=============================================================================== WHAT EVERYTHING IN THIS RELEASE IS A file-by-file guide =============================================================================== Read README.txt first for the overview and the safety warning. This file explains what each individual thing is and why it is here. Total size is about 4.4 GB. You almost certainly do not need all of it: Just want to run it? 1-IMAGES, 1.9 GB Preserving the history? 3-PSION-SOURCES, 621 MB Want to build or modify it? 4-BUILD-SYSTEM, 1.6 GB Machine won't boot CE? 2-WINDOWS-CE-RESTORE, 40 MB Every folder in the release carries its own README.txt as well -- 42 of them, one per directory, each describing what is actually in that directory rather than repeating this file. This one is the overview; those are the detail. =============================================================================== ROOT OF THE RELEASE =============================================================================== README.txt Start here. What this is, the NAND safety warning, quick start, a folder map, what works and what does not, and the credits. WHAT-IS-EVERYTHING.txt This file. PROVENANCE.txt about 24 KB THE AUTHORITATIVE RECORD. Where every file came from, file by file, in four categories: PSION'S OWN byte-identical to their originals PSION'S OWN SOURCE, their pinned version with their patches, REBUILT recompiled for ARM OABI RECONSTRUCTED does not exist any more; rebuilt from upstream code and photographs SUBSTITUTE a different implementation standing in It is deliberately blunt about what is not genuine, including the cases where a stand-in icon was used because Psion's artwork is lost. If you want to know whether something you are looking at is really Psion's, this is the file that answers it. SHA256SUMS.txt Checksums for everything. =============================================================================== 1-IMAGES/ 1.9 GB =============================================================================== psionlx-cf-1gb.img 1,024,966,656 bytes THE IMAGE TO USE. Write it to a CF card of 1 GB or larger and boot the netBook Pro from it. Contains the full build with every application. psionlx-cf-1gb-asphotographed.img 1,024,966,656 bytes THE ARCHIVE BUILD. Identical underneath, but its Programs screen shows only the 21 applications visible in Psion's own photograph of the prototype, and PDF Viewer sits in OTHER where the photograph puts it rather than in OFFICE where its .desktop file puts it. This exists because the photograph is the only surviving evidence of what the real PsionLX desktop looked like, and an image that reproduces it exactly is worth having separately from one that is merely useful. Every binary is still present; only menu entries differ. See AS-PHOTOGRAPHED.txt. README-WRITE-TO-CF.txt How to write either image to a card on macOS, Linux or Windows; what the card layout is; what you see when it boots; what the dock buttons do; and the one thing not to tap. AS-PHOTOGRAPHED.txt What the archive build is, what the photograph shows, and exactly how the two images differ. SHA256SUMS.txt Checksums for the two images. Verify before writing. =============================================================================== 2-WINDOWS-CE-RESTORE/ 40 MB =============================================================================== Only needed if the machine's internal flash has been erased. Running PsionLX from CF does not touch it. nbpce-404-int-20051129.zip 20,991,819 bytes PSION'S OFFICIAL RESTORE SET, -404 International, 29 November 2005. Contains the Windows CE image (1000932-404, k295q), BooSt (1000981-404), PCon (1000985-404), Psion's own upgrade script and their read-me files. boost-scripts/ The BooSt scripts that drive the restore. BooSt automatically runs a file called nbkpro.img from the root of a CF card, so each step is a matter of putting the right one on the card and booting. stepA-dump/ "nand" -- prints the geometry. DO THIS FIRST and read your own machine's numbers rather than trusting a forum post. stepB-repartition-540/ "nand partition 540" then "nand". The CORRECT value for 32 MB hardware. step2-upgrade/ Psion's own upgrade sequence, plus their three image files, writing BooSt first as their read-me requires. psionlx-autoboot/ "load nBkProOS.img run" -- not part of the restore. It boots Linux from the card, and is included as an example of what a safe netBook Pro script looks like. NOT INCLUDED: a "step1-repartition" using the value 7e8. That value is for the 64 MB LX prototype. On a standard 32 MB machine it claims the whole chip and leaves Windows CE unable to reinstall -- the machine reaches the CE splash and dies, which looks like a bad CE image and is not. README-RESTORE-WINDOWS-CE.txt The full procedure, written down after it was actually needed. =============================================================================== 3-PSION-SOURCES/ 650 MB =============================================================================== THE PRESERVATION MATERIAL. The images can always be rebuilt; this cannot. Several of these files exist in only one or two places in the world. netbook-linux-sources.tgz 106,074,940 bytes Psion's source drop, 31,531 files. Posted to HPC:Factor in 2007 as the sources the Teklogix developer used to build PsionLX. One Internet Archive capture exists; the site that hosted it is gone. oe-netbook/ Psion's OpenEmbedded build tree, unpacked. 2,163 files, 263 recipes, CVS metadata intact, checked out by petern@psiondev.com in 2006. This is the authoritative statement of what PsionLX was -- meta/soho-image.oe names the image, meta/meta-psion.oe lists every application. extracted-source-trees/linux-2.6.9/ PSION'S COMPLETE PATCHED KERNEL. 