mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2 mkdir -p /mnt/sda2 mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/sda2
I recently got a GuruPlug. It has Debian by default, and it’s apt config is set to stable, while in fact at the moment what’s the factory default is considered as oldstable by upstream. So if you blindly do a few apt-get install foo, soon you’ll have newer userspace than kernel, and your device will no longer boot (based on true story - and yes, this is not Debian’s fault). Moreover, I was interested in how to install Frugalware on this device, so here is a quick howto.
First you need to bootstrap Frugalware from Debian. It’s a good idea to install Frugalware on a USB stick, so you can switch back to Debian in case you messed up something and start from scratch again.
Partitioning is up to you, you’re recommended to have a small FAT (type: 0x0b) partition (32MB for example) at the beginning, we’ll use that later. The second can be the rest, ext4 or so.
Format and mount it (your device name may differ!):
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2 mkdir -p /mnt/sda2 mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/sda2
Then install our pacman-g2 binary to the Debian system, so you can bootstrap:
wget http://ftp.frugalware.org/pub/frugalware/frugalware-stable/frugalware-arm/pacman-g2-3.8.3-2mores2-arm.fpm unxz pacman-g2-3.8.3-2mores2-arm.tar.xz cd / tar xf /path/to/pacman-g2-3.8.3-2mores2-arm.tar rm .CHANGELOG .FILELIST .PKGINFO
Installing the required packages is a single command, as described here:
pacman-g2.static --noconfirm -Sy core base -r /mnt/sda2/
Once the rootfs is ready, you need a new bootloader that will be able to boot our vanilla kernel.
You need a JTAG Board, so you can access the serial console. If you connect the USB cable to you PC, you can use for example
screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200
to access the device.
Given that we want to boot a vanilla kernel, we need a vanilla bootloader as well. Before you mess with the bootloader, it’s a good idea to make a backup of its config (there is a 3 second timeout during boot - if you press any key there, you get the Marvell prompt). Here is my config:
Marvell>> printenv
bootcmd=${x_bootcmd_ethernet}; ${x_bootcmd_usb}; ${x_bootcmd_kernel}; setenv bootargs ${x_bootargs} ${x_bootargs_root}; bootm 0x6400000;
bootdelay=3
baudrate=115200
x_bootcmd_ethernet=ping 192.168.2.1
x_bootcmd_usb=usb start
x_bootcmd_kernel=nand read.e 0x6400000 0x100000 0x400000
x_bootargs=console=ttyS0,115200
x_bootargs_root=ubi.mtd=2 root=ubi0:rootfs rootfstype=ubifs
ethact=egiga0
bootargs=console=ttyS0,115200 ubi.mtd=2 root=ubi0:rootfs rootfstype=ubifs
ipaddr=10.10.10.10
serverip=10.10.10.179
ethaddr=F0:AD:4E:00:CE:C3
stdin=serial
stdout=serial
stderr=serial
The only semi-unique part is the MAC address of the network interface(s).
If you want to update the bootloader, a possible way is to put the new binary to a pendrive. Given that the default bootloader does not support ext*, we need a fat filesystem. So format the first small partition we created already (the device name may be different in your case!):
mkdosfs /dev/sda1
Till Frugalware 1.6 is released, support for GuruPlug is available in Frugalware -current only, so download the binary package from there, extract the u-boot.kwb file from the guruplug directory, put it to the new partition. (A few other models are explained here).
Before you reboot, copy also /boot/uImage to the fat partition, you may have problems problems with reading the kernel from the ext4 partition with u-boot.
Once copying the kernel is done, reboot and in the u-boot shell do:
usb start fatload usb 0:1 0x0800000 u-boot.kwb nand erase 0x0 0x60000 nand write 0x0800000 0x0 0x60000 reset
You can verify the updated bootloader with the version command:
Marvell>> version U-Boot 2011.12 (Jan 03 2012 - 16:55:38) Marvell-GuruPlug gcc (Frugalware Linux) 4.6.2 GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.22
If Frugalware is mentioned, that’s a good sign. :)
Now you can boot your new rootfs:
usb start fatload usb 0:1 0x00800000 /uImage setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/sda2 rootdelay=5 bootm 0x00800000
If it booted fine, you may want to make this the default:
setenv bootargs 'console=ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/sda2 rootdelay=5' setenv bootcmd_usb 'usb start; fatload usb 0:1 0x00800000 /uImage' setenv bootcmd 'run bootcmd_usb; bootm 0x00800000' saveenv
The rest is up to you:
setting up a root password
setting up network by default using netconfig
and so on… you know this already, nothing arm-specific.
For the reference, here is the tested CPU and Frugalware version:
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo Processor : Feroceon 88FR131 rev 1 (v5l) BogoMIPS : 1191.11 Features : swp half thumb fastmult edsp CPU implementer : 0x56 CPU architecture: 5TE CPU variant : 0x2 CPU part : 0x131 CPU revision : 1 Hardware : Marvell GuruPlug Reference Board Revision : 0000 Serial : 0000000000000000 $ cat /etc/frugalware-release Frugalware 1.5 (Mores)