efika mx smarttop

Install Arch Linux ARM on other devices.

Re: efika mx smarttop

Postby CPUnltd » Fri Sep 23, 2011 2:55 pm

ok, cool...
If "custom" was mass produced, it would just be a "product line..."

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Re: efika mx smarttop

Postby Barthalion » Thu Nov 17, 2011 3:09 pm

I see that topic is dead; is ArchARM running on Efika without major problems?
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Re: efika mx smarttop

Postby kmihelich » Thu Nov 17, 2011 4:42 pm

It runs fine, provided you have a good kernel for it. I have a kernel package in the repo, linux-imx5, that I'm still waiting to hear if it works for this system and others based on the same chip. There aren't many with the devices so it's slow going testing what we do for it.
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Re: efika mx smarttop

Postby CPUnltd » Thu Nov 17, 2011 5:30 pm

I've been heavily focused on getting my open-source business off the ground (which should be done in the next week) so I haven't made time to test... but trust that I intend to within the next week... 2 at the most!
If "custom" was mass produced, it would just be a "product line..."

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Re: efika mx smarttop

Postby Barthalion » Thu Nov 17, 2011 6:02 pm

I will test it on this weekend. I hope I will not encounter many problems with X.org.
(I have to buy new glasses, I didn't spot smarttop in topic, I'm using smartbook of course.)
Last edited by Barthalion on Thu Nov 17, 2011 7:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: efika mx smarttop

Postby CPUnltd » Thu Nov 17, 2011 6:05 pm

it's true that many are not out on the market... yet...
If "custom" was mass produced, it would just be a "product line..."

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Re: efika mx smarttop

Postby vbmithr » Fri Dec 16, 2011 10:30 am

I managed to install archlinux ARM on my Efika MX. Most of the smartbook is working, except for

- Changing screen brightness (not figured out how to do it yet)
- Video acceleration: Doesn’t work well, but it’s not worse than in the official Efika Ubuntu image, so…

The relevant tutorials are:
http://dev.gentoo.org/~steev/efika/arm/install.xml
http://wiki.debian.org/EfikaMX#DefaultU-BootEnvironment

I just post here some remarks about the gentoo tutorial that would have saved me some time, in order:

* filesystems: I used ext2, ext4 for respectively the boot and the root partition.

* extract gentoo stage3…: you have to extract the content of the latest archlinux arm omap rootfs instead (obviously)

* You can forget about /etc/inittab and /etc/securetty: If you don’t, just remember that /dev/tty1 is the screen, the debug console is correctly indicated in the tuto.

* you need the mkimage program, you can obtain it by pacman -S uboot-mkimage (or something like that, pacman -Ss uboot if is not correct)

* The last kernel git for efika is now on github (see efika dev blog). I suggest you to clone it from another machine and put in on a harddrive that you will connect to the smartbook with usb. It’s faster.

* Do a pacman -S base-devel, to have the necessary tools to compile the kernel.

* After make mx51_efikamx_defconfig, do a make menuconfig and add support for ext2,ext3 and ext4 in the uImage (i.e. NOT module). We’re not using any initramdisk here.

* Then compile the kernel: make uImage modules modules_install.

* Install other packages, like netcfg (for the wifi), whatever package you might want. Then reboot, let the SD card in the efika MX, and it should work.
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Re: efika mx smarttop

Postby CPUnltd » Fri Dec 16, 2011 5:25 pm

NICE!!! will try this out as soon as I get a chance...
If "custom" was mass produced, it would just be a "product line..."

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Re: efika mx smarttop

Postby vbmithr » Sat Dec 17, 2011 11:47 am

I’ve discussed quite a lot with some Genesi developers. Here is some things I’ve learnt:

* Basically, iMX515 is supported by linux mainline, except for mtl017 (lcd controller on the smartbook) and siihdmi (hdmi controller in the efikamx smarttop). For now, smartbook users can’t use their screen with the last kernels… for smasttop users their hdmi controler. Apart from that, it would work. They are working on including those missing bits on the mainline kernel branch, to "get that fixed once for all".

* This doesn’t include 3d driver and video acceleration. For that, basically, it’s closed source, they are not (Genesi) allowed to distribute the source, though they have it and thus can package it. Basically, they support Ubuntu and debian (unofficially for debian), so this is working of those distros, with a specific kernel 2.6.31.14.27-efikamx that can be found on github.

* Consequences of that: the xf86-video-imx package is useless on arch, since it’s tied to a proprietary lib (libkgsl) that arch have not (and cannot have, unless genesi would support archlinux which they probably won’t do). It works quite OK with fbdev though, 2d perf is totally acceptable for normal use.

* The linux-imx kernel in arch is then probably working (possibly with the issues explained above, the screen and the hdmi controller). I plan to test that to be sure about it.

To have the 3d working and possibly a bit of video acceleration on arch, the only way is to use the -efikamx kernel, and install all their .debs on archlinux somehow…
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Re: efika mx smarttop

Postby vbmithr » Sat Dec 17, 2011 12:06 pm

And no, the linux-imx5 kernel is not working on Efika MX smartbook (Probably because of the LCD-panel).
Would be worth trying on the smartTOP.
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