Re: Debian in a Pcduino3
On Saturday 27 December 2014 15:50:26 Patrice Go wrote:
> Thanks for the help,
>
> I am not sure to be able and to have enough time to install a wheezy "by
> hand" (lfs, kernel compilation, modules choices, etc), i think i will
> rather test an install of a Jessie or a sid on the pcduino3.
>
> The use of my pcduino3, for the future, will be just for ssh (and others
> console, ncurses), then there's no need for me a video support, i won't use
> X server. i don't have the necessity to use the pcduino3 now, i have others
> arm board (raspberrypi, beaglebone black) for my use. Therefore, i would be
> happy to be a debian tester for this pcduino3.
> and thanks to
>
> However, i am not sure to understand correctly all the technical point...
>
> i enounce my actual understanding of these points :
>
> Jessie is defined/frozen actually with a kernel 3.16, which doesn't support
> the A20 device-tree (structure of the pcduino3 board). then if i install a
> Jessie, will i be able to use it for minimal uses ? by example, command
> line and ssh, to install the kernel 3.17 backport which support the A20
> device tree ?
> or is it better to install the sid ?
Actually this is not true. Out of the box Jessie supports A20 devices like
the Cubieboard-2, the Cubietruck and the PananaPi. It just does not have
the PcDuino DTS in a package. If you look at the the u-boot-sunxi package
it had the above mentioned DTS file in it, and the page you have been
pointed at below for installing on Sunxi systems you will find instructions
for installing one which is not pre-installed.
David
>
> Patrice G.
>
> Le 25 déc. 2014 23:35, "Karsten Merker" <merker@debian.org> a écrit :
> > 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.
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