Installation Notes for the ipcas LinuxBox - LB1

Instructions for meeting the basic requirements of different Linux distributions

Red Hat Fedora Core 3 and 4

Red Hat Fedora Core 3 and 4 have all the requirements in their basic installation. You just have to install the CRIS cross-compiler and pmake.

Download these files:

cris-dist-1.63-1.i386.rpm (45 MB)

pmake-1.45-16.i386.rpm (129 KB)

Debian Sarge

Download these files:

pmake_1.98-3_i386.deb (238 KB)

cris-dist_1.63-1_i386.deb (47 MB)

Linux Slackware 10.2 and 11.0

Download these files:

pmake-1.45-i386-16fib.tgz (122 KB)

cris-dist-1.63-1.i386-1fib.tgz (45 MB)

Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger - 6.06 Dapper Drake - 6.10 Edgy Eft

Install these packages:

Press Enter every time the following message appears: Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

On Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft the symbolic link /bin/sh points to /bin/dash instead of /bin/bash as in previous versions, so you might run into some errors when installing the SDK.

To avoid these, enter:

before using the SDK, and:

to go back.

Download these files:

pmake_1.98-3_i386.deb (238 KB)

cris-dist_1.63-1_i386.deb (47 MB)

Windows

There is no SDK available that will run on Windows directly. But if you install the VMWare Player, you are able to run a virtual Linux on your Windows system.

VMware web site

Ubuntu 6.10 with installed SDK (1.1 GB)

The preconfigured sudo password on this installation is ubuntu.

Download the tarballs

The tarball installation involves two tarballs (Tar-GZip archives) which the user has to extract. This method does not require an Internet connection on the computer intended for the installation, but you still need access to the tarballs.

Create a new directory folder in your home directory, i.e. LB1

Download both devboard-R2_01.tar.gz and devboard-R2_01-distfiles.tar.gz and copy them to this new folder.

devboard-R2_01.tar.gz (61 KB)

devboard-R2_01-distfiles.tar.gz (107 MB)

Unpack the devboard-R2_01.tar.gz file. Then unpack the devboard-R2_01-distfiles.tar.gz. This will create a work directory called devboard-R2_01 and a folder named distfiles-R2_01, which contain all packages required for installation. Then create a symbolic link called distfiles inside the devboard-R2_01 folder pointing to this distfiles-R2_01 directory.

Run install script

Run the Install script inside the newly created devboard-R2_01 directory. This will install tools and the source code required to configure the SDK in the next step.

At the end of the Install script you will be asked which product you want to use. This selection determines the choice of configuration files to be used.

Select product number 6 or press Enter.

Configuration (optional)

To be able to control the choice of packages to include, run any of the configuration targets (menuconfig, xconfig, config) to generate a custom configuration.

In most cases it is recommended to run these configuration targets since the default configuration only includes a subset of all available packages. Configure the SDK according to your needs or skip this step to use the default configuration. You will always be able to change the configuration later on.

Install packages

Install all packages required for your configuration. This is performed by the Configure script that also generates the top-level makefile, used in the next step. It is important to run configure after every modification of the configuration.

Create image

Now your SDK tree should be complete for your current configuration. To create the images, run make.

This will generate the firmware image called fimage.

During the make process you might be asked the following question:
Do you want to make etrax100boot setuid root now [yn]?
Simply press Enter because you can still run that tool from a terminal with root rights.

Write the "fimage" into the LinuxBox

There are three ways to write the new fimage to the device:

• Web update
• FTP update
• LAN update

Web update

The default IP address of the device is 192.168.0.90. If you are in the same sub-net (or simply want to add a second IP address to your Ethernet adapter), you can access the web page of the LinuxBox there. If you are using a proxy server, make sure this address is excluded from proxy use. On the main page there is a link where you can upload our new image file. The upload section is password protected: The default user name is root, the password is pass.

FTP update

The default IP address of the device is 192.168.0.90. If you are in the same sub-net (or simply want to add a second IP address to your Ethernet adapter), you can access the FTP server of the device there. There are two special files that enable the complete reprogramming of the flash memory.

The two files are:

• flash
  permits you to update the flash read-only partition of the file system containing the kernel image, while leaving the data (e.g. configuration files) on the flash read/write partition untouched.
• flash_all
  permits you to rewrite the complete flash memory of the device. Then all the new data transferred to the device after a previous flash_all will be lost.

It is possible to use any FTP client to connect to the LinuxBox with the following credentials: username root and password pass.

LAN update

This upload method requires the installation of the SDK. The LAN update is the only method that works even if there is no image or only a corrupt one in the LinuxBox. The tool that is used requires root rights, therefore, you should perform the update in a root terminal (e.g. through sudo -s).

To rewrite the entire flash memory, enter:

Please note that you have to insert a blank between . and init_env.
Once boot_linux has been launched, you will receive a message such as this:

At this moment you have to press and hold the Load button and press the Reset button shortly.
After about one second you can also release the Load button. If all goes well, you will observe the ongoing process of the image transfer into the flash memory of the LinuxBox with messages such as these:

To access the Reset and Load buttons, you have to remove the lid on the right side of the device.

Changing kernel options

To change, add, or remove options from the Linux Kernel, run:

Subsequently, it is necessary to set the kernel configuration file in the device configuration. For this just run:

Select the menu General Configuration -> Kernel configuration file and type os/linux/.config. You need to do this only once.