Handtops, UMPC - Installing Linux on the OQO

10/29/04 + dbruzzone

As we all wait for our OQOs (except for the lucky few who have started receiving theirs), I wanted to start a thread related to installing Linux on the OQO.

If anyone is planning to do this (or have already done this), please post your ideas, suggestions, experiences, etc. regarding:

- Which distribution you installed or are planning to install (and why... Even if the answer is as simple as "I prefer Red Hat/Fedora to Debian"). I'm planning to try to install Gentoo on mine.
- How you repartitioned your drive. I'm planning to take the easy route and repartition the OQO's drive with PartitionMagic (which has worked wonderfully for this purpose on other machines in the past)
- How you installed the distribution. i.e. Did the distribution come on bootable CDs (or boot floppies/non-bootable CDs)? If so, what make and model USB or Firewire CD/DVD drive did you use? Were you able to boot off the media successfully?
- What drivers did you find worked on the OQO? I'm particularly interested in things like the wireless drivers, power management, etc. What snags did you come across?
- What does your XFree86 configuration file look like?

I'll post my answers to these questions on this thread as soon as I get my OQO and get started with the process.

Recent Blog: dbruzzone's OQO journal - Day one

10/29/04 + dbruzzone

I sent a question to OQO regarding the wireless chipset that they use... Their response was:

"The 802.11b uses the Atmel chipset"

I did a bit of research and found the following links:

- link - Home of the OpenSource Linux Driver for Atmel AT76C5XXx-based Wireless Devices
- link
- link
- There are more if you Google "linux atmel driver"

So it looks like wireless would work (I can't remember if someone has already tried this... Someone lese may already have succeeded).

Recent Blog: dbruzzone's OQO journal - Day two

10/29/04 + captain

I also did a write up on this a few weeks ago: link

Recent Blog: Samsung Q1 Ultra released

11/03/04 + sett

Dbruzzone, Captain's review on the Suse/Linux on the OQO mentioned that "Gentoo and Redhat9 were successfully installed". I'm not planning to get an OQO until after the new year [1], but will definitely play around with Gentoo. Simply because I'm a tweakaholic.

Once I get through with it, I'll post my experiences here.

[1] i'm going to wait until all these ordering and delivery delay problems settle down. and i'm hoping/wishing that sony may riposte and parry with a new U model with a smaller form factor. ;)

edited: Nov 08 2004 + OQObsessed

I know there is a Linux-Transmeta connection, seeing as how Linus Torvalds works for Transmeta. Was or is there any work being done on a Linux distribution specfically tailored for the Transmeta CPUs? I remember reading an article way back when stating that the Crusoe would perform better with software compiled for it.

11/08/04 + bkervaski

The transmeta is technically a 128-bit chip with the 'morphing' software basically just there to dumb things down to 32-bit. It would be interesting to see the results of a linux distro built specifically for the 128-bit Crusoe.

Recent Blog: My First Impressions / Mini Review

11/12/04 + OQObsessed

After a bit of Googling, I discovered that Transmeta's Linux distro is called Midori Linux. However, it appears that this project is dead:
Sourceforge Project Page
midori.transmeta.com (cannot be reached)

11/12/04 + DoC

Midori was created by Transmeta but it's not crusoe specific. It's a generic embedded version of linux designed for devices. I've seen some articles about Intel's icc compiler being able to target the Crusoe natively but I'm not certain if that's true. Transmeta has one but I don't think they've released it as yet. Assuming the interrupt and IO subsystems are intel compatible then switching to native code should be as simple as recompiling the kernel and all of the binaries.

edited: Nov 13 2004 + DoC

Here is an interesting thread on the subject of native VLIW compiling that makes some interesting points.

A further note on the icc compiler. I believe it just better optimizes the code for parallelism and some other things that allow the code morphing to work faster rather than actually compiling for vliw and that's why people are seeing an improvement over GCC.

The linux kernel actually has options for the crusoe that are passed on to GCC. Again, I think these are just optimizations in the x86 code output that allow the crusoe to run the code better. The crusoe particularly is very good at parallelism shadow branch execution so there are things you could optimize in the x86 output that would make that be less work for the code morphing software.

05/02/05 + Gothicgntlmn

I see that it's been a while sense anyone has posted around here and I'm a little concerned. I've been looking at the OQO 001 for a while and liking what I've seen and read so far. I'm waiting to buy one because I'm in Iraq with the Marines and don't want it shipped out here. No one has posted anything that I can find sense Jan and it's May now. Any updates or news? I concider myself to be good with Linux but nowhere near where some of you are. I need all the help I can get to not only make a desision to buy but on how to get linux on it.

05/15/05 + HTNOW

I'm a Windows user that would love to give Linux a shot. I'm interested in co-linux and topologi-linux ( link ), since these distros can work with NTFS and co-exists with Windows.

My biggest problem though are drivers. I'm very interested in any experienced Linux users that have got Linux on the OQO.

Its ashame that drivers for Linux are so hard to come by and hantops may be ignored by the Linux community. The OQO and other hantops have a great future as portable wireless/Bluetooth device that can interface with many LAN environments.

05/27/05 + moshen

Hey guys, there are a few items at: link that may help you out if you're running Ubuntu Hoary.

Make sure to read the README there. None of this is officially supported by OQO, so please don't call customer support for any linux related issues. I'm here on my own time and will help you out if I'm not busy.

Tommorow, I'll post more instructions/tips on Ubuntu on the Model 01, but feel free to play with what's there for now.

05/27/05 + garylm

moshen said: "Send reports to moshenc AT NOSPAM oqo.com"

Say! How can I get me one of them there cool OQO email addresses?

Recent Blog: Travelling With the OQO