Archlinuxarm On C3x00

[ArchiMark]

Archi:

obsd no bootio!

https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=34386

Any ideas?

Yep, please read my reply to your post over in the OpenBSD section...........

Mark

[danboid]

Thanks!

[danboid]

daalnroti:

I want to give Arch a go on my C3000.

I presume a rough outline of the install goes something like:

* Install kexecboot
* Create partitions
* Extract Arch tarball to root fs
* Extract boot.cfg, config-3.11.3-borzoi and zImage-3.11.3-borzoi.bin to /boot on the Arch rootfs

What about the 3.11.3-borzoi folder within your kernel tar file? I think that belongs under /usr/lib/modules , right?

Did you say you've got a keymap file I could borrow and tweak for my imperialist, UK loving ways?

Anything else that might trip me up, apart from me not running on Borzoi?

Thanks!

[danboid]

I'm now running Arch on my C3000!

kexecboot was simple to install but I  had a bit of trouble installing the Arch tarball. I was trying to untar it from the D+B console and I also tried doing it from the pdaXii13 installer console. Both of these use busybox so there's little difference but I think the pdaXii13 busybox is a bit newer than the D+B one. It turns out you can't use busybox tar or even GNU tar to uncompress ArchARM (or ALARM as they prefer to  call it), you have to use bsd tar. If you already have a Linux or BSD installed then you should be able to install and use BSD tar but I didn't so instead I uncompressed the Arch latest tar.gz on my laptop then re-tarr'ed it with GNU tar. I still had problems when I gzipped my new tarball for some reason so I had to leave it uncompressed for busybox tar to be happy.

I haven't been able to properly use it yet because, as warned, the keymap isn't set up properly yet although it is working well enough for me to be able to log in. I can't type forward slash currently so real use is a no-go unless I plug in a USB keyboard, maybe.

Suspend isn't working properly but it works better than under OpenBSD on the C3000. When I hit suspend, apm acknowedges the suspend request and the screen goes blank for a couple of seconds before turning back on. This seems closer to the expected behaviour than the grey screen I get under OBSD.

The other oddity is that my orange power LED is blinking twice every second or so when I have AC connected. None of the other distros I've tried do this. Does your C3100 do that daalnroti?

I love it how ALARM only uses 10MB RAM OOTB!

Thanks for bringing Arch to the Z daalnroti - I think this is going to be great once I've got the keyboard and wifi working!

[greguu]

I'm now running Arch on my C3000!

kexecboot was simple to install but I  had a bit of trouble installing the Arch tarball. I was trying to untar it from the D+B console and I also tried doing it from the pdaXii13 installer console. Both of these use busybox so there's little difference but I think the pdaXii13 busybox is a bit newer than the D+B one. It turns out you can't use busybox tar or even GNU tar to uncompress ArchARM (or ALARM as they prefer to  call it), you have to use bsd tar. If you already have a Linux or BSD installed then you should be able to install and use BSD tar but I didn't so instead I uncompressed the Arch latest tar.gz on my laptop then re-tarr'ed it with GNU tar. I still had problems when I gzipped my new tarball for some reason so I had to leave it uncompressed for busybox tar to be happy.

I haven't been able to properly use it yet because, as warned, the keymap isn't set up properly yet although it is working well enough for me to be able to log in. I can't type forward slash currently so real use is a no-go unless I plug in a USB keyboard, maybe.

Suspend isn't working properly but it works better than under OpenBSD on the C3000. When I hit suspend, apm acknowedges the suspend request and the screen goes blank for a couple of seconds before turning back on. This seems closer to the expected behaviour than the grey screen I get under OBSD.

The other oddity is that my orange power LED is blinking twice every second or so when I have AC connected. None of the other distros I've tried do this. Does your C3100 do that daalnroti?

I love it how ALARM only uses 10MB RAM OOTB!

Thanks for bringing Arch to the Z daalnroti - I think this is going to be great once I've got the keyboard and wifi working!

Hi Danboid,

great to hear you had success with the ALAM tar ball. I used my debian port to install arch on the same drive (dual boot).

KEYMAP:

if you can not get a forwards slash, use TAB in the command line after typing a directory name

then create a new folder /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/zaurus

Code: [Select]

cd /usr/share/kbd/keymaps
mkdir zaurus
then copy the attached file borzoi.map.gz into that folder, then edit you /etc/vconsole.conf
(install terminus font via pacman and also add the FONT part for better console font reading)

Code: [Select]

KEYMAP=borzoi
FONT=ter-v14n
reboot. Hopefully this will get your keymap fixed.
Note : This is a custom keymap I have created from a pdaxrom one. Look into the borzoi.map.gz file to see what it does.

