Debian : Any chance of a drive image

[Diarmuid]

Hi

I've been trying to get Debian going based on the blog post here .
http://jflesch.kwain.net/blog/bifferboard.en.html

I've had no luck. The system won't boot in qemu and I have a feeling
that I made a mess of the modules section.

Is there any chance that a drive image of the working debian usb drive
could be uploaded to the site as a starting point. I need to get
bluetooth working and openwrt is not working

Thanks

Diarmuid

[Nelson Neves]

Hi,

I also have some interest on getting Debian up and running into Bifferboard,
but I'm a bit busy at the moment. Also lost some time making wikis for
OpenWrt and found that there are some limitations to it that would work
right of the shell in Debian.

Regards,
Nelson.

[bifferos]

If the modules are the only thing stopping you, why not just compile
everything you need into the kernel. Bluetooth should certainly fit
on the 1MB flash with a usbroot system.

On Sep 9, 5:03 pm, Diarmuid <dwre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi
>

> I've been trying to get Debian going based on the blog post here .http://jflesch.kwain.net/blog/bifferboard.en.html

[Diarmuid]

Hi Biffo!!!

I'm not that sure about what I'm doing. I mainly use voyage ( on Alix
boards) and would love to see that running on the bifferboard. Just
like everyone else, I'm swapped with work at the mo and some customers
want a very small pocket system and I hoped this would work for them.

I spent the day trying to get either openwrt with bluetooth working
(can't because the repository of packages is not working at
http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/bifferboard/packages.gz ) and I
kept messing up the modules/kernels on the debian installation.

I used to use the slug with debain and found that Ok but this is
killing me.

Please post up a debian image (with bluetooth)

Cheers

Diarmuid

[bifferos]

On Sep 9, 5:43 pm, Diarmuid <dwre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Please post up a debian image (with bluetooth)

I don't do Debian. Got nothing against it, but I just don't know it.
I can only help if you try Slackware.
http://sites.google.com/site/bifferboard/Home/desktop-linux-distributions/slackware

Bluetooth definitely works under Slackware if you load the right
modules:
http://www.biffer.talktalk.net/bluetooth/

Unfortunately the system I'm now running is a complete install (about
3GB), otherwise I would upload my rootfs somewhere.

cheers,
Biff.

[Diarmuid]

Cheers,

I'll have a look at Slackware, but as far as I could see, the how to
is very high level.

Thanks

Diarmuid

On Sep 9, 6:03 pm, bifferos <biffe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sep 9, 5:43 pm, Diarmuid <dwre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Please post up a debian image (with bluetooth)
>
> I don't do Debian.  Got nothing against it, but I just don't know it.

> I can only help if you try Slackware.http://sites.google.com/site/bifferboard/Home/desktop-linux-distribut...

[bifferos]

Yes, the notes are sketchy, but I have installed slackware about 100
times now, so at least I can fill in the gaps if you need me to. If
you get stuck just ask. It will be a good opportunity to improve my
notes if someone is 'beta-testing' them.

[Diarmuid]

righto.

[Diarmuid]

Hi Biff,

I had a more detailed look at the slackware install and it's double
dutch!!! Sorry.

Would you be able to upload an image of a functioning slackware drive?
Just the basics, not a dev build, just so we can install stuff from
the package manager?

I really think, now with the nice case and a linux for dummies full
OS, the board could be very popular.

Cheers

Diarmuid

[bifferos]

Sorry Diarmuid,

I think it's better to spend my time doing the stuff that *nobody*
else can do, rather than the things that at least 10 other people on
this list can do! All my evenings are busy with lower level stuff,
like my current project (writing to Bifferboard flash from within
Linux). If I spend an evening preparing your Slackware rootfs that's
an evening I can't spend on kernel functionality which will benefit
almost *everyone*.

Hope you understand,
Biff.

[Diarmuid]

Cheers Biff,

I'll see what I can do myself. Are there nay other volunteers that
have a working Debian or Slackware image?

Thanks

Diarmuid

[Richard]

Hi,

On Sep 11, 1:19 pm, Diarmuid <dwre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Cheers Biff,
>
> I'll see what I can do myself. Are there nay other volunteers that
> have a working Debian or Slackware image?

I have a debian system running on a bifferboard, but it's a
(fairly) full installation from a DVD (to a USB external drive), so
too large to upload. I can provide a copy of the /lib/modules/2.6.26-2
directory that was installed from the DVD, if that's still your
problem.

Cheers,
Richard

[Jonathan Roozing]

Hi,

Just curious: how did you installed this?

