Group Actions
Engagement
  • Author Author: bwelsby
  • Date Created: Date Created
  • Views 2750 views
  • Likes 1 like
  • Comments 14 comments
Related
Recommended

Arch Linux on the RIoTboard

bwelsby

First of all let me just say that my preferred Linux distribution is Debian and thanks to the excellent work by Selsinork  I have just what I want.

However, just for fun I thought I would see how easy it would be to get other distributions working so for a start I had a go at Arch Linux and was pleasantly surprised how easy it was.

 

For this exercise  I used a Debian vbox on my PC and when I attach a uSD card via a USB adaptor it comes up as /dev/sdb

 

1. take a uSD  card with a working  Debian from Selsinork's creation see The specified item was not found. and associated posts. All I really needed was the installed u-boot and some other required files but as I already had working cards it was the easiest way to start.

 

Mount the cards rootfs on my vbox as /mnt

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt

 

2. copy off the card the following files and save for later in a directory ~/dsave

 

mkdir ~/dsave

cp /mnt/bootscript ~/dsave

cp /mnt/extlinux.conf ~/dsave

cp /boot/imx6dl-riotboard.dts ~/dsave

 

3. reformat the rootfs partition ext4

 

umount /mnt

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

 

 

4. remount the blank file system

 

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt

 

5. get the new rootfs ARMv7 Multi-platform from Downloads | Arch Linux ARM and install on card

 

wget http://archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-armv7-latest.tar.gz

tar xvf ArchLinuxARM-arm7-latest.tar.gz -C /mnt

 

 

6. Now copy the saved files back

 

cp ~/dsave/bootscript /mnt

cp ~/dsave/extlinux.conf /mnt

cp ~/dsave/imx6dl-riotboard.dts /mnt/boot

cp ~/dsave/imx6dl-riotboard.dts /mnt/boot/imx6dl-riotboard.dts.rec

cp /mnt/boot/zImage /mnt/boot/zImage.rec

     (the last two provide the recovery files for the boot-up option and can be ignored for now and created later)

 

7 Now we need to create an fstab entry for the rootfs otherwise it gets mounted read only

    edit /mnt/etc/fstab and add the following

 

/dev/mmcblk0p1    /    auto    errors=remount-ro    0    1

 

 

8. now flush any pending writes and unmount the card

cd

sync

umount /mnt

 

9. Insert the uSD card in the RIoTboard (boot switches set for uSD) and power up.

NOTE:  A debug serial console connection is required to see the boot-up and complete the next stage as the HDMI screen will not be enabled.

On the serial console the system should boot up and prompt for login.

 

Login as root

password  root

 

You should also have an ethernet connection which should come up DHCP

you can now perform an upgrade with:

pacman -Syu

 

This will update a few things including the kernel and firmware.

After this update reboot and it will also bring up a login on the HDMI screen.

 

There you have it, I don't expect everything to be fully working, there may be issues somewhere but this is as far as I go

If anyone is interested I will make a card image file available for download.

  • great work! Thanks for sharing!

    I failed to create a working Debian sdcard image for RIoTboard. Also failed with Ubuntu.

    Now I wanted to give Archlinux a try but I could not find the files you attribute to Selsinork. Seems like the user is gone.

    Any chance you have some reference (links) to the Selsinork work - the files you put into dsave would be helpful, too.

    Thank you

  • Good post.

     

    I am getting close to firing up my RioT board.

    I purchased a PicoScope to look at the Uart output.  I want to see how the board looks at raw boot.

     

    Thanks

    DAB

  • in reply to bwelsby

    Enjoy your holidays Brian, and don't take any of this with you. It can wait, holidays are for unplugging and getting away from it all image

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    Sounds like you need soft padding on your walls it helps when you keep banging your head against them image

     

    I am using your device tree, I don't thing any of theirs would work. Yes I have seen the RIoTboard dts in 3.16,  oh joy more to play with image

     

    I have had a quick look at their kernel config, being Multi-platform means that it has ten kitchen sinks included, so weeding out the unnecessary is going to take time plus some trial and error.   I said if time allows because I will be on holiday soon,   I will take some data with me but I won't be able to check things out till I get back. 

  • in reply to bwelsby

    bah... I wish distros would just do something sane with networking.. Wasted two hours today on a training course working out that redhat needs NM_CONTROLLED="no" added to the ifcfg file on a system that doesn't have network-mangler installed... all to stop it adding an IP address configured on bond0 to every other interface as well image

     

    It's times like these where you find out that they've made a mess of their user-space network config and then they've patched their kernel to make it conform to their backward thinking... meaning that no 'normal' kernel can ever work. 

     

    Yes ok, bad day fighting with distro stupidity probably means I'm looking at it through a red mist image

     

    Still, if you do have a chance, it would be good to know what silly options they're expecting.  I still don't get why enabling USB_MON=m and then not loading the module fixes that particular wifi adapter, but ultimately that's a zero impact change.  At some point though it gets silly, you'll end up downloading the kernel image and then be wondering why a UPS van turns up with your kitchen sink image

     

    So when you install one of those Arch kernels, are you still using my devicetree, or one of theirs ?  Strange that anything would work with some incorrect devicetree...

    Of course, the big advantage of getting support into the mainline kernel is that in a couple of months when 3.16 is released it'll flow down into Arch and you'll essentially have out-of-the-box support for RIoTboard without needing to do anything!