BeagleBoardDebian

This page is about running a (ARM EABI) Debian distribution at BeagleBoard. BeagleBoard will boot the (ARM EABI) Debian distribution from SD card. To prepare the SD card and install (ARM EABI) Debian on it, QEMU on host PC will be used, following Aurélien Jarno's excellent Debian on an emulated ARM machine howto.

Note: Debian armel deb's are compiled for armv4t, this allows debian to support a larger number of arm devices with a single port, at only the sacrifice of speed. For a more optimized and faster system checkout: Mojo Project (armv5el & armv6el-vfp editions). The OMAP3530 on the Beagle Board is armv7-a. See Handhelds Mojo (ARM) at BeagleBoard (formerly known as Ubuntu (ARM)) page, too.

= Recommended Kernel = So like any big document, it's hard to keep everything up to date. So if your trying Debian/Mojo for the first time, here's what i recommend, (and it's the same thing i'm running on the build beagle.)

Considered Stable: 2.6.27-oer4 : for lenny http://www.rcn-ee.com/deb/kernel/lenny/v2.6.27-2a3408b-oer4/

Uboot: 2008-rc2 or +

= Native Install via debian-installer (NON QEMU based) = Note: This install method requires an LCD+usb(keyboard,etc), and uboot 2008-rc2 (Upgrading u-boot (2.6.27's and later)) or later..

Testing First Release:

PC: Format SD Card
You will need a 1GB SD card or greater. Standard System : ~455MB + Desktop environment (GNOME) : ~2.9GB

Starting with an empty SD card and using gparted, create: 50 MiB Primary Partition, fat32 Leave remaining space for the Debian-Installer

PC: Setup SD uboot Partition
Mount your SD card fat32 partition. (/media/disk/)

cd /media/disk/ wget http://www.rcn-ee.com/deb/kernel/CC-v2.6.27-2a3408b-oer4 wget http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/main/installer-armel/current/images/versatile/netboot/initrd.gz mv CC-v2.6.27-2a3408b-oer4 uImage gzip -d initrd.gz dd if=initrd of=initrd.pad ibs=8388608 conv=sync

Does this have been test? The initrd.gz is invalid ramdisk file .... -- This should really be under discussion, please delete (question and my answer) after posting to beagleboard mailing list. What error are you getting? This was originally written and tested in mid November, files haven't changed since then. The 'initrd.gz' linked contains the debian-installer ramdisk image, however it must be modified to correctly work on the beagleboard's uboot. Hence the 'gzip -d' to uncompress it and the 'dd', to pad it to specific memory size. (uboot 2008-10-rc1 or 2008-10 editions along with the specific uboot strings listed in the next session are required to successfully use the 'debian-installer') RCN

Beagleboard
Mount SD card setenv bootcmd 'mmcinit; fatload mmc 0:1 0x80300000 uImage; fatload mmc 0:1 0x81600000 initrd.pad; bootm 0x80300000' setenv bootargs 'console=ttyS2,115200n8 console=tty0 ramdisk_size=8192 root=/dev/ram0 rw rootfstype=ext2 initrd=0x81600000,8M video=omapfb:mode:1280x720@60' saveenv boot

The debian-installer should load via the framebuffer, if the screen remains blank, try different resolutions for the bootargs:

video=omapfb:mode:1280x720@60 Modes: "640x480@60""800x600@60""1024x768@60""1280x720@60"480p60""576p50""720p50""720p60""1080p24""1080p25""1080p30",

Continue the install without loading kernel modules? :

DON'T Select "Guided - use entire disk" <- Loose the fat boot partition.

