The Iyonix is an XScale IOP321-based desktop system, with a fairly standard PCI/Southbridge/Processor setup. The Linux port to Iyonix is based heavily upon the MVista patches to support the IQ80321 and related boards, and shares most of its code with it.
This is a functioning release, although some of the hardware remains unsupported or incomplete.
ReadMe.txt
linloader.zip
image.zip
root.zip
patch-2.4.19-rmk7-ds1-pn1.bz2
Linux boots from within RISC OS, using "linloader", which has been modified to support RISC OS 5 and Iyonix. The "Boot" obey file can be edited to pass kernel options, and can boot with the suppplied Debian root image, which will let you play with a shell any so forth if you do not have anything else.
Alternatively, if you can setup an NFS server on another machine you will be able to install Debian on it. Don't forget to use the "nolock" option if your server is running Linux 2.5 when you mount. There are also minimal root images around that you could try.
Some of these require more work on the interrupt handler. IDE and Audio are otherwise supported with drivers.
The ethernet driver needs modification to read ts MAC address from eeprom and has instead been modified to read it from its PCI memory as a temporary measure.
The PCI setup has some hacks to retain integrity of device locations in PCI address mapping. This will be changed in 2.5.
This patch is based upon the patches for IOP321 support by Deepak Saxena. Please refer to this message for fetching his version:
http://lists.arm.linux.org.uk/pipermail/linux-arm-announce/2003-April/000244.html
If you wish to cross compile, a suitable toolchain be found here: http://handhelds.org/download/toolchain/pb/. But others may be suitable too.
Linloader is currently between versions, but will shortly be updated. Please contact me if you'd like the current sources.
Please contact me if you intend to work on any aspect of this, so I can coordinate efforts. Castle are commited to producing a full Debian Linux distribution for the Iyonix and would appreciate any contribution you care to make.
ARM Linux 2.4 development has essentially been frozen except for bug fixes, so this version will not make it into the upstream ARM Linux tree. However, a Linux 2.5 version has been started.
We wish to ensure that all of the Iyonix's peripherals work correctly so that we can create a usable system. We also intended to bundle Debian with the Iyonix as part of that, and will be working on Debian ARM where required to fully support the Iyonix, although because of the currect state of the release cycle of Debian, it is not expected to make it into any release in the near future.
Linux currently boots from RISC OS. It may be in future that it boots independently of RISC OS, via U-Boot or similar. Peter Milne has also had success booting Linux "directly" via JTAG.
The initial Iyonix Linux port was carried out by Peter Naulls with much input from Peter Milne.
The following people also gave helpful advice:
Ralph Siemsen
Phil Blundell
Vincent Sanders
John Ballance
The Iyonix HAL sources were also invaluable as a source of information whilst developing this port.
Please direct all queries, patches, etc. regarding Linux on Iyonix to: linux@iyonix.com