Ubuntu 12.04 LTS ?

[martin_05]

Has anyone done any work on installing headless software versions of Linux on ATV?

 

I am interested in the idea of doing this to host an in-house web server.  I don't need any video output as telnet/ssh access from other computers would be sufficient for administration.  I'd be very interested in installing Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS.

 

Thanks.

[Rick Hornsby]

On Jan 10, 2013, at 15:39 , martin_05 <mart...@rocketmail.com> wrote:

> Has anyone done any work on installing headless software versions of Linux on ATV?

Yeah, I've had a really hard time. To the point where I was dropping back to earlier versions of Ubuntu than current (not sure I got all the way back to the ATV doc's Ubuntu 8.05 version) to try to get it to work. It sometimes seemed like I'd get somewhere, and then not really.

As I recall, my roadblocks were mostly around issues of getting the (sorry, I've forgotten several of the terms already) secondary bootstrap to actually find and load grub properly. I tried a bunch of different disk configurations and formats. I tried to understand exactly what the scripts were doing when they were trying to locate the grub configuration and tweak them. That wasn't fun - I think I was having a hard time understanding how to get those changes to be permanent.

Ubuntu 8.x uses Grub1, but later versions (like 12) use Grub2 which takes a completely different approach to the configuration file. Out of the box, the ATV scripts can't find the configuration for Grub2 (and I'm not positive could parse it either), so the boot ends up failing.

> I am interested in the idea of doing this to host an in-house web server. I don't need any video output as telnet/ssh access from other computers would be sufficient for administration. I'd be very interested in installing Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS.

This seems completely doable. I just haven't been able to figure out how.

[martin_05]

On Thursday, January 10, 2013 4:32:53 PM UTC-8, Rick wrote:

> Yeah, I've had a really hard time. To the point where I was dropping back to earlier versions of Ubuntu than current (not sure I got all the way back to the ATV doc's Ubuntu 8.05 version) to try to get it to work. It sometimes seemed like I'd get somewhere, and then not really.

 I am now thinking that it might be far more cost-effective to just purchase one of those small fan-less micro-PC's and install 12.04 LTS conventionally.  At one point you have to value your time.

 

[Robert Baptista]

I supplied Davilla with a patch a while back for grub2 support. I
believe he released an update with it included, but I don't recall when
it was or if it was a full version change. You might have luck finding
it in the forum.

Robert

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[Knut Forkalsrud]

I'm happily running Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS, although I could swear the distribution was called "Lubuntu" when I downloaded it.

Instead of trying to make grub work I added a /boot_linux.sh with the contents below.  The only drawback is I have to change the symlink  for initrd.img whenever I get a new kernel. Instead of an absolute path I need the relative path, so 

From: initrd.img -> /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-32-generic

To: initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-32-generic

cat /boot_linux.sh

#!/bin/bash

#

echo "this is a boot_linux.sh script"

#

#

mkdir -p /tmp/rootfs

mount /dev/sda4 /tmp/rootfs

kexec -u

kexec --load /tmp/rootfs/boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-24-generic --initrd=/tmp/rootfs/boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-24-generic --command-line="root=/dev/sda4"

kexec -e

Hope this helps,

Knut Forkalsrud

PS: I also found this helpful: http://theangryangel.co.uk/blog/debian-on-the-appletv

On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 9:58 PM, Robert Baptista <rob...@rbcardiff.net> wrote:

I supplied Davilla with a patch a while back for grub2 support. I believe he released an update with it included, but I don't recall when it was or if it was a full version change. You might have luck finding it in the forum.

Robert

On 1/10/2013 5:01 PM, martin_05 wrote:

On Thursday, January 10, 2013 4:32:53 PM UTC-8, Rick wrote:

> Yeah, I've had a really hard time. To the point where I was dropping back to earlier versions of Ubuntu than current (not sure I got all the way back to the ATV doc's Ubuntu 8.05 version) to try to get it to work. It sometimes seemed like I'd get somewhere, and then not really.
 I am now thinking that it might be far more cost-effective to just purchase one of those small fan-less micro-PC's and install 12.04 LTS conventionally.  At one point you have to value your time.
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[Martin Euredjian]

> I'm happily running Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS, although I could swear the distribution was called "Lubuntu" when I downloaded it.

Well, that's certainly worth a look.  thanks.

-Martin