Regards,
MRX

--- On Mon, 9/14/09, Richard <paul.s...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

[bifferos]

Perhaps following these instructions?
http://jflesch.kwain.net/blog/bifferboard.en.html

On Sep 14, 9:43 pm, Jonathan Roozing <jrooz...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Just curious: how did you installed this?
>
> Regards,
> MRX
>

> --- On Mon, 9/14/09, Richard <paul.stan...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

[Sunspot]

Diarmuid seems to be riding my Hobbyhorse!

I really see the Bifferboard as a *users* tool for hardware hobby
types. (the "rest of us")

Developing is great fun to those that can and much appreciated by the
eventual users.

But should there not be an end goal of an "Ubuntu for the
Bifferboard"?
Binary for the board plus contents for the external USB flash as a
download
- burn, set the web address the go, go, go.

We could perhaps start a thread suggesting what these might contain?
perhaps -
* telnet
* web server
* ftp server
* samba
* wireless and wired LAN
* rs232
* i2c and similar
* webcam
* +? ? ?
perhaps a (slim) OpenWrt version and a (loaded) Debian version.

All from a download with *very* basic "do this, then this, then it
works" recipe of instructions.
(Start to learn Linux *after* you have a running system in your hands
- like for most Ubuntu users)

Perhaps the Head of the Marketing Department at Biff International
Corporation might agree that this would sell lots of boards!

The Mac did this for the PC world.
Ubuntu did it for the desktop Linux world.

Anyway - "the rest of us" thank you all for the hard work done so
far !!!!!


On Sep 15, 12:39 am, bifferos <biffe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Perhaps following these instructions?http://jflesch.kwain.net/blog/bifferboard.en.html

[Nelson Neves]

Going into a full Linux Distro such as Slackware, Debian, etc, brings much more power for the end user, very flexible to make things work in a snap! Getting apps from repository is much easier then having to compile them using alternative libraries such as dietlibc (so that they can fit in flash). The problem is if you are going for this approach you will require a USP Pen drive with the OS on it, making use of Bifferboard unique USB connection, so almost for sure that you will need to connect a HUB to get other devices (and there goes your 1W reference up to 2W [hub + penusb] or more).

There are some other problems on getting full Linus Distros running:

- Required Space on Websever to deploy the rootfs:
OK, some ppl could contribute with this, but if we start spreading files across different webservers it could get messy, not to mention the work that will give you to maintain all that server administration stuff!

- Volunteers that will be able to maintain that distro:
Things are always changing, new kernel arrives, patches are required to be adjusted for the new stuff, etc etc ... Hey, I don't even know how Biff can handle all that stuff with only one OS, imagine 3 or 4! So, volunteers is really mandatory!

Let me clarify one thing, I'm not against full distro optinion, hey, when I first got here (thanks to you Graham) my first idea was to get Debian running on BB! Just pointing it out that probably at this moment I don't think that we have the available 'resourses' (meaning human power -> volunteers) to go in that direction! I also agree with you that having BB already prepared to run a full Linux out of the shell, with lots of tutorials / how-to, should bring lots of hobbyist to buy some bifferboards! But then we have the same problem, with openwrt it was always the same 3 or 4 guys making the wikis!

So, maintaining a full distro, yes please, but probably when things are more stable over the On-Board-Flash system. Just my humble opinion!

Regards,
Nelson.

[Richard]

Hi,

On Sep 14, 9:43 pm, Jonathan Roozing <jrooz...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Just curious: how did you installed this?

I installed using my laptop - ie plugged the USB hard drive into
the laptop, booted the laptop from the debian DVD and specified the
USB drive as the one to install to. Once done, I rebooted the laptop,
and copied a '/lib/modules/2.6.xxx' directory to the USB disk (these
were the kernel modules that corresponded to the kernel that I had
flashed to the bifferboard). The initial boot (using qemu, but
presumably BB would have worked) was very slow because the module
dependency stuff was wrong (the kernel etc was created on my laptop,
running Fedora). But it booted, despite the error reports, and re-
running 'depmod' on the debian system then fixed the problem.

Richard

[bifferos]

It seems most people interested in basing commercial solutions on
Bifferboard want to fit everything on the flash, so this is where I am
going in terms of a 'distro' that can be put together. Applications
will need to be programmed in C or, at a stretch, Lua. The ability to
configure and compile a kernel will be essential due to space
constraints although the initramfs can be put together from binaries.
Anyone wanting to sell, say, 50 of these devices as part of some
turnkey system is going to know how to compile a kernel, and how to
follow basic cross-compiling instructions for Busybox, and also how to
use a search engine to check e.g. Busybox mailing list archives and so
on. If you are unable to do your own investigations then that's fine,
but you rely on the charity of others (or a support contract?) to get
this.

