Enchanted Objects: Let's work together to tame the ATMEL SMART SAMA5D4 Xplained Ultra kit

Just a really quick note here as it is after 2:30am

I finally managed to get the SAMA5D4 to boot with an ubuntu kernel :-)  Version is 14.04

This includes a base ubuntu root file structure and I am currently running apt-get update.

Ok that worked and it updated its core files.

Just trying a sudo apt-get install ruby

and it also appears to be working.. finally. :-)

What I will try and do tomorrow, is make an image of the SD card and make it available for download.

I'll also compile some notes on exactly what I did to get it functional.

Great news!

Yeah Ralph. :-)

I actually got kde to load up (well KDM I think it was) and got it to display, but I did have some keyboard and mouse issues.

I might revisit it this week now that i have a few new microSD cards. I can run the OS in various states across a few different cards and see what works as far as

the display goes.  It's definitely a nice board to work with, especially with Ubuntu on it.

I got mono running on it yesterday. Compiled a C# app and then transferred the program over to a Windows machine and had it successfully execute.

For me, having a tool chain on the device I am working with is just awesome. GCC installs perfectly after I 'Ubuntu'ed' the machine.

Did anyone try the image I made over the weekend?

To send TTYS1 output to /dev/fb0 it is going to require some work.

It's not a simple matter as a redirection, as you need to manually build the 'image' that gets sent to the frame buffer.

This of course could be done, but would require some intermediary software in between.

Try this from the unix shell cat /dev/urandom > /dev/fb0

You should get a lovely coloured display on the HDMI output.

You will need to be using an OS install where the framebuffer is enabled and I found to make

it work I had to reset the HDMI, usually by unplugging and plugging the cable back in again.

I was going to investigate some of those software libraries I have seen around which control bit mapped

LCD's. They might hold some ideas about how to address the FB via graphics libraries. Most of them revolve around

I2C or 4/8 bit data transfers vs writing data to /dev/fb0  but again could be handy for clues as to how to solve the issue

of displaying material.

I don't actually need the HDMI for my project, but its kind of fun to drill into how the board works and what I can make it do.

Rob

Here is my fbset:

ubuntu@arm:~$ fbset -i

mode "1024x768"

    geometry 1024 768 1024 768 24

    timings 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

    accel true

    rgba 8/16,8/8,8/0,0/0

endmode

Frame buffer device information:

    Name        :

    Address     : 0x3e900000

    Size        : 2359296

    Type        : PACKED PIXELS

    Visual      : TRUECOLOR

    XPanStep    : 1

    YPanStep    : 1

    YWrapStep   : 0

    LineLength  : 3072

    Accelerator : No

I get Mode not support on display. Can I change this to ??? to avoid the problem?

Thanks,

Clem

I've updated the first post with your blog.

Thanks for the updates to the thread Jan.

I really want to get around to making a youtube video showing the boot process.

It's cool to see it all happen, hopefully I'll get it done tomorrow or over the weekend!

So mine is now printing unreadable text ONLY in the area where the prompt telling me the user name and password, the rest prints perfectly... go figure, and to make things worse I cant remember the loging name or password... Please can you enlighten me

I had spent hours loading GNOME and TIGHTVNCSERVER just to find it is not enough for a remote graphical console but now I cant log in again either without the UNAME and PWD

Thanks

Name: ubuntu

Pwd: temppwd

Clem

Hi Peter,

Was the corruption in the console (via serial port)

or was the corruption on the LCD? ie. was it treating the LCD as a console?

I did have a problem once where I managed to corrupt the SD card while I was experimenting

with the OS builds. I probably popped it in and out once too many times without running

the sync command first.  What it did was corrupt my keyboard so I could no longer type properly..

Regards

Rob

I keep trying to reply via email and its still busted, so you wont have seen my responses

I resolved it by re-loading the SD card. It was only the part at the login prompt where it shows the user name and password, the rest was ok

I am currently trying to get beta MONO 4.0.0 up and running for forms apps, and also some kind of Xserver, no luck so far

Hi Peter,

be interesting to see where the mono 4.0 is failing, is it during the build process?

I assume that it being alpha/beta you have to make it yourself.

I am about to go on two weeks holiday, so won't be able to try anything with the board.

Happy to give the mono build a shot when I get back though.

For X, I got a lot of blank screen greeting me whenever I tried to start it.

I got closer with KDE where I had an actual login prompt on the hdmi screen, but had

trouble after that.  It may have been due to all the messing around I did with settings. So I'll be giving it another

go when I return with a clean setup to see just how far I can get.

Hi Peter,

be interesting to see where the mono 4.0 is failing, is it during the build process?

I assume that it being alpha/beta you have to make it yourself.

I am about to go on two weeks holiday, so won't be able to try anything with the board.

Happy to give the mono build a shot when I get back though.

For X, I got a lot of blank screen greeting me whenever I tried to start it.

I got closer with KDE where I had an actual login prompt on the hdmi screen, but had

trouble after that.  It may have been due to all the messing around I did with settings. So I'll be giving it another

go when I return with a clean setup to see just how far I can get.