Being primarily a Linux based project, the host platform of choice is Linux. However, it is entirely possible to work with Openmoko and Neo handsets using MacOS X, as you'll soon see.
There are actually two ways of working with Openmoko and MacOS X. One is simply to run a virtual machine in which case you would then follow the instructions for Linux.
On the other hand, if you wish to use MacOS X directly, please continue:
To operate the Phase 1 devices (Neo 1973), you need to flash a root file system first.
Here are detailed instructions:
A Universal Binary version of dfu-utils tool (and libusb) is included in the Openmoko Flasher application bundle. You can access it as Openmoko Flasher.app/Contents/MacOS/dfu-util.
To flash from Terminal (which is sometimes required), see the directions below or in Flashing the Neo
To flash the kernel:
Openmoko\ Flasher.app/Contents/MacOS/dfu-util -a kernel -R -D uImage
To flash the root filesystem:
Openmoko\ Flasher.app/Contents/MacOS/dfu-util -a rootfs -R -D rootfs_filename.jffs2
To flash the boot loader to NAND
Openmoko\ Flasher.app/Contents/MacOS/dfu-util -a u-boot -R -D uboot.bin
When flashing succeeds (in any of the above cases) the following should be shown:
status(0) = No error condition is present Done!
NOTE: If you get an error: Cannot set alternate interface: usb_set_altinterface: could not set alternate interface. You have to unplug and replug it again. Make sure it stays in the Boot menu during that! After you have replugged your openmoko you should see DFU: Switching to DFU Mode on the openmoko screen. Now you can execute the command again and this time it should work.
If somebody has a solution for this problem please contact me. - Anakron |
In this guide I will be going over the steps to flash an interface onto the Freerunner.
Most of the time, only the rootfs has to be flashed in order for the interface to work, but sometimes the kernel has to be flashed along with the rootfs. In this case, before you flash the rootfs you should select kernel in the drop down menu on the openmoko flasher and follow the same directions.
Alternatively, you can compile dfu-util manually as described at http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/User:SNMoore but you need libusb (e.g. through MacPorts).
It is possible to access the U-Boot Bootloader serial console from a Mac. You can use the Terminal application on Mac OS X, or minicom from Fink or MacPorts (formerly Darwin Ports.)
The USB driver creates cu and tty character devices, for example
$ ls -la /dev/tty.usb* crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 10, 18 Aug 23 14:10 /dev/tty.usbmodem00000001 $ ls -la /dev/cu.usb* crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 10, 19 Aug 23 14:10 /dev/cu.usbmodem00000001
The GNU screen
program is included with Mac OS X, and can be used from the terminal command line to connect to the serial console. To do this, simply get to a shell prompt in the terminal and invoke screen
as follows:
% screen /dev/tty.usbmodem00000001
You should find yourself at the U-boot serial console prompt. To get out, type control+a
followed by control+backslash
.
The minicom program from the MacPorts collection can be used to access the USB serial port /dev/cu.usbmodem00000001 (numbering may vary.)
First install the program (assuming you already have MacPorts installed):
sudo port install minicom
Then launch it in configuration mode (the -s flag):
sudo minicom -s
Under "Serial Port Setup", set the Device to "/dev/cu.usbmodem00000001" and set Bps to "115200 8N1". Under "Modem and Dialing", enter empty strings for "Init string", "Reset string", and "Hang-up string". Save the setup as default ("dfl") then Exit.
You should now be able to access the bootloader console. You should exit from Minicom before disconnecting the smartphone, or else you will get an error about unplugging a USB device while it is in use.
The built in Mac Terminal application Terminal.app can be used to access the USB serial port /dev/tty.usbmodem00000001 (numbering may vary.)
