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psachin edited this page Dec 13, 2012 · 2 revisions

Getting filesystem ready

  • Step to make file system

    As of now we have uboot and kernel ready for Aakash, the next step is to run few apps, to do so we need Linux file system. One can use any distribuition from here after. We will use ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Just for the record we have also tried Debian wheezy which also works well.

    The main war is between different desktop enviroments. With lot of testing and real world statistics we finally decided to go with LXDE. There is lot of scope for customization with LXDE and moreover its almost 50% lighter & twice as faster than any other desktop enviroment.

    1. Insert sdcard again, download the core ubuntu 12.04.1 image from this link and save it in say /tmp directory. Extract the tar file in your sdcard's ext4 partition

      cd /media/<ext4 partition of sdcard>

      Now extract core ubuntu file system

      sudo tar -xvpzhf /tmp/ubuntu-core-12.04.1-core-armhf.tar.gz

    2. Copy the static qemu binary to mount arm fs in x86 architecture without invoking actual qemu emulator

      sudo cp /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static /media/<ext4 partion of sdcard>/usr/bin/

    3. Open /media/<ext4 partition of sdcard>/etc/apt/sources.list in text editor and add universe & multiverse. A sample content is shown

      deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ precise main universe multiverse restricted
deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ precise main  universe multiverse restricted

    4. Now set up chroot environment

      sudo mount -t proc /proc /media/<ext4 partion of sdcard>/proc

sudo mount -t sysfs /sys /media/<ext4 partion of sdcard>/sys

sudo mount -o bind /dev /media/<ext4 partion of sdcard>/dev

sudo mount -o bind /dev/pts /media/<ext4 partion of sdcard>/dev/pts

    5. chroot into the file system

      sudo chroot /media/<ext4 partition of sdcard>/

    6. The above two steps can be combined together as a script say, ch-mount.sh. From here after we will call this script to mount and un-mount fs. Please read this script to get any further help

      sudo ch-mount.sh -m /media/<ext4 partition of sdcard>/

    7. Now we have a chroot environment with all proc, dev, sys, dev/pts mounted, so run update to fetch repository informations (as chroot has root prompt so no need to write sudo anymore)

      apt-get update

    8. Now install english language pack to avoid locale related errors

      apt-get install language-pack-en-base

    9. Now install minimal X environment to test our setup

      apt-get install vim.tiny sudo ssh net-tools ethtool \
wireless-tools lxde xfce4-power-manager xinit xorg \
network-manager iputils-ping python-gi-cairo onboard utouch \
rsyslog alsa-utils gnome-mplayer

    10. Few more optional packages for office suite, arduino development and pcb designing (testing purpuse)

      apt-get install libreoffice python-gnome2 python-gconf \
python-serial python-gtksourceview2 gcc-avr binutils-avr \
avr-libc avrdude python-xdg

      Download gnoduiono and install using dpkg

      dpkg -i gnoduino_0.4.0-0pmjdebruijn4~precise_all.deb

    11. Add user and set permissions

      # adduser aakash

# addgroup aakash adm

# addgroup aakash sudo

# addgroup aakash audio

    12. Open /etc/hostname file in vim.tiny editor and give a hostname, for example write aakash-arm

    13. Similarly open /etc/hosts and remove its content and add these two lines

      127.0.0.1    localhost.localdomain localhost
127.0.1.1    aakash-arm

    14. Open /etc/modules file and append these two lines

      gt818_ts
rtlwifi

    15. Add these lines in /etc/rc.local to activate swap at boot time

      # Added for Aakash, assuming the last partition will be swap in all future builds
mkswap /dev/mmcblk0p3
swapon /dev/mmcblk0p3

    16. To allow non root user to edit networking, change this file

      /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.policy

look for this section:
<action id="org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.settings.modify.sys tem">

change <allow_active> to 'yes':
<defaults>
<allow_inactive>no</allow_inactive>
<allow_active>yes</allow_active>
</defaults>
</action>

    17. Open /etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf and modify it for autologin. Change the autologin section in the top of the file to this

      ## uncomment and set autologin username to enable autologin
autologin=aakash

    18. Now open a new tab in your host Linux machine's terminal and copy /<path to linux kernel>/linux-sunxi/out/lib/modules/3.0.42+/ to your arm ubuntu setup

      sudo cp -r /<path to linux
kernel>/linux-sunxi/out/lib/modules/3.0.42+/ /media/<ext4
partition of sdcard>/lib/modules/

    19. Download rtl8192cufw.bin from this page, and create a directory as /lib/firmware/rtlwifi in ubuntu chroot, copy rtl8192cufw.bin inside rtlwifi directory

    20. By now we have basic elements set to give a trial run to our OS. Type exit in chroot environment to get back to Ubuntu x86 host prompt, now run un-mount script

      sudo ch-mount.sh -u /media/<ext4 partition of sdcard>/

      unmount both the partitions (fat32 and ext4) from your machine, confirm with mount command to check nothing from sdcard is mounted

    21. Remove the sdcard and insert it in your tablet, power on to get ubuntu 12.04 lxde desktop

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