Recommended: Select Guided - Use the largest continuous free space

Example: Partition #2 of SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) as ext3 Partition #5 of SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) as swap

Continue without installing a kernel? :

Standard System

No BootLoader: 

Install complete
Reboot (aka remove power)

Uboot update bootcmd & bootargs setenv bootcmd 'mmcinit; fatload mmc 0:1 0x80300000 uImage; bootm 0x80300000' setenv bootargs 'console=ttyS2,115200n8 console=tty0 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootdelay=2 rootfstype=ext3 ro video=omapfb:mode:1280x720@60' saveenv boot

Debian will fix the ext3 partition, it'll try to reboot, after halting remove and reapply power.

Login & Install kernel-image
cd /home/ sudo apt-get install uboot-mkimage wget http://www.rcn-ee.com/deb/lenny/v2.6.27-2a3408b-oer4/linux-image-2.6.27-oer4_1.0lenny_armel.deb sudo dpkg -i linux-image*

Extract linux-image's vmlinuz-* dpkg -x linux-image* ./temp

Mount fat32 partition sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt

Build uboot compatible image and copy to fat32 boot partition sudo mkimage -A arm -O linux -T kernel -C none -a 0x80008000 -e 0x80008000 -n "Linux" -d ./temp/boot/vmlinuz-* /mnt/uImage

Clean up rm -rfd temp

Sync, umount Partitions and Reboot

= QEMU install method via debian-installer (emulated arm core via Desktop PC)=

Install QEMU on your host PC. This assumes that your host PC is running Debian as well. If not, install QEMU the way your host PC distribution uses. apt-get install qemu Note: If your debian armel image crashes while fscking the partition, rebuild qemu from trunk.

PC: Format SD Card
You will need a 1GB SD card or greater. Standard System : ~455MB + Desktop environment (GNOME) : ~2.9GB

Starting with an empty SD card and using gparted, create: 50 MiB Primary Partition, fat32 Leave remaining space for the Debian-Installer

PC: Preparation
Create a working directory to keep your files organized.

mkdir debian-armel cd debian-armel/ wget ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/lenny/main/installer-armel/current/images/versatile/netboot/initrd.gz wget ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/lenny/main/installer-armel/current/images/versatile/netboot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-versatile

PC: Install Debian
Quick Note: Debian Lenny is undergoing Beta/RC testing so these debian installers are currently way out of date, so it will tell you their are unavailable kernel modules, just ignore the question and continue. These modules will be provided later, with the provided linux-image deb.

To install (ARM EABI) Debian inside QEMU:

sudo qemu-system-arm -M versatilepb -kernel vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-versatile -initrd initrd.gz -m 256 -hda /dev/sdX -append "root=/dev/ram mem=256M" Note: root/sudo access is required to access /dev/sde directly & verify /dev/sdX with fdisk -l

Partition disks, default settings should work for most: Guided - use the largest continuous free space



Running Debian
sudo qemu-system-arm -M versatilepb -kernel vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-versatile -m 256 -hda /dev/sdX -append "root=/dev/sda2 mem=256M"

Note: Time will be incorrect.

sudo apt-get install ntpdate ntpdate pool.ntp.org

Install default deb packages for linux-image & linux-headers.

Stable 2.6.27 wget http://www.rcn-ee.com/deb/lenny/v2.6.27-2a3408b-oer4/linux-image-2.6.27-oer4_1.0lenny_armel.deb wget http://www.rcn-ee.com/deb/lenny/v2.6.27-2a3408b-oer4/linux-headers-2.6.27-oer4_1.0lenny_armel.deb sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Note: It's easier to download these straight to the sd card after you've mounted the SD card to copy uImage to the FAT partition.

Linux Kernel Preparation
Install uboot-mkimage utility sudo apt-get install uboot-mkimage

Remount SD card, Ubuntu remounts SD card like this: /media/disk/ /media/disk-1/

Download Kernel-Image cd /media/disk-1/home/ / wget http://www.rcn-ee.com/deb/lenny/v2.6.27-2a3408b-oer4/linux-image-2.6.27-oer4_1.0lenny_armel.deb

Extract linux-image's vmlinuz-* dpkg -x linux-image* ./temp

Build uboot compatiable image and copy to /media/disk/ mkimage -A arm -O linux -T kernel -C none -a 0x80008000 -e 0x80008000 -n "Linux" -d ./temp/boot/vmlinuz-* /media/disk/uImage

Clean up rm -rfd temp

Sync, umount Partitions and Install sd card in beagleboard

=Beagleboard First Boot, uboot, general notes=

Insert SD Card and power up Beagleboard.