An easy way to do this is to configure the terminal with Script Editor, as described in the short article, Use '(GNU) screen' as a serial terminal emulator(macosxhints.com). Then,
In: usbtty Out: usbtty Err: usbtty DEVICE_CONFIGURED: 1 Enabling automatic fast charge GTA01Bv4 #
When you boot Linux on the smartphone, or if the smartphone powers down, Mac OS X will show a USB Device Unplug Notice, "The USB device has been unplugged while an application was still active. This can result in loss of data." This error is probably harmless.
There are several drivers you can use to talk to the RNDIS/Ethernet Gadget that the Neo1973 presents to its host system. The main difference between them is stability, and all have their own problems. Leopard needs further testing (Apple revised the driver and the Network System Settings).
MacOS X 10.4.10 and later includes a driver for RNDIS/Ethernet Gadget devices. Launch System Preferences -> Network and you should see "new interface detected enXX".
Issue: Each time you reboot the Neo, the interface will get a different Ethernet address. This in turn makes Mac OS X create a new configuration record. After a while you'll end up with a load of unusable enXX devices - if you don't periodically clean them out. Open System Preferences and go to Network -> Show(Network Port Configurations) -> Select an enXX -> Delete.
Note: this is not a problem to blame MacOSX for because it tries to make network configuration simpler based on the assumption of stable Ethernet addresses.
Issue:10.5 (Leopard) doesn't show a new ethernet interface for a Neo1973 running 2007.11. You'll only get the serial port, which is detected as a modem. The Ethernet device will show up in ifconfig though. If it doesn't, try the other driver below.
It turns out that the AppleUSBCDC driver prefers to use the CDC-ACM interface of USB networking devices instead of CDC-ECM with the exception of a broadcom network card. You can download a patched AppleUSBCDC driver that will recognize the usb id/vendor pair of g_ether and force it to use CDC-ECM. You can obtain the OS X 10.5.X patched driver from: http://bugcommunity.com/downloads/usbcdc-g_ether.zip. [Do not work? Openmoko 2009 16-june-2009 showed up as a modem (MacOS X.5.7) with this driver (ndis/ethernet) Glenn 10:54, 16 June 2009 (UTC)] Source code: http://bugcommunity.com/downloads/files/AppleUSBCDCDriver-g_ether.326.4.1.zip
The issue of multiple network interfaces showing up whenever the Neo is rebooted/power-cycled is due to the g_ether driver randomly setting the host and device mac addresses. This problem is remedied by passing the same host and device mac addresses during the modprobe of g_ether. [Not needed with MacOS X.5.7 and Openmoko 2009 16-june-2009. Simply reboot the Mac (again) and Openmoko appear again without changing network settings --Glenn 08:30, 17 June 2009 (UTC)]
For example:
modprobe g_ether host_addr=46:0d:9e:67:69:eb dev_addr=46:0d:9e:67:69:ec
You can also use the open source driver from [1]. It was developed for handheld devices like iPAQ, Sharp Zaurus and Motorola A760, but works for Openmoko as well. Download and install according to the manual found inside the package. The code is GPL'd (source available) and runs on both Intel and PPC Macs with 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5.
After rebooting or loading the kernel extension by hand, you should have a new Ethernet interface in your System Preferences/Network.
Note: This driver does not have the same problem as the Apple driver does, where it constantly adds to the list of interfaces each time you reboot the neo, because the driver provides a constant ethernet address independently what the Neo says. Only flashing a new kernel might force you to update.
Issue: This driver is sometimes a bit flaky, and a reboot of the Mac seems to bring it back. It is especially critical about hot unplugging the OM and sleep modes of MacBooks. This may even result in a Kernel Panic.
Open System Preferences and go to Network and you should see "new interface detected enXX". In the Show list box select the new interface - Ethernet Adapter enXX.