I'll say what I've said before - for anything to do with USB-root,
this is just another x86 platform (if you use my RDC patches). You
can go to other forums if you want to install Debian on a USB stick,
and there will be people that will tell you how. If you have problems
with compiling a kernel and matching modules to it, maybe you should
start looking at one of the floppy-based x86 distrbutions, and asking
for help there. Tens of thousands of people understand about kernels
and modules, so with my current workload I'm probably not the ideal
person to ask.

regards,
Biff.

[Razvan Dragomirescu]

You know, one thing that might work would be a "bounty" system - I've seen it done before. Basically there would be a page on the Wiki where you could request features and indicate how much you're willing to pay for them to become available. Other people can add features or add to the bounty sum for existing requested features. If the bounty gets high enough, someone picks it up and implements it, then collects the money. It's basically an honor system, there is no escrow or anything like that.

 

Would anyone else be interested in something like this?

 

Razvan

--
Razvan Dragomirescu
Chief Technology Officer
Cayenne Graphics SRL

[bifferos]

I imagine the problem is that the definition of 'done' varies so much
from task to task and person to person. People have a tendency to ask
for things, supply little in the way of specification, then expect the
earth when it gets delivered.

I would certainly not want to get involved in this on the programming
side, but I'd be prepared to arbitrate, and give an opinion about
whether something is 'done', if that's any help.

regards,
Biff.

On Sep 15, 1:31 pm, Razvan Dragomirescu

<razvan.dragomire...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You know, one thing that might work would be a "bounty" system - I've seen
> it done before. Basically there would be a page on the Wiki where you could
> request features and indicate how much you're willing to pay for them to
> become available. Other people can add features or add to the bounty sum for
> existing requested features. If the bounty gets high enough, someone picks
> it up and implements it, then collects the money. It's basically an honor
> system, there is no escrow or anything like that.
>
> Would anyone else be interested in something like this?
>
> Razvan
>
> --
> Razvan Dragomirescu
> Chief Technology Officer
> Cayenne Graphics SRL
>

[Razvan Dragomirescu]

Well, I guess it would be up to the person wanting to claim the bounty to ask for details from the people that have contributed to the bounty sum before any programming work starts. And external arbitration (such as yours) would definitely help. It may be worth a try.

 

Also, just to restate the obvious: the code resulting from the bounty would be open for everyone, not just the people paying for it. I'm sure there are a few people on this list that would be willing to offer their consulting services, for a price. So if you need something _now_ or you're interested in a closed source version, hire a consultant. If you simply want to prioritize that particular task for people willing/able to do it (for fun or a quick buck), contribute to the bounty.

 

Should we try this for the "Debian drive image" task, just to see if this would work? No obligations for anyone (other than the obligation to actually pay if someone implements your bounty :) ).

 

Razvan

--
Razvan Dragomirescu
Chief Technology Officer
Cayenne Graphics SRL

[Nelson Neves]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 2:04 PM, bifferos <biff...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

I imagine the problem is that the definition of 'done' varies so much
from task to task and person to person.  People have a tendency to ask
for things, supply little in the way of specification, then expect the
earth when it gets delivered.

Oh, I get that all day long, there is always a stupid guy telling you that It wasn't that what we have discussed (when there was no discussion what so ever).

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 2:18 PM, Razvan Dragomirescu <razvan.dr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Well, I guess it would be up to the person wanting to claim the bounty to ask for details from the people that have contributed to the bounty sum before any programming work starts. And external arbitration (such as yours) would definitely help. It may be worth a try.

 

Also, just to restate the obvious: the code resulting from the bounty would be open for everyone, not just the people paying for it. I'm sure there are a few people on this list that would be willing to offer their consulting services, for a price. So if you need something _now_ or you're interested in a closed source version, hire a consultant. If you simply want to prioritize that particular task for people willing/able to do it (for fun or a quick buck), contribute to the bounty.

 

Should we try this for the "Debian drive image" task, just to see if this would work? No obligations for anyone (other than the obligation to actually pay if someone implements your bounty :) ).

 

Razvan

I think that should be a nice test! At least that's also a nice incentive to get people sharing their stuff! But definitely agree on the OpenSource stuff!
One other thing, if Debian's project goes ahead (I vote yes - and will also contribute), don't forget about the webserver space detail :)

Regards,
Nelson.

[bifferos]

On Sep 15, 2:18 pm, Razvan Dragomirescu

<razvan.dragomire...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Should we try this for the "Debian drive image" task, just to see if this
> would work? No obligations for anyone (other than the obligation to actually
> pay if someone implements your bounty :) ).