Boot
Using a terminal program, stop u-boot and add these commands: setenv bootcmd 'mmcinit; fatload mmc 0:1 0x80300000 uImage; bootm 0x80300000' setenv bootargs 'console=ttyS2,115200n8 console=tty0 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootdelay=2 rootfstype=ext3 ro video=omapfb:mode:1280x720@60' saveenv boot

video=omapfb:mode:1280x720@60 Modes: "640x480@60""800x600@60""1024x768@60""1280x720@60"480p60""576p50""720p50""720p60""1080p24""1080p25""1080p30",

The Beagleboard will reboot 3-4 times while the ext3 filesystem is repaired. (may have to remove power etc)

Upgrading u-boot (2.6.27's and later)
Using gparted, create a new 50MB Primary fat32 Parition on blank SD card.

wget http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/demo/beagleboard/u-boot.bin cp u-boot.bin /media/disk

uboot mmcinit fatload mmc 0 0x80200000 u-boot.bin nand unlock nand ecc sw nand erase 80000 160000 nand write.i 0x80200000 80000 160000 reset

Debian on Beagleboard
Debian on BeagleBoard uses the following configuration:


 * Console log = Serial Terminal
 * User Console = HDMI port + usb (keyboard, mouse, etc)

If you want to log in with the serial port, you will have to add to /etc/inittab S:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 115200 ttyS2

And if you want to log in as root on the serial port, add ttyS2 to /etc/securetty.

Xorg
Modify /etc/X11/xorg.conf Section "Device" Identifier	"Configured Video Device" Option		"UseFBDev"		"true" Driver		"fbdev" EndSection



Note: 'fbdev' is normally *slow* since it completely relies on the system cpu to update the framebuffer. Once the video processing core's driver is released this will no longer be an issue.

=Current Issues=


 * 1) Swap disabled: change /dev/hda5 -> /dev/mmcblk0p5 in /etc/fstab (artifact of qemu install to /dev/hdaX)
 * 2) RTC seems to be not enabled: use ntpdate when ethernet works, or issue date MMDDHHMMYYYY

=Building a Native Debian Kernel=

Note, these are just general build hints.

Install Dependencies
apt-get install git-core kernel-package fakeroot build-essential curl libncurses-dev

u-boot
There is a debian package for this now: apt-get install uboot-mkimage

If you must build from upstream: wget -nc http://beagleboard.googlecode.com/files/u-boot_beagle_revb.tar.gz tar -xf u-boot_beagle_revb.tar.gz cd u-boot/ make CROSS_COMPILE= distclean make CROSS_COMPILE= omap3530beagle_config make CROSS_COMPILE= tools

Add /tools/ to $PATH PATH=/home/ /u-boot/tools:"${PATH}"

Linux Kernel
git clone git://git2.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tmlind/linux-omap-2.6.git cd linux-omap-2.6/ git checkout -b beagle

Patch Kernel as you see fit patch -p1 < ../patches/*.patch

Setup Kernel .config make CROSS_COMPILE= distclean make CROSS_COMPILE= omap3_beagle_defconfig

Create Debian linux-image* & linux-headers* Package make-kpkg --cross_compile - clean CONCURRENCY_LEVEL=1 fakeroot make-kpkg --cross_compile - --initrd kernel_image kernel_headers

Create U-boot uImage make CROSS_COMPILE= uImage

= Deb Builder =

Auto builds for lenny, sid, and mojo's; linux-image and linux-headers's in appropriate schroot's.

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