students@work

Within this article, we describe how we have set up an embedded debian (SID) on a mini2440 / friendlyarm development board, and how we have installed all the fun stuff, as Java and the JNI (native interface), X11, the GCC/G++ toolchain and much more.

We will use a SD-Card to store the root file system (just because of the bigger storage size)
Therefore we have to create the partitions on the card:

Bootloader

We will use the standard bootloader provided (vivi).

First of all, we have to set up the boot parameters properly. This is done using the serial console and supervivi. Switch the boot-switch to NOR and power on the mini2440. On the serial console, you will now get the output of the supervivi console:


##### FriendlyARM BIOS 2.0 for 2440 #####
[x] format NAND FLASH for Linux
[v] Download vivi
[k] Download linux kernel
[y] Download root_yaffs image
[a] Absolute User Application
[n] Download Nboot for WinCE
[l] Download WinCE boot-logo
[w] Download WinCE NK.bin
[d] Download & Run
[z] Download zImage into RAM
[g] Boot linux from RAM
[f] Format the nand flash
[b] Boot the system
[s] Set the boot parameters
[u] Backup NAND Flash to HOST through USB(upload)
[r] Restore NAND Flash from HOST through USB
[q] Goto shell of vivi


We use s to set the boot parameters:
The press s, then “linux_cmd_line” to set the boot parameters appended to the boot arguments of the linux kernel.

The boot arguments are:

console=ttySAC0,115200 noinitrd root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootwait=4 rw ip=dhcp

This tells the kernel to mount the second partition of the SD-Card as root file system (read-and-writeable)

Own Kernel

Building your own kernel, requires you to have a working cross compilation environment. Please take a look at: http://www.friendlyarm.net for the toolchain.
You can optain the used config file here: download Kernel config

Simply copy the config file into your kernel source directory and name it “.config”. Then compile your kernel. The kernel will be located in /arch/arm/boot after compilation. Then simply upload the kernel with the provided tool of friendlyarm:

in the supervivi console press “k” and start the upload through “USB” on your pc.

Your new kernel is now flashed into the NAND storage of your mini2440/friendlyarm.

Debootstrapping Debian

Note, this article is based upon: http://code.google.com/p/mini2440/wiki/Emdebian
Download Kernel config

Today i found a solution to use both my notebooks display [1440x800] (Dell Vostro 1510 with NVidia 8400M GS) and my flatpanel tft [1280x1024] under Ubuntu 8.04.

This is what my xorg.conf looks like (only the important parts!)

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Device “nVidia Corporation G80 [GeForce 8400M GS]”
Monitor “Generic Monitor”
DefaultDepth 24
Option “TwinView”
Option “MetaModes” “1440×900 1280×1024″
Option “TwinViewOrientation” “LeftOf”
SubSection “Display”
Modes “1440×1440″
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “Screen”

# Removed Option “metamodes” “CRT: nvidia-auto-select +1440+0, DFP: nvidia-auto-select +0+0″
Identifier “Screen0″
Device “Videocard0″
Monitor “Monitor0″
DefaultDepth 24
Option “TwinView” “1″
Option “TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder” “DFP-0″
Option “metamodes” “CRT: 1280×1024 +1440+0, DFP: nvidia-auto-select +0+0″
EndSection

This config was partially done using: nvidia-settings (apt-get install nvidia-settings)

As i recently got my new Dell Vostro 1510 and encountered some problems when using Ubuntu 8.04 i decided to create a post about my experiences and create a checklist and link to people who have solved some problems mentioned!

So this is my system:

Dell Vostro 1510

• Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 (2.4 GHz, 3 MB L2-Cache)
• 3 GB Ram
• 1440×900 WXGA+
• CardReader (SD/MMC/MSPro)
• Front-Side Mic&Headphone jacks
• 2 Megapixel Webcam
• 4x USB (2left,2right)
• 1394 (right)
• NVidia Geforce 8400M GS

Checklist:

(1): Lan: Sometimes it seems that the gnome-network-manager won’t work. Using dhclient (sudo) on console helped me!

If it doesn’t work though try this: http://www.martinhenze.de/2008/05/24/ubuntu-linux-on-dell-vostro-1510

(2) Thank you Ignacio for reporting this!

(3) RE-starting your current runlevel brings X back to live! (CTRL-ALT-F7)

What i already found out, is that my Sony DSC-W30 is not correctly mounted (sometimes waiting for an update just does the work)

Edit: Cardreader works out of the Box.

LAST EDIT: 09 of Jan.09