I found some (unused..) USB-related U-Boot parameters in some of the files contained in the ‘firmware’ zip file, and tried these, to get the APC to boot from USB instead of MMC/micro-SD.. The USB connection has to be to the top connector in the smaller of the two ‘towers’ on the board (the one without the ethernet … Continue reading →
My initial success at getting the APC to boot from the micro-SD card instead of built-in ram was tempered by another issue.. Apart from examination of the boot process on the console, I had confirmed that device boots from the micro-SD card when I inadvertently formatted it as EXT3, and the boot process failed with an appropriate … Continue reading →
My goal is to have a ‘standard’ flavour of Linux (in my case – Fedora) running on the APC, and one of the major pre-requisites was to have the system boot from the micro-SD card, instead of the internal ‘flash memory’.. Looking at all the U-Boot parameters, I had expected this to be a real pain, but … Continue reading →
Starting to ‘explore’ the system, and it looks very different from the typical Linux system I have been used to since 1997.. The base directory structure is different, with many ‘additions’.. This is probably standard for Android, but not what I am accustomed to! I decided to format a (micro) SD card, and insert it, as this … Continue reading →
The APC(s) have finally arrived, after payment of ransom and ‘fees’ to the appropriate revenue authorities, and shipping organisations.. As expected, this is a typical Android 2.3 system, with a Linux heart, but many proprietary drivers and scripts, and reduced Linux command functionality.. I connected a USB/UART serial converter, and – so far – have a root … Continue reading →
In preparation for the (final!) arrival of the APC, I have been setting up a suitable serial console connection, via USB to a UART, and have tested it on the Raspberry Pi.. After remembering (from years ago..) that you have to connect TX to RX – and vice-versa – the serial console worked without a problem, but … Continue reading →
Harking back to the good old HP9000 workstation, and HP-UX, during my time at HP.. The ‘Common Desktop Environment’ (CDE) has now been open sourced, with (apparently) good old Motif to follow soon.. It may have been ugly by modern standards, but still better looking by far than Windows 3.0… Some of this became part of the … Continue reading →
As the APCs are still ‘awaiting customs clearance’, I decided to try to cross-compile the kernel source available at github: https://github.com/apc-io/apc-8750 Unfortunately, many of the APC-specific drivers (‘wmt’) are currently missing.. The system is an Android 2.3 one, and the kernel is based – as you would expect – on Linux kernel version 2.6.32. (In this case … Continue reading →
I had a (rare) problem with power to my computers recently. The battery in my UPS had died (causing really annoying beeping warnings..) and the power also went out briefly, causing all systems to suffer a genuine power fail condition. The Linux systems all came back (after some extra – brief – systemd-fsck operations) in – literally … Continue reading →
So – after (literally) years, there is a new 4.0 version of Skype for Linux available (the download button still says 2.2, but the 4.0 version is downloaded) Still no 64-bit version, sadly.. The cynic in me would wonder if this sudden change of heart might have something to do with support for the new ‘inline targeted … Continue reading →