Use this configuration on the new interface:
IP-V4: manual IP-Addr: 192.168.0.200 (you can use anything in 192.168.0.* but OM is configured by default to use 192.168.0.200 as the external gateway) Subnet: 255.255.255.0 (should be the default - see tip below if have issue with these settings) Router: 192.168.0.202 (not actually needed, OS X can figure this out for itself, unless you have other conflicting configurations)
Tip: If your Internet connection is also in the range 192.168.0.x then instead you might want/need to use:
Subnet: 255.255.255.248
However if you are running Leopard it may not let you set the subnet claiming that the IP 192.168.0.200 is an invalid address for that subnet. To get round this run the following from the OSX terminal (replacing en11 as appropriate):
sudo ifconfig en11 192.168.0.200 netmask 255.255.255.248
You should be able to connect to your Neo! Try using Terminal (Applications->Utilities->Terminal) to ping the Neo at 192.168.0.202 and the roundtrip time should be between 1 and 2 ms.
ping 192.168.0.202
Then log into your Neo using ssh:
ssh root@192.168.0.202
The default password is blank.
You can also scp files back and forth or share displays with X11. Additional software and configuration could allow telnet, SMB, or many other possibilities using the TCP/IP network over your USB connection.
Try pinging your Mac PC from the Neo
ping 192.168.0.200
Try pinging the outside world (a Google IP address)
ping 74.125.19.147
If that works then your Mac is routing the neo globally--if not see Sharing Internet Connection with Mac.
Lastly, verify that DNS is correctly configured between the Neo & Network:
ping www.google.com
If that doesn't work then see Configuring Default Neo DNS to try and resolve the issue.
Congordulations Elizagreth!!! The Neo is networked together with the Mac and sharing the Mac's interweb connection.
In progress: This article or section documents one or more features whose implementation are in progress. |
This approach is based on:
Unfortunately we can't use the pand (PAN daemon for BNEP) or dund (Dial Up Networking daemon for LAP) since neither service is available for the Mac.
So, we configure a RFCOMM connection and a PPP gateway on the Mac. Finally, we connect the OM as a ppp client to the Mac.
The reversed direction (OM as the Access Point and the Mac as the client) is described shortly in Manually_using_Bluetooth#PPP_Networking
In the Bluetooth System Preferences (10.4.11)
In the Network System Preferences
In a Terminal, enter the following:
$ sudo /usr/sbin/pppd /dev/tty.BluetoothAccessPoint 115200 noauth local passive proxyarp asyncmap 0 silent persist :172.16.140.14
Here you see the 172.16.140.14 address, which makes it possible not to use natd, since it's in the same network as the Mac is. So the firewall knows where to sent it to -- no routing problems etc. Pick any free address in your private range. For instance, if you are using the following ... firewall: 192.168.1.1, Mac: 192.168.1.2, you can enter 192.168.1.3, assuming it's not used elsewhere on your network.
If you want to be sure you did it right, open the system.log file on the Mac (tail -f /var/log/system.log), and you should see something like this:
Jun 25 10:33:57 hostname pppd[679]: pppd 2.4.2 (Apple version 229) started by username, uid 0 Jun 25 10:33:57 hostname pppd[679]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/tty.BluetoothAccessPoint
In Terminal, write
sudo sysctl -w net.inet.ip.forwarding=1
which should give the following feedback:
net.inet.ip.forwarding: 0 -> 1
In Terminal, write
sudo ifconfig ppp0 up.
On the Openmoko do the following
root@fic-gta01:~$ echo "1" > /sys/bus/platform/devices/gta01-pm-bt.0/power_on
root@fic-gta01:~$ hcitool scan Scanning ... 00:0E:6D:C0:0l:6A Sho 00:20:E0:5A:FE:C8 MacBook
pppd 115000 192.168.1.202:192.168.1.200 local defaultroute pty 'rfcomm connect 0 00:16:CB:2F:A0:46 1'
In progress: This article or section documents one or more features whose implementation are in progress. |
To Be Done.
In progress: This article or section documents one or more features whose implementation are in progress. |
To Be Done.
Here is described how to enable your Mac to serve as a Internet Router for your Openmoko device.
Note: you have to open all services you want to use from the Openmoko in the Mac Firewall.
