[maemo-developers] N800 experimental host mode patches available

[From: Frantisek Dufka]

Kees Jongenburger wrote:

> On a side note I followed the HowTo EASILY Boot From MMC card
> and I now have "boot from usb disk" should that work with the same patch?

In theory yes but you need to have correct modules and root device name 
set for the bootmenu item in bootmenu.conf, it won't work out of box. 
linuxrc script in initfs on N800 doesn't have any special suppport for 
this (n770 one has so there is 'usb' root device). But it should still 
work if the device automatically switches itself to host mode and 
detects usb device correctly. Maybe there can be also timing problem if 
you set usb as default boot device and skip the menu.

Anyway, if you make it working, let me know your bootmenu.conf settings 
so I can add it to the n800 bootmenu.conf example configuration. Also if 
you need to set host mode by hand on boot it can be solved too in 
bootmenu.sh (see how poweroff is done).

I'd like to try it too but don't have cable yet. I was thinking about 
building short usb female to female adapter so it could work together 
with normal mini-usb cable. Slight disadvantage is that probably that 
fifth pin for host mode autodetection doesn't have wire in the cable so 
I cannot shortcut it in the short adapter I want to build => software 
switching must be used.

Frantisek