Please go ahead and set up something on the wiki if you like.

I only gave my reservations, because I've had people approach me over
embedded contract programming in the past, and it has always resulted
in me just wasting my time hammering out the spec and then the
'customer' telling me it's too expensive (believe me, I don't charge
much per hour).

Best of luck!

Biff.

[Lukasz Sokol]

Well, as (almost) every problem can be split into sub-problems (the divide-and-reign rule ;) that would eventually be obvious to someone (Linus' Law) this would be much wanted feature of such wiki bounty system : define what you expect of the feature and split the bounty between people that actually made it happen ;) even if the actual bounty is just fame ;)

(for myself, as I am thinking of a commercial use for the BB, I'd be willing to share anything that enabled it to happen, less the stuff that is our IP ;) )

el es

[Sunspot]

I was not particularly pushing Debian - more a distro that does
"enough" rather than "everything" for the users out here.

On the Sweex router I put up a "distro" that was frozen in time a year
or more ago - but what it does it does well and it is downloaded many
times by "not yet into Linux" experimenters. You can even download the
sources for the dl folder - all well out of date and no longer
available from the authors but running really well on my Sweex.

The point is that a non expert can be up and running by just doing a
download, a burn and a network configuration.
You do *not* always need the latest bleeding edge version to get your
robot/greenhouse controller etc running!

My Bifferboard is running very early software and except for i2c is
rock solid.
For a non Linux expert, it will be a big effort to comb the wiki and
debates here to add i2c - I am sure there will be lots of "gotchas"
before it runs.

As an example my early BB "system backup" or "distro" can be seen at
http://www.sunspot.co.uk/Projects/Bifferboard/distro.html
which links to
http://cid-8a7b593a49903da5.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/linux/Bifferboard

An updated version with i2c could also go onto skydrive (free)

A
"download/burn/configure-the-network-address"
would be so much simpler than having to remember how to hunt the
sources on Google, compile, etc etc!

[oPless]

Sorry to come to this so late, I've been burgled twice in the past
three months, so my enthusiasm for computers has been dampened a
little. I have now a nano-itx linux box which can be hidden rather
than a laptop which keeps getting stolen!

Anyhow I digress...

If you want to use debian, there's an easy way of getting it all
sorted.

It's called "debootstrap"

Here are my notes that may help you /dev/sda is my usb stick


mount /dev/sda /mnt

debootstrap --arch i386 --foreign etch /mnt http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian
mount -t proc /dev/null /mnt/proc

chroot /mnt /bin/bash
debootstrap/debootstrap --second-stage http://ftp.debian.org/debian
apt-get install mc ntpdate dnsutils modutils nano ssh dropbear

Edit /etc/fstab and put the following lines into it:

proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/mmc/disc0/disc / ext2 errors=remount-ro 0 1
/swapfile none swap sw 0 0

Edit /etc/network/interfaces and configure your network parameters,
for example:

auto lo eth0
iface lo inet loopback
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Edit /etc/init.d/checkroot and locate part of the script responsible
for executing fsck. Remove the entire section, as executing fsck on
boot up will put your router into an endless loop due to the lack of
RTC. Debian will try to fix time/date 'problems' on the card with
every reboot, and with every reboot the 'problem' will obviously
remain.

Edit /etc/inittab and comment out all console lines. Put serial
console line instead:

co:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty -L 115200 tts/0 linux
If you have installed ntpdate with apt-get (recommended), then edit /
etc/default/ntpdate and set NTPDATE_USE_NTP_CONF to 'no'. This will
cause ntpdate to sync system clock at boot time using predefined set
of NTP servers.

.... broken things in lenny

1. no auto probing so not ethernet (yet)
2. no ethernet, means dchpd isn't there
3. nor dropbear, etc
4. also serial console isn't there, because the procfs is all wonky
(?) :(
5. no other bits are mounted either
6. oops


... I've since returned to a custom kernel, and using openwrt ... at
least one of these boxes is running webcam software to monitor my home
whilst away at work. :o)

[Sunspot]

To those of you running a full Linux distro - Debian etc.
Has anyone tested i2c tools - i.e. can you read and write to i2c
devices?