19,424 files, 231 MB, EXTRAVERSION -rc1-bk18-nb1, 4,471 lines of their own driver code. Exactly what the machine runs. original-images/ Three different boot images -- one built on Psion's own server at 02:27 GMT on 4 January 2005, five hours before the lost soho image was built in the same run; two rebuilt by "fuchs@gibson" in March 2005, one of which is what these CF images boot. Plus the community GPE root filesystems, the CF rootfs, the source of the tool that makes bootable images, and the LX prototype NAND script under a deliberately unbootable name. upstream-tarballs/ Upstream source at the exact versions Psion pinned. Several are no longer available from the projects themselves. recovered/ Psion's kernel patches and defconfig, their own NAND installer NBLXLoad.sh, the netBook Pro machine config as it survived into OpenEmbedded, upstream GPE releases, and the search record. README.txt in that folder explains all of the above in detail, including which five packages came from Psion's private CVS and are therefore permanently lost. =============================================================================== 4-BUILD-SYSTEM/ 1.6 GB =============================================================================== Everything needed to rebuild the images or compile new applications. README-HOW-TO-BUILD.txt The full guide. Two separate procedures: building the CF image (minutes, no root needed) and compiling applications for ARM OABI (slow, needs emulation). scripts/ mkimage.sh builds the image. qbuild.sh runs a build job inside an emulated ARM machine. Plus the Python helpers for installing build output, resolving libraries, generating icons and the background, building gconf defaults, and applying Psion's naming. card-tree/, card-tree-asphotographed/ THE ROOT FILESYSTEM TREES the two images are built from. To change anything in PsionLX, edit these and re-run mkimage.sh. arm-oabi-chroot/ 828 MB A complete Debian etch ARM OABI system, booted under QEMU so that GCC 3.4 runs natively on the target architecture. This is the hard part to recreate, which is why it ships whole. ARM OABI is not produced by any current toolchain, and the card's libstdc++ 6.0.3 forces GCC 3.4 for anything C++. debian-packages/ The Debian ARM OABI package cache and indexes. Debian's "arm" architecture was OABI, which is why sarge and etch packages run on this machine unmodified. gpe-src/ GPE sources INCLUDING THE MODIFIED ONES. gpe-appmgr here is not upstream: row_view.c carries the reconstructed TODAY / PROGRAMS / TASKS strip and the red power button. If you want to improve the reconstruction, that is the file. jobs/ Every build job used, with its console log. Heavily commented, mostly explaining why a choice that looks arbitrary is not. built-binaries/, jffs2-extracted/, qemu/, overlay-route/, last-build-output/, initramfs/, mbpanel/ Compiled results, the unpacked base filesystem, the emulator's kernel and initramfs, the original superseded overlay install method, and example build output. The QEMU scratch disk images are NOT included -- they are regenerated every run and amount to 4 GB of nothing. =============================================================================== 5-REFERENCE/ 129 MB =============================================================================== ui-photos/ The photographs the reconstruction was measured against. Where Psion's code did not survive, these are the only evidence of what PsionLX looked like. Includes the primary reference photograph of a real prototype, the Today screen, the boot splash, Psion's own artwork, screenshots of the rebuild for comparison, and two images that are frequently mislabelled as PsionLX and are not. netbook-pro-cd/1000999D.ISO 30,750,720 bytes Psion's netBook Pro companion CD, November 2004. Windows-side only, but the user manuals in five languages are the best hardware documentation that exists. BooStDongle.pdf The serial dongle documentation. You need this to reach the bootloader, which you need for anything in 2-WINDOWS-CE-RESTORE. other-netbookpro-linux/jlime-...tar.bz2 88,409,659 bytes jLime 2012.3: a full XFCE desktop on Linux 3.2.9 for the same machine, seven years newer and entirely unrelated to PsionLX. If you want a usable modern Linux on a netBook Pro rather than a historical reconstruction, this is it. jlime.com is gone. =============================================================================== 6-PARKED-ORIGINALS/ 44 MB =============================================================================== Files replaced during the build, kept rather than deleted, so every substitution can be checked and every change reversed. Stock AbiWord 2.4, Debian's Gnumeric, Debian's apm wrapper, Totem's GNOME artwork, the Minimo browser, and others. Nothing here is needed to run or build PsionLX. One file from the project is deliberately excluded: a copy of the boot partition carrying the LX prototype's NAND-erasing script. =============================================================================== A NOTE ON HOW HONEST THIS RELEASE TRIES TO BE =============================================================================== It would be easy to present this as "PsionLX, recovered". It is not that. The real image is lost and this is a reconstruction built on a different root filesystem, with a launcher and dock that are new code imitating photographs of Psion's. So everything is labelled. PROVENANCE.txt says which category each file falls into. Where an icon is a stand-in rather than Psion's artwork, it says so. Where something is known to be broken -- the card ejector will unmount your root filesystem -- it says that too, and the file is shipped unmodified anyway because it is Psion's. The point of the release is the source material in 3-PSION-SOURCES and the fact that the whole thing can be rebuilt from it. The images are the demonstration, not the artefact.