image

[zeehond]

Hi all,
Is there someone on this forum with recent experience with the Arch image as suggested at http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv5/olinuxino? It does not boot on my Maxi. I have also an old image, working fine but unable to update with Pacman. (conlicts glibc v2.16 -> v2.17) I want to make a printer/scanner server. Sane needs glibc v2.17, so I want to have a recent Arch distro.

Thanks a lot!!

Ed Faber

[Kean]

Ed,
Some more info needed:
Do you have a serial console connected, and if so what do you see when it fails to boot?
How are you copying the image to the card?
Can you stick the card in a desktop linux machine and verify the partitions?
Kean

[rwj104]

As ntpd needs glibc v2.17, I have the same problem with updating the arch linux implementation for iMX233-MAXI.  After going around in loops involving a lot of reading and trials on the arch linux forum ( https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=164312 ) i have concluded that the arch linux implementation distirbuted on SD cards with iMX233-MAXI is too out of date to make the filesystem and glibc pacakge updates work. Am I wrong? be nice if i was.  Is there an up to date distribution?

I'm about to start from scratch with  http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv5/olinuxino arch image. I hope that i will get it to boot and then update/ keep updated.

Help from experts would be most welcome,

Thank you, Warwick

[Kean]

I too had problems applying some of the updates from a few months ago, ending up with a non bootable uSD card.  This was even when I carefully followed the posted instructions on the Arch website.  That was starting with an image from September 2012.

I'd suggest starting from scratch if you can.  I didn't have a problem booting from a fresh Arch image from Aug 2013, other than the fact it is now based on a 3.x kernel, and several hardware drivers no longer work as they did in 2.6.

This update stability is one of the downsides of Arch, and noted in their documentation.  If you want a more stable environment, you could try OpenWRT - another lightweight distro - but that is just going to move your pain points to other areas.

Kean

[rwj104]

Thank you Kean.
I am going to start now from scratch with  http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv5/olinuxino arch image.

Is that the best image to start with for iMX233-Maxi?

I have considered moving away from Arch but as noted there will be pain elsewhere and now, compared with a week ago, I have experience with Arch and some understand of the rolling upgrade approach and benefits.

Warwick

[Kean]

Warwick,

Yes, the link on that page points to the latest image, which is currently
http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/armv5te/ArchLinuxARM-2013.08-olinuxino-rootfs.img.gz

I like to download from the /os/armv5te/ directory so that the downloaded file name contains the image creation date (well, year and month anyway).

I haven't actually tried booting that on one of my Maxi's, but it does boot on my own custom board.

I have had problems with that image with I2C and SPI (somewhat broken in 3.x kernels, and needed for my design), and I also don't think it includes audio support.  If you want any of those features, you'd probably need to patch and compile your own kernel.  You can still use the rootfs included in that image, and just replace the kernel with your own.

Great instructions for building your own kernel (and lots of other stuff) on Christain Jann's website at http://www.jann.cc/, as well as Fadil's website at http://g-lab.ca/

Kean

[zeehond]

Kean,
Thanks for the answere.
- No I do not have a serial link, so I do not know what is going wrong.
- The copy cmd was like:
$ dd if=Arch*.img of=/dev/sdb
- I could verify the partition nr 2, and the partitiontable as well. It looks as expected.

Comments:
During the boot the green LED is of a short time and ligths up.
If needed I will make a serial cable to debug.
Ed Faber

[Kean]

Ed,

What makes you think it isn't booting, if you don't have access to the serial console?

Based on a quick test, the green LED only comes on if it starts booting the SD card.  So that is a good sign.

A 3.3V logic level serial cable is really going to be needed for any further debugging.

Also - see the notes in the documentation about only connecting the serial cable after powering up, or you can add an in-line Schottky diode on the iMX233 receive pin.  Otherwise there is some small risk of SD card damage.

Kean

[rwj104]

Kean,
Thank you for your helpful reply which is appreciated.  I too will nee i2c and spi running in kernel 3.x.
Have you seen the Topic: i2c with kernel 3.10 ?  Does this address your question on getting these interfaces running. I wonder if it is part of the answer.

Warwick

[zeehond]

Kean,
I made the conclusion due to the fact that I do not see any network activity(dhcp) and I do not see a tux figure or the login at the video output. I will try to make a serial (readonly is enough?) cable to see the console messages.

Thanks

Ed.

[Kean]

"Readonly" console will be enough to at least see what it gets up to in the boot process.
I haven't tried the video output on a recent Arch image.
I presume you're using the Maxi Ethernet - the driver should be in the image for that.

[Kean]

Just looking at the latest documentation and schematics for the iMX233 OlinuXino, and I see that Olimex added the recommended Schottky diode on the serial port receive line to avoid the above mentioned SD card issues.

This was fixed on Rev C of the Maxi, Rev D of the Mini, and Rev C of the Micro.  If you have an older revision board, then make sure you are careful.

Kean

[zeehond]

Kean,

---
---
---
[  OK  ] Reached target Login Prompts.
[  OK  ] Found device SMSC9512/9514 Fast Ethernet Adapter.
         Starting Automatic wired network connection using netctl profiles...
[  OK  ] Started Automatic wired network connection using netctl profiles.
[  OK  ] Reached target Multi-User System.
[  OK  ] Reached target Graphical Interface.

Arch Linux 3.7.2-4-ARCH (ttyAMA0)

It boots!! , but no network out of the box. I tried bare dhcp:

[root@alarm ~]# dhcpcd
dhcpcd[1064]: version 6.0.4 starting
dhcpcd[1064]: eth0: soliciting an IPv6 router
dhcpcd[1064]: eth0: rebinding lease of 192.168.2.209
dhcpcd[1064]: eth0: NAK: from 192.168.2.254
dhcpcd[1064]: eth0: soliciting a DHCP lease
dhcpcd[1064]: eth0: offered 192.168.2.210 from 192.168.2.254
dhcpcd[1064]: eth0: leased 192.168.2.210 for 86400 seconds
dhcpcd[1064]: eth0: adding host route to 192.168.2.210 via 127.0.0.1
dhcpcd[1064]: eth0: adding route to 192.168.2.0/24
dhcpcd[1064]: eth0: adding default route via 192.168.2.254
dhcpcd[1064]: forked to background, child pid 1188


So, netctl does not do dhcp, so I configured static. My problem is solved.
Thanks for learning the serial trick.

Ed Faber

[Kean]

Great.  I practially always connect via serial console and configure my own networking, so I probably didn't notice this.  Thanks for reporting back.