FnX - A simple linux Bootloader

Posted on 25/02/2010 in Software

Description

When the Cybook Orizon project started, I was given some platform code for it from the ODM which mainly came with a copy of the Linux Kernel sources and uboot.

The uboot provided was so badly modified and having problems that starting from cleaner was imperative. At the time the boot time of the device was really bad and getting uboot to boot fast was not really feasible, so I started to look at other options and found the OpenMoko Qi project which promised faster booting and simpler and deterministic bootloader.

It was used as a template to create FnX, but other than some data structure and a somewhat similar approach, lots of the code used to boot the Orizon platform was written specifically for the platform, including a display driver.

This allow to shave 10 to 15 seconds of boot time.

Disclaimer

This project is not public other than the binary used in the ebook readers.