your own boot image.
netbook-booting.txt, NOTES.txt
The community documentation for booting Linux on this machine.
*** READ WITH CARE. *** netbook-booting.txt describes the 64 MB LX
PROTOTYPE, not a standard machine, and its NAND partitioning values
are wrong for 32 MB hardware. Following it as written erases Windows
CE and leaves a partition too small to reinstall it. See
2-WINDOWS-CE-RESTORE.
*** THE DANGEROUS FILE ***
nBkPro.img.LX-PROTOTYPE-NAND-SCRIPT-DO-NOT-BOOT
This is the script that causes the damage described above:
nand -ignore erase 18 ee8
nand partition e8
It is here because it is part of the historical record and because
people should be able to recognise it.
IT HAS BEEN RENAMED SO THAT BooSt CANNOT RUN IT. BooSt automatically
executes a file called exactly "nbkpro.img" from the root of a CF card;
this is not called that, so it is inert.
DO NOT rename it back. DO NOT put it on a card you intend to boot.
Unless you have a 64 MB LX prototype and know precisely what you are
doing, this file will cost you your Windows CE installation.