SUSPEND:

I have not played with it. I suggest to leave this until you got a proper running system and then investigate from there.

POWER LED:

Back then I patched the kernel code to have the orange light show the "cpu heartbeat" instead of charging status. This was mainly for debugging purpose.
If it stops blinking, your Z kernel hangs. This never happened with kernel 3.11.3, as it is stable. I can remove that patch if you like, but there
was an issue with off-line charging...??

WIFI :

The kernel is a custom build used for debugging and testing and has only DLINK and and ASUS USB driver installed for WiFi.
As simple recompile can add any other driver you need. What WiFi card do you have ?  


MEMORY:

to reduce memory usage, install dropbear instead of ssh.
with systemd, limit the ttys you open to maybe 4 in the console to save memory.
switching tty with the new keymap (FN - RIGHT or LEFT)

BORZOI:

Myself I have only a C3100 (borzoi) but I included in the kernel support for the C3x00 series. It should work!


KERNEL:

I might attempt to get a 4.x series kernel compiled, but at this stage I am not too worried as there will be no improvements, probably more issues.
If there is an issue with ALARM and the current 3.11.3 kernel, I will update.




Cheers!

[danboid]

Hi daalnroti

Thanks for the keymap and answering my questions. I'll be trying the keymap shortly.

What's off vs online charging? I would've guessed one is charging when suspended but you've obviously not tested that.

I'm glad you pointed out the limited wifi options at present. I currently have a planex gw-cf11x which uses the PRISM 3 chipset but yesterday I ordered a SparkLAN WCFM-100 because thats faster and supports 802.11g so that should arrive in the next couple of days. Might you make another kernel release with more PCMCIA wifi (and PCMCIA ethernet) drivers included? That would be handy as it must take an age to compile the kernel on the Z!

I was right to copy your kernels 3.11.3-borzoi dir into /usr/lib/modules , was I?

One good thing about trying a newer kernel would be we would escape the Tux flying the Windows logo flag boot icon offence! 3.11 is of course the 'Linux for Workgroups' release!  

The other great thing I've already noticed with ALARM is that it boots literally twice as fast, if not more than twice as fast than any other Z OS I've tried. It boots in about 40 seconds off my stock 4GB MD. That is no doubt thanks to systemd combined with Arch's lean default state.

[greguu]

Hi daalnroti

Thanks for the keymap and answering my questions. I'll be trying the keymap shortly.

What's off vs online charging? I would've guessed one is charging when suspended but you've obviously not tested that.

I'm glad you pointed out the limited wifi options at present. I currently have a planex gw-cf11x which uses the PRISM 3 chipset but yesterday I ordered a SparkLAN WCFM-100 because thats faster and supports 802.11g so that should arrive in the next couple of days. Might you make another kernel release with more PCMCIA wifi (and PCMCIA ethernet) drivers included? That would be handy as it must take an age to compile the kernel on the Z!

I was right to copy your kernels 3.11.3-borzoi dir into /usr/lib/modules , was I?

One good thing about trying a newer kernel would be we would escape the Tux flying the Windows logo flag boot shock! 3.11 is of course Linux for Workgroups!  

The other great thing I've already noticed with ALARM is that it boots literally twice as fast, if not more than twice as fast than any other distro I've tried. It boots in about 40 seconds. That is no doubt thanks to systemd combined with Arch's lean default state.

Hi danboid.

offline charging is when the Z is plugged in , but not turned on. This has been an issue with 3.x series kernels and has never been fixed.
The Z only charges when turned on...

Yes, the modules for kernel 3.11.3-borzoi go into dir usr/lib/modules

I can do a kernel recompile for the 3.11.3 with drivers requested, remove some patches or the logo.

Whats wrong with the logo ?  My 3.5 kernel had a proper archlinuxarm logo, I can add that again ...

No problem, with a tool chain it takes just 5 min. on the Z with distcc, maybe 2h, on the Z alone about 8h for a minimal kernel.

Let me know what modules you need, if you have no tool chain to compile the kernel from my github.

ALARM boots fast, because of systemd, yes, and because it is lean.

Just wait until you can use pacman, you will be amazed how fast it is compared to obsd or debian apt-get.

Once you got your keymap fixed, do some testing and let me know what drivers/modules you might need.

Cheers!

[danboid]

I remembered what offline charging was as soon as I'd finished writing that last mail. Its what happens what you don't use your Z for 5 years!

That's a shame with offline charging not working. I hope apm works apart from that (and suspend) ie it accurately tells me the battery charge etc?

