Revision as of 11:22, 24 March 2008

This page is to explain how to run debian armel port on neo1973. This instructions are likely to work on freerunner, too.

1. (optional) install known good kernel

this kernel was build by Marcel_M and has some important patches in it such as removed sd debug symbols and build-in ext3 support.

wget http://rabenfrost.net/celtune/uImage-2.6.24+svnr4194-r4165-r3-neo1973.bin
./dfu-util -d 0x1457:0x5119 -a kernel -R -D ./uImage-2.6.24+svnr4194-r4165-r3-neo1973.bin

As there is no way to boot from sdhc with uboot directly I always copy my kernel to flash and let it boot my rootfs from sd but feel free to do it your way.

2. configure booting from sd/sdhc

Do as proposed here: Booting_from_SD

3.1. (option #1) debootstrap your own armel rootfs

debootstrap your rootfs on debian or ubuntu

debootstrap --verbose --arch armel --foreign sid ./armel-chroot http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/

3.2. (option #2) download ready to use armel rootfs

wget http://rabenfrost.net/openmoko/armel-chroot-first-stage.tar.gz

4 prepare sd card

ssh to your neo and format your sd card appropriately. I'm using an 8GB shcd card here.

umount /media/card
mkfs.ext3 /dev/mmcblk0p1
mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /media/card

copy the armel chroot to your device by tar'ing it to circumvent symbolic link cycles (https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1059 <= WONTFIX)

tar -C ./armel-chroot/ -c . | ssh root@192.168.0.202 tar -C /media/card -xv

or if you downloaded the archive

cat armel-chroot-first-stage.tar.gz | ssh root@192.168.0.202 tar -C /media/card -xzv

5. complete debootstrap process

ssh to your device and execute the following commands (just copypaste everything below)

echo "nameserver 192.168.0.200" > /media/card/etc/resolv.conf
echo "fic-gta01" > /media/card/etc/hostname
echo "127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost fic-gta01" > /media/card/etc/hosts
echo -e "auto lo\n\
iface lo inet loopback\n\
auto usb0\n\
iface usb0 inet static\n\
    address 192.168.0.202\n\
    netmask 255.255.255.0\n\
    network 192.168.0.0\n\
    gateway 192.168.0.200\n\
    up echo nameserver 192.168.0.200 >/etc/resolv.conf" > /media/card/etc/network/interfaces
echo -e "rootfs  /                ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro,noatime 0 1\n\
proc    /proc            proc    defaults                           0 0\n\
tmpfs   /etc/network/run tmpfs   defaults,noatime                   0 0\n\
tmpfs   /tmp             tmpfs   defaults,noatime                   0 0\n\
tmpfs   /var/lock        tmpfs   defaults,noatime                   0 0\n\
tmpfs   /var/log         tmpfs   defaults,noatime                   0 0\n\
tmpfs   /var/run         tmpfs   defaults,noatime                   0 0\n\
tmpfs   /var/tmp         tmpfs   defaults,noatime                   0 0" > /media/card/etc/fstab

now chroot into your armel rootfs and finish the install

chroot /media/card
/debootstrap/debootstrap --second-stage
echo "deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian sid main" > /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update
apt-get install openssh-server
apt-get install locales
dpkg-reconfigure locales
apt-get install udev
passwd

You may also copy some kernel modules over doing this (still on the neo)

wget http://rabenfrost.net/celtune/modules-2.6.24+svnr4194-r4165-r3-neo1973.tgz
tar -C /media/card -xzvf modules-2.6.24+svnr4194-r4165-r3-neo1973.tgz
chroot /media/card
depmod -a

6. get x running

now reboot and start your debian. you can login with ssh and start configuring xorg - I will add this soon.

apt-get install xorg
startx

doing this I get:

Fatal server error:
xf86OpenConsole: Cannot open virtual console 255 (No such file or directory)

this sux as I already fixed this problem a while ago but cannot remember how I did it - can anybody fix this?