Re: (unofficial) Debian packages for Toshiba AC100 (Tegra; armel and armhf)

[Axel Beckert <abe@debian.org>]

Hi,

yeah, I know it's an ancient thread, but it's a current topic for me
as I started a second go in converting my AC100 from Ubuntu Precise
(armel) to Debian (armhf), this time to Wheezy and successfully. (Yay!
:-)

And I still have one question: Which kernel to use? The most update
-ac100 kernel I found was Julian's 2.6.38-2-ac100 in his repo at
http://people.debian.org/~jak/ac100/ -- the kernels available in
Wheezy are:

linux-image-3.2.0-4-mx5 - Linux 3.2 for Freescale i.MX51/53
linux-image-3.2.0-4-omap - Linux 3.2 for TI OMAP3+
linux-image-3.2.0-4-vexpress - Linux 3.2 for ARM Ltd. Versatile Express

Would the armmp images from Sid/Jessie/Wheezy-Backports work on the
AC100, too? The short description says "Linux for ARMv7 multiplatform
compatible SoCs". "cat /proc/cpuinfo" says:

Processor       : ARMv7 Processor rev 0 (v7l)
processor       : 0
BogoMIPS        : 1992.29

processor       : 1
BogoMIPS        : 1998.84

Features        : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp vfpv3 vfpv3d16 
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant     : 0x1
CPU part        : 0xc09
CPU revision    : 0

Hardware        : Toshiba AC100 / Dynabook AZ
Revision        : 0000
Serial          : 0000000000000000

But then again that package's long description says "The Linux kernel
3.10 and modules for use on ARMv7 multiplatform kernel for Marvell
Armada 370/xp, Freescale iMX5x/iMX6." There's no mention of Nvidia
Tegra stuff.

I wrote on Fri, 12 Aug 2011 04:05:03 +0200:
> Phil Endecott wrote:
> > Julian Andres Klode <jak <at> debian.org> writes:
> > > Installation guide (all on the device itself):
> > > 
> > > 	(1) Bootstrap Debian on USB stick, SD, or eMMC
> > > 	(2) Install busybox and initramfs-tools
> > > 	(3) Set MODULES=dep in /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf 
> > > 	(4) Copy /boot/bootimg.cfg to Debian and configure cmdline[*]
> > > 	(4) (bind) mount /proc and /dev
> > > 	(5) Install abootimg flash-kernel linux-image-ac100

Despite newer than in Julian's APT repo, flash-kernel from Wheezy
seems not to work while the one from Julian's repo works fine. I've
put that on hold for now.

> > Thanks; I was going to ask if you could post some installation instructions. 
> > Unfortunately those are a little too brief for me to grok.
> 
> I must admit, they weren't sufficient for me either. Bascially I think
> there's something missing: How to get the Debian kernel and the right
> parameters flashed?

I can answer that myself: the parameters are in /boot/bootimg.cfg and
flashing happens while installing flash-kernel. Not sure what I did
wrong the last time:

> I currently have Ubuntu on the eMMC and bootstrapped Debian armhf to
> an SD card (never booted, no idea where to tell the system to suddenly
> boot from SD instead of the eMMC.

It seems only the root= parameter in the bootimg.conf.

> Is there a way to choose between the two install operating systems?

Seems not the case. I'd currently reflash /dev/mmcblk0p2 with the
Ubuntu kernel, initrd and bootimg.conf with abootimg. You can either
use abootimg to directly write the boot image to /dev/mmcblk0p2 or to
write it into some file on some other device and then flash it using
Nvidia's nvflash tool. (I've not done the latter for a long time.)

I'll try to update
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Toshiba/AC100, especially
with regards to amrhf no more being on debian-ports.org.

P.S.: I still have occassional freezes. I had them with Ubuntu Precise
if I logged in (but far more seldom if I just left lightdm's login
screen running and accessed the box via SSH) and I had them on Debian
after a few minutes until I switched the I/O scheduler from cfq to
noop. Since then, I only had one more freeze. But then again that box
only has not that much uptime over all yet...

		Regards, Axel
-- 
 ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert <abe@debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
: :' :  |  Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin
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