As for the LED, if it's doing what you say it is, why does it only do it when AC is plugged in? Could you have the power LED behave as it does under the official ROM, or closely mimic it except for offline behaviour for obvious reasons?

I already know how much faster pacman is than dpkg - check my signature!

distcc! I've never tried it but that could come in very handy for big builds, as you say.

To use wifi I'll need hostap_cs for the PRISM card and libertas_cs for my new wifi card. If you could provide an update kernel / modules to save me the hassle, that'd be much appreciated!

Can I overclock the CPU to 624Mhz under 3.11?

Thanks daalnroti!

[greguu]

Hi danboid,

In regards to charging, I guess I got it wrong. When turned on and with a 3.x kernel , the Z charges really slow. When off line, normal charging speed.

If you like, I can remove the LED patch and make it behave as usual. no problem there.

Also I can add the wifi modules for you and recompile, then upload to github.

Overclock, well I never tried, cpufreq on ALARM shows only 416 as max.

This does not mean it cant be done, but I have no need for it to be honest.

Do you have a CF LAN card too , or only WiFi ?

Any USB drivers you may need ?

Cheers

[danboid]

That's good news on the charging and having a normal power LED!

I don't have a CF LAN card yet no, but I'm tempted to get one.

One of the things I'm keen to try under Arch is MAME. If I get it running I'll be wanting to plug in my USB gamepad but I think thats part of the standard HID driver?

Apart from a USB keyboard and USB memory sticks / hard drives, the only other thing I can see myself plugging into USB would be my phone in an attempt to get tethering to work. I've not tested it yet but just in case the gentoo wiki tells you what needs to be enabled in the kernel to get USB tethering to work:

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Android_USB_Tethering

Let me know when you've updated the kernel on github please!

Thanks v.much!

[greguu]

danboid,

if you want to get mame going you should try this first : https://code.google.com/p/zgrom/wiki/Emulators

Back in the days, I invested a lot of time to get SDL apps working in pure console, using the framebuffer only for emulators etc.

zgrom is the way to go, anything else is just frustrating. The Z uses a rotated frambuffer as default for landscape view. this is a big performance draw back.

and is a real nightmare to get proper Xorg running fast. it has always to rotate in software ! zgrom is the most optimized as far as I know, for gaming.

Thats why I stick to console only. The impact of rotated console is minimal. obsd has the same issue, has to rotate in software, using wcons for SDL.

In regards to led, logo and wifi / tethering . I will post a testing kernel tar.gz in this thread before uploading the sourced to github.

I will post a testing build later tonight (NZ time) or tomorrow. Different timezones man.

Cheers.

[danboid]

I've read about zgrom but I've not tried it. It's based on OE/Angstrom as I understand. I never had any luck with either distro and of course its package selection pales in comparison to Arch, as is the case for all other distros!

Why would it provide better performance than Arch? Has its author tweaked its kernel or SDL somehow? Surely it still has to rotate the FB in software. On top of that, it runs its emus through the wine-like GINGE GP2X compat layer and so the author says the included emus would run faster if they were fully native builds, of course.

I won't be using X. It seems ridiculous to bother on anything less than a HD (or at least 1024x768) display with some hardware acceleration but I'm hopeful for running some old arcade or computer games at 320x240.

Have you tried (Advance)MAME or MESS under Arch?

I'm looking forward to testing the updated kernel.

Cheers

[greguu]

danboid,

zgrom uses a sdl library optimized for the the Z, not sure the source code of that library was ever made public..

anyway, the 3.11.3 kernel has hostap support. also for prism 2/3 , I checked.

can you please give me some more details about your card. ? try a "modprobe hostap" first and check "dmesg"

also you may need just the kernel firmware package, that is available via pacman. but you need to get network going first ..

Cheers,

[greguu]

I have just tried to recompile the kernel, but since my system is now way up to date, I will need to upgrade the kernel to at least 3.18 or 4.x

Maybe a good chance to get a new kernel going. just give me a few days and I will see what I can get going.

But saying this, I still can compile the 3.11.3 kernel on a older system backup , using older gcc.

I will find out what is more efficient and will let you know. Give me a couple of days, I am busy working at IT daytime and will work on it at nights.

Cheers.

[danboid]

Sounds good to me!

I can confirm the keymap works. I'm just looking into setting wifi up now.

Yes, it does seem to include hostap already but I I'll need to install the firmware. libertas_cs seems to be missing though and I'll need that for my new wifi card which I should have tomorrow.

Shame about the custom SDL source. It might be worth me checking to see if he's willing to share it with us so we can enjoy better SDL under Arch.