PierroX.net

Linux on the Eten G500

What is it ?

The Eten G500 is a Pocket PC running the wm2005 operating system. It features bluetooth, GSM/GPRS, GPS, audio, camera, USB, FM radio. At the heart of the device is a Samsung S3C2440 SoC running at 400Mhz and 64Mb RAM.

This project aims at porting Linux to the G500. It consists in collecting various patches, writing drivers and putting some glue here and there.

Why

Porting Linux to this device was at first a challenge, then a hobby. It is now a stalled project since now one is using this device anymore.

How ?

Thanks to the work of many people, booting Linux was first possible with the strict minimum hardware support (core components like CPU, clocks, mem, and video). Linux is booted from a running wm2005 OS, with HaRET.

Investigating GPIO states is a great source of knowledge, disassembling WinCE dll is another one, but also a bit more painful. About one billion of reboots should have been completed since I started this project.

Resources

Up to date documentation can be found on handhelds.org, sources and patches can be downloaded here (see below).

Project Status (handhelds.org)
Project News (handhelds.org)
CLFS-1.0.0 for the G500 : building a Cross Linux From Scratch system for the G500 (ARMV4t). A step by step guide on how to build a complete GNU/Linux system for the G500, using Trip package manager, on a CLFS basis, possibly using QEMU.

Miscellaneous screenshots

gpe_nfs

Disassembled photos

File reference

The primary location of patches for the G500 is now here : http://svn.pierrox.net/g500/.

All released files can be found in the following directories. They may not be up to date, prefer SVN sources for reference.