In the Sharing System Preferences
SSH into your Neo and create /etc/resolv.conf, specify your Internet router IP address as the name server. You can simply copy the /etc/resolv.conf from your Mac.
scp /etc/resolv.conf root@192.168.0.202:/etc/resolv.conf
Example: nameserver 192.168.1.200 # replace by your real nameserver address
Make sure your Neo routing table has entries so that all internet traffic is sent to your Mac (which will forward it to the outside world)
root@fic-gta01:~$ route Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 192.168.0.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 usb0 default 192.168.0.200 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 usb0
Don't forget to enable your USB interface for Internet Sharing!
In progress: This article or section documents one or more features whose implementation are in progress. |
After making the USB connection work, start ssh:
ssh -l root 192.168.0.202
If you don't have installed the key, it will ask for a "yes" on the first connection. The root password is blank unless you change it.
MacBook-hns:~ hns$ ssh -l root 192.168.0.202 root@192.168.0.202's password: root@fic-gta01:~$ hostname fic-gta01 root@fic-gta01:~$
NOTE: the ssh daemon (dropbear 0.49) on the Openmoko appears to have a bug when sending the exit status back to the client. From time to time you receive an exit status of 255.
In progress: This article or section documents one or more features whose implementation are in progress. |
To Be Done.
Launch Apple X11.
xhost +192.168.0.202.
On the Neo:
export DISPLAY=192.168.0.200:0.0
In progress: This article or section documents one or more features whose implementation are in progress. |
This is not done yet. Possible solutions are SyncML or ZMacSync http://www.dsitri.de/wiki.php?page=ZMacSync
ZMacSync does not yet synchronize but allows more easy access to the Openmoko through Terminal/ssh.
You can use VirtualBox, Parallels or VMWare to install your favourite Linux distribution and then develop just as on Linux.
There are some drawback since AFAIK dfu-util may not work correctly in such environments.
Don't bother with Parallels Desktop for Mac (<=3), the current USB support is terrible and USB storage keys don't even work so there was no way I would try dfu-util. USB keys work under VMWare Fusion for Mac though I have yet to try dfu-util in an VM under VMWare Fusion as there is Openmoko Flasher for Mac. -- Eric
There is currently no vmplayer for OS X. But the Qtopia image (see Developing_with_C++_and_Qt#Use_pre-built_SDK) will work with VMware fusion. The script will search for vmplayer and complain. Just answer YES when asked if you have the vmplayer installed (I know, it's a lie, but...), and the script will run through. Afterwards open the directory where the files were installed and click on Qtopia.vmx.
In VMware Fusion USB Networking is working properly, just plug in the device and connect it to your virtual machine.
Unfortunately dfu-util is currently not working. In fact if you get dfu-util working via unplug/replug method on Mac OS X it works inside VMware too.
dfu-util is not working, has some problems with getting exclusive access to the USB device.
In progress: This article or section documents one or more features whose implementation are in progress. |
There are some efforts to get through process of compiling OE and Openmoko under mac: Openmoko_under_QEMU_on_MacOSX
There is a QuantumSTEP/mySTEP project to port GNUstep to the Openmoko/Neo: More Info An SDK for Xcode/Interface Builder is also available: Entry at Version Tracker More Info
Some tools that run on MacOS X
mkfs.jffs2 - make JFFS2 (root) file system (Universal Binary). Package includes sources and Xcode 2.4 project file to rebuild on MacOS X 10.4.11. NOT TESTED DEEPLY.
mkfs.jffs2 --pad=0x700000 -o rootfs.jffs2 -e 0x4000 -n -d/tmp/jffsroot/
gcc 2.95.3 - OABI cross compiler toolchain (C, C++, Obj-C) with Linux headers (PPC and Intel Macs)
If someone has a newer one that works, please provide as an installable OSX Package.
Will the ones from MacPorts work? [2] I'm still trying to get QEMU to work and haven't had a chance to test it yet.
Keyword Openmoko at VersionTracker
Mac Issues Forum at Open Embedded Software Foundation (was Zaurus User Group)