Android for the WM8505

Some hours ago Android for the WM8505 was released by LikeUbun. Android is not really like a normal Linux distribution, but it is Linux, nonetheless, and one could adapt a normal Linux distribution to it if he wants.

It most probably runs on the WonderMedia WM8510, as I've been said that the WM8505 is simply a low-cost version of the WM8510.

Download links:



No sources yet, sorry.
Read what is below first, though. DO NOT TRY THIS ON A VT8500 MACHINE,
IT WILL MOST LIKELY MAKE IT NOT WORKING, AND THE ONLY WAY TO RECOVER IT WILL BE USING AN SPI FLASH PROGRAMMER.
THIS REWRITES U-BOOT AND W-LOAD.
THE KERNEL DOES NOT WORK ON A VT8500.

THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THIS

A bit of information about it:

The kernel seems pretty new:
Linux version 2.6.29-00236-g4f8dbbb-dirty (simenxie@Szmce01) (gcc
version 4.2.0 20070126 (prerelease) (MontaVista 4.2.0-3.0.0.0702771
2007-03-10)) #22 Wed Apr 7 14:15:24 CST 2010

I simply found a gzip signature in uzImage.bin, chopped off what came
before it with dd, and then gunzipped it, so that's why I know this.

Some information about the script:
- the script updates your U-boot and W-load so it could potentially
brick a system which is either incompatible or experiences a power
failure
- it seems to erase the entire NAND and not only the parts used for the kernel
- after the upgrading it boots, with the following command line passed
to the kernel:
mem=112M root=/dev/ram rw initrd=0x01000000,32M console=ttyS0,115200n8
init=/linuxrc lcdid=1

mvl5_v5t_ramdisk_base_wm8510.090922.2102.gz is the ramdisk loaded to
memory address 0x1000000.

at the next reboot when removing the sd card it boots with the
following command line:

mem=106M noinitrd root=/dev/mtdblock7 rootfstype=yaffs2 rw
console=ttyS0,115200n8 init=/init lcdid=1

which means that it reads its filesystem from flash now. I think that
one first boots from the ramdisk, and then formats the root filesystem
on the flash there

About NAND layout it seems to be the following:
0x0 - Linux kernel
0x12F00000 - Android logo (in Windows Bitmap format)

They probably modified U-Boot to get it to use logos in Windows Bitmap
format (.bmp)

bootcmd (the commands executed at every bootup) is this, indeed:
nand read 0 0 300000;bootm 0

it reads 0x300000 bytes (3 megabytes) from offset 0 of the flash to
memory address 0x0, and then boots the image at memory address 0x0.

I (myself) will probably release an edited version which doesn't update your U-boot and W-load, so to remove the risk of bricking your machine.