On Sep 20, 1:58 pm, oPless <opl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry to come to this so late, I've been burgled twice in the past
> three months, so my enthusiasm for computers has been dampened a
> little. I have now a nano-itx linux box which can be hidden rather
> than a laptop which keeps getting stolen!
>
> Anyhow I digress...
>
> If you want to use debian, there's an easy way of getting it all
> sorted.
>
> It's called "debootstrap"
>
> Here are my notes that may help you /dev/sda is my usb stick
>
> mount /dev/sda /mnt
>

> debootstrap --arch i386 --foreign etch /mnthttp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian

> mount -t proc /dev/null /mnt/proc
>
> chroot /mnt /bin/bash

> debootstrap/debootstrap --second-stagehttp://ftp.debian.org/debian

[Diarmuid]

I have a compact disk drive running voyage linux (debian based) that I
normally use with the PC Engines, Alix 3d2. As far as I know, all the
boot related info is on the compact flash. I use grub as the boot
loader. I wonder what I would need to do to get the biffer board to
boot of this (using a usb to compact flash adapter).

Cheers

Diarmuid

On Sep 20, 8:44 pm, Sunspot <fgmarsh...@sunspot.co.uk> wrote:
> To those of you running a full Linux distro -Debianetc.
> Has anyone tested i2c tools - i.e. can you read and write to i2c
> devices?
>
> On Sep 20, 1:58 pm, oPless <opl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Sorry to come to this so late, I've been burgled twice in the past
> > three months, so my enthusiasm for computers has been dampened a
> > little. I have now a nano-itx linux box which can be hidden rather
> > than a laptop which keeps getting stolen!
>
> > Anyhow I digress...
>

> > If you want to usedebian, there's an easy way of getting it all

> > sorted.
>
> > It's called "debootstrap"
>
> > Here are my notes that may help you /dev/sda is my usb stick
>
> > mount /dev/sda /mnt
>
> > debootstrap --arch i386 --foreign etch /mnthttp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian
> > mount -t proc /dev/null /mnt/proc
>
> > chroot /mnt /bin/bash
> > debootstrap/debootstrap --second-stagehttp://ftp.debian.org/debian
> > apt-get install mc ntpdate dnsutils modutils nano ssh dropbear
>
> > Edit /etc/fstab and put the following lines into it:
>
> > proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
> > /dev/mmc/disc0/disc / ext2 errors=remount-ro 0 1
> > /swapfile none swap sw 0 0
>
> > Edit /etc/network/interfaces and configure your network parameters,
> > for example:
>
> > auto lo eth0
> > iface lo inet loopback
> > allow-hotplug eth0
> > iface eth0 inet dhcp
>
> > Edit /etc/init.d/checkroot and locate part of the script responsible
> > for executing fsck. Remove the entire section, as executing fsck on
> > boot up will put your router into an endless loop due to the lack of

> > RTC.Debianwill try to fix time/date 'problems' on the card with

[bifferos]

Grub depends on BIOS services that the simple bootloader supplied with
Bifferboard does not provide. You therefore need to get the kernel
and initrd onto the Bifferboard flash to boot from this.

[Andrew Scheller]

> Grub depends on BIOS services that the simple bootloader supplied with
> Bifferboard does not provide.  You therefore need to get the kernel

I forgot to menion it at the time, but a few months ago I had a look
at grub to see what it would take to get it working on the
bifferboard.
Not being very familiar with low-level code, I obviously didn't get
very far ;) but I did come to the (most likely incorrect) conclusion
was that all that would be needed would be for the "flat binary" mode
of BiffBoot to be able to launch Stage2 of grub, and the rest should
just work?
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/Bootstrap-tricks.html#Bootstrap-tricks

However grub Stage2 is at 0x8000 which is outside the range of
addresses available from the BiffBoot config options.
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/Memory-map.html#Memory-map

Please ignore me if I'm talking out of my a*se! ;-)

Lurch

[bifferos]

Simply add another wrapper stage which copies grub to the correct
location,
and make that stage load at 0x400000. If you send me the binary I
can
do that for you. It's just a tiny bit of assembler.

On Sep 26, 4:10 pm, Andrew Scheller <ya...@loowis.durge.org> wrote:
> > Grub depends on BIOS services that the simple bootloader supplied with
> > Bifferboard does not provide.  You therefore need to get the kernel
>
> I forgot to menion it at the time, but a few months ago I had a look
> at grub to see what it would take to get it working on the
> bifferboard.
> Not being very familiar with low-level code, I obviously didn't get
> very far ;) but I did come to the (most likely incorrect) conclusion
> was that all that would be needed would be for the "flat binary" mode
> of BiffBoot to be able to launch Stage2 of grub, and the rest should

> just work?http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/Bootstrap-tricks.ht...

>
> However grub Stage2 is at 0x8000 which is outside the range of

> addresses available from the BiffBoot config options.http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/Memory-map.html#Mem...