PengPod 1000 aka BC1077 aka N500C apparent kernel panic

[montiainen]

I've PengPod 1000 tablet, which is Allwinner A10 and is originally made by some unknown Chinese vendor and is also known by model name BC1077. Specs are pretty much identical to the posted link, except for the wireless, which is w8188eu.

I've been trying to install Arch Linux Arm on SD-card in several ways, but mostly using the installation instructions for Cubieboard, with stock Android script.bin. Attached to HDMI monitor, the U-boot for Cubieboard seems to start ok. Kernel is loaded and booted, but then it just hangs. I appended $this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'panic=10') to bootargs, and indeed the device is restarted after a while, so apparently the kernel panics. I don't get any output after booting the kernel, so I don't have any idea what's wrong.

I'm unsure where to go from here. So far I've thought about the following options:

Use serial console to see what is happening

There's no connector for UART module. I think I've found the pins, though. However, I haven't done any soldering before, and I don't feel very comfortable with that, so I'd like to keep that option as a last resort.

Use netconsole to see what is happening

Since the only integrated device is wireless, I'm not sure how far I'm getting with this approach. I also have USB ethernet dongle, but I don't know whether that would help me here either.

Use physical access to see what is happening

As I said, the U-boot outputs to HDMI ok. However, kernel does not. I've tried using some bootargs like:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'console=tty0 hdmi.audio=EDID:0 disp.screen0_output_mode=EDID:1280x720p60')

and also modifying /etc/modules-load.d/mali.conf on rootfs:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
disp
disp_ump
ump
hdmi
fbcon
')

, but I still don't see any output.

I probably will lose my soldering virginity if I won't solve this problem through some other means. I'd just like to hear if someone has some other approaches that I could try. I do have a working Android 4.0.x on NAND and also Fedora 18 on SD, so I can use those to get some information, if I need to post something here.