Re: Debian in a Pcduino3
On Thu, Dec 25, 2014 at 09:28:53PM +0100, Patrice Go wrote:
> I am searching some technical informations to know if it is
> possible to install a debian OS in a pcduino3. I was searching
> on the debian arm iso ftp, but i don't know what is the arm iso
> (armel or armhf) to choose for the pcduino3. It seems that it
> is an arm v7, then maybe the armhf :
>
> CPU : AllWinner A20 SoC, 1GHz ARM Cortex A7 Dual Core.
> GPU : OpenGL ES2.0, OpenVG 1.1, Mali 400 Dual Core
The architecture in this case is armhf.
> I don't know what to choose between "mx5" and "vexpress" :
> /debian/dists/wheezy/main/installer-armhf/current/images/
It is neither mx5 nor vexpress - these are completely different
systems. Support for certain Allwinner A20-based systems is
officially available in Jessie (testing) and Sid (unstable), but
not in Wheezy (stable). It is possible to setup Wheezy on an
A20-based system, but you would have to do that completely "by
hand" as Wheezy lacks the necessary installer support.
> i don't see any informations about debian for this device. Was
> there some tests previously on this kind of device ? I would
> want to test the installation...
The pcduino3 is (in contrast to the older A10-based pcduino) not
yet officially supported by Debian (device-tree support for it
has been added in kernel 3.17 while Jessie uses Kernel 3.16), but
we could possibly backport the device-tree support. The major
issue at the moment is that Debian is currently frozen for the
next release, which means that normally only bugfixes get
accepted, but no new features. If you are willing to act as a
tester, I can look into backporting the relevant changes to
kernel 3.16 and making the necessary adjustments to the
installer, but I cannot promise that these modifications would
be accepted by the release team.
Please note that Debian would in any case only support using a
serial console on the pcduino3, as there is no video driver
support for the A20 in the mainline kernel. For background
information about Debian on Allwinner-based systems, I would like
to refer you to the Debian Wiki at
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Allwinner.
Regards,
Karsten
--
Gem. Par. 28 Abs. 4 Bundesdatenschutzgesetz widerspreche ich der Nutzung
sowie der Weitergabe meiner personenbezogenen Daten für Zwecke der
Werbung sowie der Markt- oder Meinungsforschung.
Reply to: