How to get the Ubuntu distribution

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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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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:

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

The result will be a boot.ini file which you will copy to SD card boot partition 

$ cp boot.ini /media/boot

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 

$ sudo apt-get install qemu
$ 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

After few hours, 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.

Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx)

WORK IN PROGRESS, please contribute.

This has been tested on Ubuntu 10.04, other distributions may require some things to be done differently.

Start installing some required packages 

$ sudo apt-get install rootstock uboot-mkimage

Next, create a minimal rootfs with 

$ sudo rootstock --fqdn ubuntu --login jdoe --password letmein --imagesize 2G \
  --seed wget,nano,linux-firmware,wireless-tools,usbutils --dist lucid \
  --serial ttyS2 --components "main universe multiverse" \
  --kernel-image http://www.rcn-ee.net/deb/lucid/v2.6.33.5-l3/linux-image-2.6.33.5-l3_1.0lucid_armel.deb

The result will be these files:

  • armel-rootfs-<date>.tgz: Root file System, dump to ext2/3 partition of SD card
  • vmlinuz-2.6.<version>: Boot Image, use mkimage to create uImage and dump to the first fat16 partition of SD card
  • initrd.img-2.6.<version>: Boot initramfs, use mkimage to create uInitrd and dump to the first fat16 partition of SD card

convert to u-boot compatible images 

$ mkimage -A arm -O linux -T kernel -C none -a 0x80008000 -e 0x80008000 -n "Linux" -d vmlinuz-2.6.33.4-l3 uImage
$ mkimage -A arm -O linux -T ramdisk -C none -a 0 -e 0 -n initramfs -d initrd.img-2.6.33.4-l3 uInitrd

create a boot script 

fatload mmc 0:1 0x80000000 uImage
fatload mmc 0:1 0x82000000 uInitrd
setenv bootargs vram=12M omapfb.mode=dvi:1280x720MR-16@60
bootm 0x80000000 0x82000000

$ mkimage -A arm -O linux -T script -C none -a 0 -e 0 -n "Boot Script" -d  boot.source boot.ini

SD card boot partition 

$ cp uImage uInitrd /media/boot
$ cp boot.ini /media/boot

SD card rootfs partition 

$ sudo tar xzpf armel-rootfs-<date>.tgz -C /media/rootfs/

...


--- That's all folks ---

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