Gentoo on a Pandora

Introduction

This article describes a Gentoo rootfs archive customized for the Pandora handheld device.

This article and all information and products in it are provided on an "as is" basis, without warranty of any kind, either express or implied. Your use of this article is at your own risk.

What is configured

All packages are recompiled with OMAP3-preferable flags.
Added the Pandora keyboard layout. It’s a bit different from the official layout. Here‘s what it looks like.
WiFi network. There is one annoying bug in the wl1251 modules described here. Fixed in a quite brutal way.
The kernel is compiled with appropriate patches and config. The tarball contains both the kernel sources and the config file in /usr/src/linux.
X.Org with all the relevant drivers: omapfb, keyboard (including DPad and power switch), touchscreen, nubs, external keyboard and mouse.
OpenBox (a window manager). The key shortcuts include these two:
- Pandora_key shows menu
- Fn+Pandora_key shows status information
Added few Pandora-related scripts: to control brightness, to change CPU clock, to reset nub, to emulate low power mode, etc.
Added few eyecandies: wallpaper, cursor and themes.
Locale is set to ru_RU.UTF-8.
Timezone is set to GMT +3 (Moscow).
The maximum CPU OPP is set to 5 by default.
The default user is vminko, no password. The root password is 1.

What packages are installed

Here is the full list of installed packages (equery l). It includes the following ones:

vim urxvt midori pidgin sylpheed gftp mpd gimmix mplayer gpicview xournal stardict
epdfview xrick supertux numptyphysics

The local overlay includes the following packages:

games-action/openlierox – Differs from the default package in that the cursor drifting is fixed.
games-arcade/supertux – Differs from the default package in that 800×480 resolution support is added.
games-arcade/xrick – Differs from the default package in that joystick support is added, incorrect fullscreen mode and freezing on exit are fixed. See this bug for details.
games-puzzle/numptyphysics – A drawing puzzle game (new package).
media-video/mplayer – An mplayer package based on the source code from the Maemo repository. It works much better than the default one: plays everything (mp4/theora-vorbis/h264/flv) and does not crash.
media-video/omap3-sgx-modules – Kernel drivers for the PowerVR SGX chipset (new package).
net-wireless/pandora-firmware – Binary firmware for the Bluetooth and WiFi modules on the Pandora (new package).
net-wireless/wl1251-modules – Kernel drivers for the TI WL1251 WiFi chip found on the Pandora (new package).
sys-kernel/pandora-sources – Pandora kernel sources (new package).
sys-process/procps – Differs from the default package in that the annoying ‘Unknown HZ value!’ error is fixed. See this bug for details.
x11-base/xorg-drivers – Differs from the default package in that the omapfb video driver is added.
x11-drivers/xf86-video-omapfb – X.Org driver for TI OMAP framebuffers (new package).

What does not work

DSP since it requires the kernel version 2.6.32+, but we’re currently stuck at 2.6.27.

PowerVR chip since the only driver we have is closed source and I decided not to use it. However, the appropriate ebuilds are available here.

How to install

Download the rootfs tarball: gentoo-rootfs-20110115.tar.bz2 (317 Mb).
Format the first partition of your SD card as ext2. The SD card capacity should be at least 4Gb.
Extract the rootfs to this partition (tar xvpf gentoo-rootfs-20110115.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/<your-mnt-dir>).
Insert the SD card into the Pandora and reboot the machine.

/usr/portage is removed from the tarball in order to reduce its size. The latest portage snapshot is available here (37 Mb).

Useful links

If you are not familiar with the distribution, you may want find this helpful: Gentoo ARM handbook.
Here is a video demonstration of Gentoo running on the Pandora.
Neuvoo – a project focused on adaptation of the Gentoo to various OMAP3-based platforms including Pandora.