Latest PsiROM tool out

[donkeyontheedge]

Supports optimising of images to reduce size.
See http://gtm.tel.uva.es/xtep/en/index.htm

John

[donkeyontheedge]

This will apparently be the final version, includes optimisations, a toolbar "used space" meter, and ROM file exports(!)

See http://gtm.tel.uva.es/xtep/en/index.htm

John

[wanman]

This is all very cool. How long do we think it will be before we get a new release of ER5 for the netBook?

[donkeyontheedge]

Any new release of ER5 will almost certainly have to be "home grown", so it depends what you want to see in it.

I guess the real problem is the lack of decent documentation to develop low-level drivers, and then the lack of system level programmers to commit time to make any changes.

Perhaps we should start up a SourceForge project to develop the OS ourselves? Obviously this would be very *****ious and a long term project, but with the likes of the PsiROM tool, it should be possible to graft updates into the OS.

There are also loads of open source projects I would love to see ported to ER5 but that's another kettle of fish entirely...

John

[Gebbly]

"lack of system level programmers to commit time to make any changes"

What sort of changes would people want to make to the OS?

The biggest problem would be copyright of course. ER5 is an owned piece of software so there would be all sorts of problems if someone made changes and then tried to release those changes for free.

[wanman]

I was thinking of just a mid life upgrade to the ER5 OS, which included extra standard functionality such as that offered by:

FileSwitch
plOpen - ok licencing issues
plBeam - Again licencing issues
AlarmPlus
ResetPlus
AtomicTime
Macro5 (at least the background opx's rather than the full app).
EDU (ok very wishful thinking again due to licencing and also the fact that they would need fixing so they work with and without the extended memory module before these could realistically be part of the OS)

Could the OS be larger than it currently is? I assume previous netBook OS's have been smaller than 158? Assuming the OS had to increase in size to include other apps and drivers, there would be the issue of how a larger Z: was created to accomodate the extra apps?

Even if we could find the technical experts to help create such an updated OS, is the likes of this really possible?

[Gebbly]

Upgrading the OS is always possible...but legal?

The only limit to the rom size has always been the limits of the hardware. As long as the ROM was large enough you could have any size OS. So with the netbook this isnt an issue since everything runs in what is effectively the RAM you could have a ROM up to around 64MB (very roughly) taking up the entire RAM.

The actual components of the OS were written with various degrees of alteration allowed by engineers external to Psion/Symbian. Some components were irreplaceable, some were alowed to be modified by a licensee, some were allowed to be replaced or completely removed by the licensee. I think there were also components that had these varying degrees of permissions for third parties as well. Of course messing with an original component can be very risky.

If people truly wanted to expand the OSs functionality the best way to go about it would be to build on the original components rather than patching in OPL apps.

Of course the problem here is that some components statically link against each other at build time so you couldnt just use PsiROM to switch these components with newer versions. You would have to actually rebuild the components and ROM so that the links were correct.

I dont *think* the SDK includes the means to rebuild the ROM but I could be wrong. Anyone know of a means to build a ROM using the SDK?

[urhs]

What do I do if I don't have a windows machine? Will there be a version for EPOC? Or at least PsiLinux?

[Gebbly]

You could probably run it in something like WINE.

[donkeyontheedge]

Originally posted by Gebbly
I dont *think* the SDK includes the means to rebuild the ROM but I could be wrong. Anyone know of a means to build a ROM using the SDK?

Not in the SDK as such, but you can get ROM building tools, with instructions, from the Symbian site. Trouble is, you need system source code and the compiled modules for the 5% or so of Symbian OS that is their "protected" code, i.e. nobody outside of Symbian sees the source for that part.

Have a look here: http://www.symbian.com/developer/techlib/v70docs/sdl_v7.0/doc_source/baseporting/Tools/MakingROMImage/index.html#Tools%2dguide%2erom%2dimage%2eindex

I wonder how much Symbian would charge for a licence to develop the original v5 source it received from Psion? Also, what rights do Psion have over that v5 source? Would Symbian allow them to show any of it to amateur developers???

John :confused:

[aflegg]

Now that exporting of ROM-based files is supported, it *should* be possible to get a soft-loaded copy of the netBook's ethernet drivers on a Series 7...

I upgraded my S7 to a 7Book using a personality module on eBay, but if there are S7 owners interested, it should now be trivial.

Cheers,

Andrew

PS. Adding Java from a netPad didn't work. What about if it were exported to RAM-format and then re-imported? Anyone tried that?

[Gebbly]

"Trouble is, you need system source code and the compiled modules for the 5% or so of Symbian OS that is their "protected" code, i.e. nobody outside of Symbian sees the source for that part."

This wouldnt be a problem. When you build a rom image you dont have to build all the code. Building the rom image simply uses already built dlls.

So you could use mostly standard DLLs and then rebuild the ones you need to modify and then use the tools to build the new rom.

However, after just checking the SDK contains WINS versions of the components but not MARM so it looks like we dont have access to the components to build a ROM.

Also the link you posted Donkey is for the 7.0 SDK. I had a look in 6.1 and there is no mention of building ROMs so I dont think there would be anything in the ER5 SDK. Perhaps building roms was only opened up in 7.0.

[urhs]

Originally posted by Gebbly
You could probably run it in something like WINE.

What are you talking about?

[Gebbly]

urhs, have a look at http://www.winehq.com/

It is used by a lot of linux users to run the odd windows app from within linux.

[donkeyontheedge]

Originally posted by Gebbly
[BAlso the link you posted Donkey is for the 7.0 SDK. I had a look in 6.1 and there is no mention of building ROMs so I dont think there would be anything in the ER5 SDK. Perhaps building roms was only opened up in 7.0. [/B]

No, it's there...

http://www.symbian.com/technology/symbos-v6x-det.html#index.index-036

John

[Gebbly]

Sadly Donkey, the info in that posting is talking about a full release, as in, the software sold to a licensee which of course does include the ARM binaries. The SDK on the other hand does not contain these binaries.

It was acceptable (or even compulsory) for a licensee to be able to build their own roms but the third party development community shouldnt need to build a complete rom.

Strange that there is no mention of ER5 on the web site of your most recent link Donkey, I wonder it is treated differently.

[donkeyontheedge]

Well yes, the SDK is what it says - a kit for developing software for the OS, not for developing the OS itself. I was saying that there were references to the ROM building tools for previous OS versions.

There were (are) other kits available.
- OCK (OEM Configuration Kit - source & object code, docs, test scripts)
- BPK (Base Porting Kit - source code & DDK)
- LOCKIT (Localisation Kit)

The OCK and BPK would have had ROM building tools I believe.


The Symbian site really doesn't have any info for ER5 other than as a reference for historical purposes. From what I've read elsewhere Psion had almost no documentation with ER5 so one of Symbian's first jobs was to document what they had as they upgraded it to ER6.

John.

[Gebbly]

Ah right, I see what you mean. Yes there were packages for various purposes and 1 or 2 of those included the rom building tools. These of course were the formats that were used to deliver to Symbian's licensees.

Unfortunately we dont get access to those without a big wedge of cash. :)