How to get the Ubuntu distribution
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Contents
How to get the Ubuntu distribution
The Ubuntu project is excited to be working with the ARM ecosystem to port Ubuntu for ARM-based devices. This work fits with our goals of making Ubuntu available as an open platform to as many people as possible. Some points to note:
- Ubuntu will target the new ARM EABI.
- For now, builds will expect a minimum of an ARMv5 instruction set.
- Ubuntu will target ARM with VFP (Vector Floating Point).
- We will continue to work with vendors to provide hardware drivers for various ARM-based devices.
- Ubuntu will likely have a different set of kernels than Debian (although the specific set is still under discussion).
Overview of How-To
This How-To is meant to be a starting point for people to learn install an Ubuntu image for OMAP3-based IGEP platforms as quickly and easily as possible.
Unless otherwise noted, this How-To works with the Ubuntu 8.04 IGEP v2.0 SDK Virtual Machine but most of the contents are valid also for other GNU/Linux distributions. We do not issue any guarantee that this will work on other distributions.
This How-To will start out by a Make a bootable MMC card on Linux.
And then, we will cover the Getting a copy of a ubuntu root file system for various Ubuntu releases. These should give you a good basis overview of creating an ubuntu-based ARM root filesystem.
Requirements
- A SD card at least 2GB ( recommended 4GB )
Feedback and Contributing
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Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.
References
Much of this How-To is extracted from different sources. If you would like to read some of the original articles or resources, please visit them and thank the authors:
- The Ubuntu website ( http://www.ubuntu.com )
- Ubuntu on ARM ( http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/arm )
- The rootstock project ( https://launchpad.net/project-rootstock )
- ARM rootfs from scratch ( https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/RootfsFromScratch )
Make a bootable MMC card on Linux
Thanks to Graeme Gregory and Steve Sakoman, you can now use a script to automate the tedious process of creating a bootable SD/microSD card.
Take care if you do not have your system in English. You have to change the word "Disk" in the former script, line #10 with the translation in the language of your system.
Having followed this excellent tutorial it's time to mount your SD card boot partition (/media/boot). With your preferred editor create a boot-ini.source file like this.
# Set bootargs for ubuntu MMC boot setenv bootargs 'console=ttyS2,115200n8 console=tty0 omapfb.mode=dvi:1024x768MR-16@60 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rw rootwait ' # Read kernel from OneNAND onenand read 80200000 280000 400000 # and boot ... bootm 80200000
And use the mkimage tool to convert this file into a script image which can be executed using U-Boot's source command.
$ source /usr/local/poky/eabi-glibc/arm/environment-setup $ mkimage -A arm -O linux -T script -C none -a 0 -e 0 -n 'Boot setup script' -d boot-ini.source boot.ini
If you are not using IGEP's virtual machine, you can download and install the Poky SDK from http://www.igep.es/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=99&Itemid=112&dir=/var/www/vhosts/igep.es/httpdocs/downloads/01-ISEE_Products/IGEPv2/SW_Releases/poky/purple-3.2/v3.2.1-0/sdk once logged in. This will provide the /usr/local/poky directory. If you use this option, the appropriate source command is source /usr/local/poky/eabi-glibc/environment-setup-arm-none-linux-gnueabi.
The result will be a boot.ini file which you will copy to SD card boot partition
$ cp boot.ini /media/boot
Ubuntu releases
Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat)
First, download the compressed image from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-netbook/ports/releases/
wget http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-netbook/ports/releases/maverick/release/ubuntu-netbook-10.10-preinstalled-netbook-armel+omap.img.gz
Next, uncompress the image with
gunzip ubuntu-netbook-10.10-preinstalled-netbook-armel+omap.img.gz
Then write the raw image to a blank SD card (the card size should be >2G)
sudo dd if=<uncompressed image> of=/dev/mmcblk0 # change /dev/mmcblk0 with appropriate device
Current boot file system (x-loader + u-boot + kernel) not works, so we need to replace. First download and extract this package
wget http://people.canonical.com/~mpoirier/linux-image-2.6.35-22-omap_2.6.35-22.34_armel_torez_2.deb ar -x linux-image-2.6.35-22-omap_2.6.35-22.34_armel_torez_2.deb tar jxf data.tar.bz2 sudo cp -fr boot lib usr /media/<rootfs> # change <bootfs> with appropriate SD rootfs partition
then, create an uImage file with
mkimage -A arm -O linux -T kernel -C none -a 0x80008000 -e 0x80008000 -n "Linux" -d boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-22-omap uImage cp uImage /media/<bootfs> # change <bootfs> with appropriate SD boot partition
next, download and copy x-loader from
wget http://downloads.igep.es/binaries/x-loader/v1.4.3-0/x-load-1.4.3-0.igep0020-sdcard.bin.ift cp x-load-1.4.3-0.igep0020-sdcard.bin.ift /media/<bootfs>/MLO # change <bootfs> with appropriate SD boot partition
and finally, do the same with u-boot
wget http://downloads.igep.es/binaries/u-boot-arm/v2009.11-2/u-boot-arm-2009.11-2.igep0020.bin cp u-boot-arm-2009.11-2.igep0020.bin /media/<bootfs>/u-boot.bin # change <bootfs> with appropriate SD boot partition
The last step is copy boot.scr to boot.ini
cp /media/<bootfs>/boot.scr /media/<bootfs/boot.ini # change <bootfs> with appropriate SD boot partition
Umount bootfs and rootfs partitions, push your SD card in your IGEP socket, power up and enjoy !
System Testing and known issues
* Can't bring up eth0, no network - this is a known issue that has been fixed but may not have been applied yet. * https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/645689
Tips and tricks
Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope)
In order to get a copy of a ARM ubuntu root file system, you will need to install qemu and a recent version of debootstrap and the qemu package. On some systems you may also need the qemu-kvm-extras package to run the ARM emulation.
$ sudo apt-get install qemu $ sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm-extras $ wget http://ports.ubuntu.com/pool/main/d/debootstrap/debootstrap_1.0.12_all.deb $ sudo dpkg -i debootstrap_1.0.12_all.deb
Next, you will download a helper program to build the rootfs
$ wget http://launchpad.net/project-rootstock/trunk/0.1/+download/rootstock-0.1.3.tar.gz $ tar xzf rootstock-0.1.3.tar.gz $ cd rootstock-0.1.3
The following example will create a tarball of ubuntu-desktop based image for your target device:
$ sudo ./rootstock --fqdn ubuntu --login jdoe --password letmein --imagesize 3G --seed ubuntu-desktop --dist jaunty
Typical images (example settings):
To build a xubuntu-desktop image use the following options:
--imagesize 2G --seed xubuntu-desktop
For an ubuntu-desktop image (a similar size is needed if you want a kubuntu image):
--imagesize 3G --seed ubuntu-desktop
A typical remote development comandline environment if you run an armel board headless (note that you should edit /etc/network/interfaces and set up your network device on first login for this):
--imagesize 3G --seed build-essential,openssh-server
A very light desktop (lxde):
--seed lxde,gdm
This step can take a long time. For example, building ubuntu-desktop on a Celeron 1.6GHz laptop takes approximately 10 hours. When it is finished, a file named armel-rootfs-[date].tgz will be in your working directory.
Next, mount your SD card ext3 partition (/media/rootfs) and untar the rootfs
$ sudo tar xzf armel-rootfs-[date].tgz -C /media/rootfs
Finally, umount the SD card, insert the card in your board and power up.
--- That's all folks ---
