After excellent work done by Mike Thompson from the Raspbian project, there is now a set of patches and a config file available for the APC-supplied 2.6.32.9+ kernel source, which enables a working kernel to be compiled and run – although with limited functionality due to ‘missing’ device drivers.. More details at : http://www.raspbian.org/ApricotImages To use this, … Continue reading →
Just to finally confirm that the U-Boot parameters were not in any way affection the APC boot – and therefore that the problem was in the APC’s kernel configuration, probably with the CONFIG_CMDLINE parameter in the original kernel’s .config file – I removed all the U-Boot parameters, as follows: WMT # setenv wmt.display.logoaddr; setenv logocmd; setenv wmt.gpo.lcd; … Continue reading →
Still trying to find a way round the ‘always boot to rom’ conundrum, and the results of my latest test are not looking too positive.. Instead of running the various parameters in the U-Boot environment, I entered the basic commands by hand: WMT # usb reset (Re)start USB… wmt.usb.param: 11:3 usb select port D scanning bus for … 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 →
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 →
As my APCs are being held to ransom, until I get an invoice for UK customs duty and taxes (by post!!) and am then able to pay it (online?).. I decided to add another flavour of cross-compiler to the ones I already have installed. This one comes from the self-contained OpenELEC environment which is used to create … Continue reading →
Leigh Scott (leigh123linux) has already produced an NVIDIA driver patch for 304.30 to compile – and run – on kernel 3.6-rc1.. Get it at: http://cvs.rpmfusion.org/viewvc/rpms/nvidia-kmod/devel/3.6_kernel.patch?revision=1.2&root=nonfree&view=markup I’ve applied the patch, and all is OK, now… So – 3.6-rc1 now works, with VMware 8.0.4 (patched) and NVIDIA 304.30 (patched)…
Continue reading →Kernel version 3.5 has not been out for very long, but now there is 3.6-rc1 already – available from http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git;a=summary Compiling now, and will be interesting to see if anything breaks! Update: Compiled and installed OK, and VMware 8.0.4 (patched) compiles OK, but – unusually – the NVIDIA driver (304.30) compilation fails: ……………………….from /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-304.30/kernel/nv-acpi.c:15: /usr/src/linux-3.6-rc1/arch/x86/include/asm/uaccess_64.h: In function ‘copy_from_user’: … 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 →
As 3.5 isn’t working – yet – I updated the Dreamplug to the latest 3.4.x – 3.4.7: $ uname -a Linux rgdreamplug 3.4.7 #1 Mon Jul 30 20:28:47 BST 2012 armv5tel armv5tel armv5tel GNU/Linux
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