I have created a small Linux system for the Zipit Z2 wireless messenger device. I have created the rootfs from scratch, so it is not based on any of the other System images available for the Z2 (like z2buntu or Debian). It boots up pretty fast and comes with several applications preinstalled including WeeChat (an IRC client), Links (text-based webbrowser), mutt (an e-mail client) and the Gmu music player. I have also included mplayer.
The system uses uClibc and busybox. It comes with Linux 2.6.36-rc2 (with some additional Z2 patches).
To use this rootfs on your Z2 you need to have the U-Boot bootloader installed.
When U-Boot is installed, all you need to do is write the extracted system image to a SD card (2 GB or larger), then put the card into your Zipit and turn it on. You can use the dd utility to write the image to the SD card that. If you are using a larger SD card you can resize the partition and filesystem later with gparted.
Another way of installing it is to prepare your SD card (any size) with an ext2 file system and extract the rootfs tarball onto it.
You need only one of the two files!
UPDATE: Please use the updated version of the rootfs!
z2-system-wejp-20100905.7z
Size: 16MB, md5sum: ae8f02989cd747e36209ed2732f4292b
z2-system-wejp-20100905.tar.bz2
Size: 20 MB, md5sum: 17d792d69d0e9bc5e4fed71e77d42ddb
To login you can either use the "root" user or the unpriviledged "default" user. Both have their passwords set to "password". You should change the passwords.
The system comes with four virtual terminals enabled, which means you can run multiple applications at the same time and switch between them, e.g. run Gmu to listen to some music while chatting on IRC with WeeChat. To switch to another terminal press CTRL (this is mapped to the "..." button) and Cursor left/right. In case you have started a graphical SDL-based application like Gmu, you can switch back to the text terminal by pressing CTRL+Alt+Home. From there, you can again navigate through your text terminals (and also back to the graphical application) with the CTRL+Cursor left/right buttons.
To run Gmu type gmu on the terminal. To run WeeChat type weechat-curses. Links can be started by typing links.
If you want to use your wireless network, you need to configure wpa_supplicant to connect to it. Just put your network configuration in /etc/wpa.conf and The system will connect to the network next time you boot it up. You can also use the wpa_passphrase utility to create a configuration entry for your /etc/wpa.conf file.
To change the brightness of the display and keyboard backlight, you can use the lcd and keys scripts.
Usage: lcd/keys [brightness]
[brightness] can be "off", "low", "med", "high" or "max".
The whole system would not have been possible with the great work done by the community. Especially all the work that has been done on the Linux kernel and the U-Boot bootloader to support the Zipit Z2 device.
Update: Due to popular demand I have now released the rootfs also as a tarball (bzip2 compressed) containing all the files of the image. You can use that one to write the userland to an SD card of arbitrary size. Aditionally I have updated the image. It is only a minor change that fixes a bug (see comments for details).
To use this rootfs on your Z2 you need to have the U-Boot bootloader installed.
When U-Boot is installed, all you need to do is write the extracted system image to a SD card (2 GB or larger), then put the card into your Zipit and turn it on. You can use the dd utility to write the image to the SD card that. If you are using a larger SD card you can resize the partition and filesystem later with gparted.
Another way of installing it is to prepare your SD card (any size) with an ext2 file system and extract the rootfs tarball onto it.
You need only one of the two files!
UPDATE: Please use the updated version of the rootfs!
z2-system-wejp-20100905.7z
Size: 16MB, md5sum: ae8f02989cd747e36209ed2732f4292b
z2-system-wejp-20100905.tar.bz2
Size: 20 MB, md5sum: 17d792d69d0e9bc5e4fed71e77d42ddb
To login you can either use the "root" user or the unpriviledged "default" user. Both have their passwords set to "password". You should change the passwords.
The system comes with four virtual terminals enabled, which means you can run multiple applications at the same time and switch between them, e.g. run Gmu to listen to some music while chatting on IRC with WeeChat. To switch to another terminal press CTRL (this is mapped to the "..." button) and Cursor left/right. In case you have started a graphical SDL-based application like Gmu, you can switch back to the text terminal by pressing CTRL+Alt+Home. From there, you can again navigate through your text terminals (and also back to the graphical application) with the CTRL+Cursor left/right buttons.
To run Gmu type gmu on the terminal. To run WeeChat type weechat-curses. Links can be started by typing links.
If you want to use your wireless network, you need to configure wpa_supplicant to connect to it. Just put your network configuration in /etc/wpa.conf and The system will connect to the network next time you boot it up. You can also use the wpa_passphrase utility to create a configuration entry for your /etc/wpa.conf file.
To change the brightness of the display and keyboard backlight, you can use the lcd and keys scripts.
Usage: lcd/keys [brightness]
[brightness] can be "off", "low", "med", "high" or "max".
The whole system would not have been possible with the great work done by the community. Especially all the work that has been done on the Linux kernel and the U-Boot bootloader to support the Zipit Z2 device.
Update: Due to popular demand I have now released the rootfs also as a tarball (bzip2 compressed) containing all the files of the image. You can use that one to write the userland to an SD card of arbitrary size. Aditionally I have updated the image. It is only a minor change that fixes a bug (see comments for details).