ARM/Nook Color

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Latest revision as of 18:58, 12 April 2012

The Nook Color is an OMAP3621 based 7" tablet produced by Barnes and Noble as an lcd-based e-Reader. At the same time, it serves as quite a handy target for MeeGo due to the similar SoC.

Nook Color Official Site

NookDevs Nook Color Portal, good source of information

Contents 1 Basic Nook Color Specs: 2 Communication 3 Novomok 4 Kernel Sources 4.1 Vendor Sources 4.2 Community Sources 5 Adaptation Patches 6 Getting Started 6.1 Creating a Bootable Card 6.2 Building the Kernel 6.3 Debug

Basic Nook Color Specs:

• OMAP3621 SoC @ 800MHz
  • PowerVR SGX 530
  • Differs from the 3630 by having the camera support logic disabled
• 512MB RAM
• 8GB internal storage
• microSDHC slot
• 7" IPS panel
• Power, Volume+, Volume-, and stylized "N" home button
• Headphone jack
• USB Host support - Working in CM7 with 2.6.39 kernel and "Nook Tweaks" tool
• Bluetooth -- Working in CM7 with 2.6.39 kernel

Communication

All channels are on irc.freenode.net

1. meego, #meego-arm -- Future MeeGo discussion.

Novomok

Novomok had something going a few days after the 2011 San Francisco conference. They used a chroot to get stuff running.

Kernel Sources

Vendor Sources

B&N have posted the sources for their kernel, bootloader, and xloader, on their legal page, look for Attachments 1 and 2. Attachment 1 is the older 2.6.29 kernel, while Attachment 2 is the newer 2.6.32 kernel. Attachments 3 and 4 are for more recent builds of the Nook OS.

Community Sources

Existing community Nook Color Kernel Sources, attempting to clean the kernel up and push boards upstream

With the realization that we can boot on 2.6.32, Dalingrin's kernel is currently our base.

Adaptation Patches

Nook Hardware Adaptation for Mer

Getting Started

The Nook Color has a particularly well done boot sequence, in that it will default to boot from the SD card slot if plugged into a PC and powered on with a bootable card inserted.

Creating a Bootable Card

A baseline .ks can be found here, which builds a 3 partition, ~4GB disk image that the OMAP3 will correctly boot from.

Building the Kernel

The Nook Devs instructions will suffice for building a proper uImage.

Debug

Currently it's mostly trial and error. There are two UARTs on the board, one via the USB port that is disabled if the kernel initializes USB, the other via 4 test points on the (facing the screen) right edge of the PCB. They are 1.8v, and consist of RX, TX, VCC, and Ground.