Linux?
Hey I just heard about a programmer attempting to get Linux on the Dingoo. Does anyone know if this would be a software, hardware, or both type of hack? It sounds like this would give the dingoo great opportunity as most emulators work well with Linux.
Lol, I wish I could. This guy appears to be getting pretty far - http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?act=ST&f=28&t=47628
uClinux isn't needeed.
Ingenic provides a patched linux kernel for their CPUs, also tinyX server, GTK and QTopia 
Okay, if we got Linux onto the Dingoo, would that be the actual Linux OS, or would it be a watered-down version of it?
Software development would be alot easier if the device was running linux. And compiling software like new emulators would be a breeze. We are not talking about a full blown linux OS to be installed on the device but a small distro running in the background. The GUI could also be customized any way we want. There are lots of possibilities with linux.
That sounds very cool. Now, just slightly changing the subject a tiny bit, would it be possible to get some code that would allow for multiplayer on the dingoo, via WifiSD (or wsd ;D) cards?
Yes building new drivers or including drivers for devices like an wlan minisd card would be possible. a linux based firmware would open the door of possibilities.
So far I have it built and have been trying to run the kernel on a qemu setup since there is code posted on google code with patches for the dingoo processors to run on qemu. I managed to get it loading but it would just sit there at loading kernel. I still dont have a dingoo here yet, judging by status and eta's from dx it'll probably be 2 weeks, so I cant do any real testing anyway yet. Its probably also safer to hand off my builds to the other devs who will have already hacked up their units for this stuff anyway.
There are merits in both using and not using linux. If we get it running on there it would make porting and development a whole lot quicker since everyone knows linux and its a fairly standardized setup. If people manage to figure out how to build for uCOSII, the existing OS, then maybe it would be possible to run apps with very little modification to the existing software.
They had the full previous output on the dingoo blogspot from the spanish gp2x forums. They got linux partially booting but previously did not have the kernel modules to get it outputting to the lcd. Looks like they figured out how to turn on that kernel option, which isnt too hard, its an option in the kernel config before you build it. Looks like the only thing they are missing now is putting a file system on that dingoo since it failed at the end trying to mount it. The file system is freely available as a download so they should have it working in a few days I suspect.
Yes it might just be possible. There's a port for MP4 players called uClinux ( http://www.uclinux.org/ ) that might run on the dingoo but has not been tested yet. Up for a challenge?
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