Bifferboard up and running. Now for the next challenge!

[lee jones]

Well, the good news is my bifferboard is all up 'n' running after earlier when I thought I had accidentally killed it!

The next challenge is going to be get some sort of ftp/http server with a blog going with slackware. However the normal apache/php/mysql/wordpress setup is going to be too much for the tiny bifferboard to run! I'm looking into (hopefully) using lighttpd, sqlite, php and chyrp which uses less memory.

The easiest way I can think of setting all of this up is to use a normal slackware (13.0) install to a USB stick and then run it on the bifferboard though I've not fully cracked that one yet (I don't have the serial cable yet). I found if I made the modifications to that slackware install using these ( http://sites.google.com/site/bifferboard/Home/desktop-linux-distributions/slackware ) instructions and then copying the bifferboards' bzimage into boot and the modules the bifferboard either wouldn't boot properly or I couldn't telnet into it (I had to clear out the whole of /etc and copy the /etc from here - http://sites.google.com/site/bifferboard/Home/desktop-linux-distributions/slackware/changelog ) instead (which worked).

I admit right now without the serial cable I'm basically "flying blind".

Do have one question though. Right now I see the bifferboard is using linux kernel 2.6.30. And before (when I thought I'd killed the bifferboard in an earlier post/thread here) I managed to get it working on wifi with a wired to wireless bridge. Only snag is it now looks like my wired to wireless bridge is dead x.x - although I have a USB based wifi device (RTL8187) which I can use. The problem though is that the bifferboard kernel has no drivers for that device and it looks like I'll need to compile up a much newer kernel to support it.

How do you do this for the bifferboard? I could get the default 2.6.30 kernel to compile but with all the kernel patches how would you go about applying those to a newer kernel?

Thanks for any help!

ljones

[nicolas le falher]

>The problem though is that the bifferboard kernel has no drivers for that device and it looks like I'll need to compile up a much newer kernel to support it.

It's not a real solution about Slackware.
But why not using Openwrt who support 2.6.38.8 and RTL8187 ?

Nicolas

[biff...@yahoo.co.uk]

On Mar 15, 12:27 am, lee jones <slothp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I admit right now without the serial cable I'm basically "flying blind".

A sorry state to be in, however, there is no longer any excuse to not
have one, since they're so cheap.

https://sites.google.com/site/bifferboard/Home/howto/using-a-console-cable-purchased-off-ebay

:-)

regards,
Biff.

[biff...@yahoo.co.uk]

On Mar 15, 12:27 am, lee jones <slothp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> How do you do this for the bifferboard? I could get the default 2.6.30
> kernel to compile but with all the kernel patches how would you go about
> applying those to a newer kernel?

You do not need any patches for the latest kernels unless you need the
functionality provided by those patches. Please read the following
page, although it is a little out of date:

https://sites.google.com/site/bifferboard/Home/s3282-kernel-issues

In your case, I'd suggest the only patch needed is the one that will
fix your clock accuracy:

https://github.com/bifferos/openwrt/blob/master/target/linux/rdc/patches-2.6.37/150-pit-tick-rate.patch

However that is so trivial you can just apply that change manually to
pretty much any kernel sources. edit linux/include/linux/timex.h and
change the text
#define PIT_TICK_RATE 1193182ul
to
#define PIT_TICK_RATE 1041816ul

For kernel 3.3rc1, you can find a config that is pretty close to what
you need for Slackware (see attachments, at the bottom):
https://sites.google.com/site/bifferboard/Home/desktop-linux-distributions/slackware/slackware-nfsroot

You should only need to add SCSI/USB drivers and that should work with
slackware.

regards,
Biff.

[lee jones]

I gave the 3.3 kernel a compile with that config, but for some reason it didn't seem to want to produce any modules! Enable loadable module support is enabled (it has a * by it) and I tried make menuconfig, make then make modules_install. Anything I need to enable esp. for the bifferboard?

ljones

[biff...@yahoo.co.uk]

You don't need any modules, you can compile everything in, but you
should wait for the console cable, so you can figure out what you're
missing from the bootlog, or rather so we can, once you post it. :).

regards,
Biff.