Debian 1.6 GB Image 3.0.57+

[nvd]

Here is a Debian image (1.6 GB) for the WiFi version of the board. It should work with the other non-WiFi version as well but that has not been tested.

http://goo.gl/y2V0A

User: root
Password: root

Logging (rsyslogd) has been disabled to keep the flash wear as less as possible.
If needed, you can enable it by using "rcconf" command.

Samba server is installed. Currently, only "/home/root" is shared.
"/etc/samba/smb.conf" can be edited to add more shares.
Samba user: root
Password: root

For networking, "eth0" is configured to be available automatically after the bootup.
"eth0" is a USB to Ethernet adopter in my case.
If needed, edit "/etc/network/interfaces".

MALI and CEDAR modules are not compiled to save some RAM.
Nevertheless, VGA works fine.

"xfce4" is installed and can be started by issuing, "startx".

After bootup, the green LED will blink.
To disable the heart-beat blinking, edit "/etc/rc.local".
Heart-beat is using a GPIO library that will be shared separately.

MIMO screens' support is there as well.
MIMO touch 2 has been tested and works fine.
The configuration file for the screen is at "/etc/X11".

Finally, this image does not come with any warranty or guarantee or whatsoever.

Comments are welcome.

[jwischka]

FYI, 3.0.62 dropped in the git a few days ago.

Are Mali/Cedar not compiled at all? What's your total mem available on boot?

[nvd]

Will give 3.0.62 a try but what is new? More hardware support?
I am inclined towards stability and test coverage and this kernel has been running fine for a while.

MALI and CEDAR are not compiled at all.
The kernel reserves memory for MALI even if it is compiled as a module.

free -m:
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           467        454         13          0         67        356
-/+ buffers/cache:         30        437
Swap:          0           0          0

[    0.000000] Memory Reserved:
[    0.000000]  SYS  : 0x43000000 - 0x4300ffff  (  64 kB)
[    0.000000]  LCD  : 0x5a000000 - 0x5bffffff  (  32 MB)
[    0.000000] Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writeback
[    0.000000] BROM Ver: 1100 1100 1625
[    0.000000] chip-id: A13 (AW1625)
[    0.000000] On node 0 totalpages: 131072
[    0.000000] free_area_init_node: node 0, pgdat c075ee9c, node_mem_map c0815000
[    0.000000]   Normal zone: 1024 pages used for memmap
[    0.000000]   Normal zone: 0 pages reserved
[    0.000000]   Normal zone: 130048 pages, LIFO batch:31
[    0.000000] pcpu-alloc: s0 r0 d32768 u32768 alloc=1*32768
[    0.000000] pcpu-alloc:

• 0
  [    0.000000] Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 130048
  [    0.000000] Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootwait loglevel=8 panic=10
  [    0.000000] PID hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
  [    0.000000] Dentry cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
  [    0.000000] Inode-cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
  [    0.000000] Memory: 512MB = 512MB total
  [    0.000000] Memory: 478640k/478640k available, 45648k reserved, 0K highmem
  [    0.000000] Virtual kernel memory layout:
  [    0.000000]     vector  : 0xffff0000 - 0xffff1000   (   4 kB)
  [    0.000000]     fixmap  : 0xfff00000 - 0xfffe0000   ( 896 kB)
  [    0.000000]     DMA     : 0xffc00000 - 0xffe00000   (   2 MB)
  [    0.000000]     vmalloc : 0xe0800000 - 0xf0000000   ( 248 MB)
  [    0.000000]     lowmem  : 0xc0000000 - 0xe0000000   ( 512 MB)
  [    0.000000]     pkmap   : 0xbfe00000 - 0xc0000000   (   2 MB)
  [    0.000000]     modules : 0xbf000000 - 0xbfe00000   (  14 MB)
  [    0.000000]       .init : 0xc0008000 - 0xc0031000   ( 164 kB)
  [    0.000000]       .text : 0xc0031000 - 0xc0719000   (7072 kB)
  [    0.000000]       .data : 0xc071a000 - 0xc07640f8   ( 297 kB)
  [    0.000000]        .bss : 0xc076411c - 0xc0814808   ( 706 kB)
  
  I tried compiling without the LCD enabled and that led to no VGA output (free RAM was 499 MB).

[drspastic]

how is streaming video, and 3d performance?

will piss poor games like bzflag run smoothly or does it make you wish you held on to that zx spectrum you had in the 80's?

is freetuxtv running without frames being dropped? fullscreen?

[jwischka]

Will give 3.0.62 a try but what is new? More hardware support?
I am inclined towards stability and test coverage and this kernel has been running fine for a while.

MALI and CEDAR are not compiled at all.
The kernel reserves memory for MALI even if it is compiled as a module.

I tried compiling without the LCD enabled and that led to no VGA output (free RAM was 499 MB).

As with most kernel patches, bug fixes, etc. There won't be any major differences in features/hardware support unless you go with the 3.4 branch. It would be nice if Allwinner would drop some code for 3.7 and get us a little more up-to-date, but that's probably hoping for a bit much.

32MB for the LCD is probably a good tradeoff for most people - running full headless can get you up to the 512, but I suspect that most people would prefer the flexibility.

I was mainly re: Cedar/Mali because your original post was not terribly clear about what you'd done, and I was guessing if I couldn't figure it out by reading, someone else out there probably couldn't either.

[nvd]

how is streaming video, and 3d performance?

will piss poor games like bzflag run smoothly or does it make you wish you held on to that zx spectrum you had in the 80's?

is freetuxtv running without frames being dropped? fullscreen?

As long as I know, the GPU is not accessible for hardware (3D) acceleration.
People are working on their own to make it to work.

There is some noise about AllWinner, manufacturer of the chip, and its use of GPL code because they even kept the sunxi kernel out of people's use.

A13 is a nice chip and probably has the highest performance to price ratio.
But, there are some closed blocks that aren't hacked yet.

I tried to install "bzflag" but without success. My plan has never been to play games on it.
The CPU should be able to handle these graphics on its own but am not sure.

To get started, you need to install OpenGL libraries:
apt-get install libglew1.5-dev freeglut3-dev libglm-dev

Please update us if you go further. I will try to see how it goes on my side.

[nvd]

I went for no display at all but ended up giving up 32 MB to the LCD (frame buffer?).
It is helpful when SSH connectivity is not possible because of WiFi problems.

One another thing:
Modifying the kernel compilation setting in "make menuconfig" and changing the boot parameters to

"CONFIG_CMDLINE="mem=512M@0x40000000 console=ttyS0,115200""

does not affect the total memory available (mem=512M is ignored). It seems that u-boot (or the kernel after bootup) calculates the available RAM.

[drspastic]

http://limadriver.org/ has reports of great quake rendering. worth a look? im no gamer but they are the best way to test if hardware is working tiptop

[jwischka]

I went for no display at all but ended up giving up 32 MB to the LCD (frame buffer?).
It is helpful when SSH connectivity is not possible because of WiFi problems.

One another thing:
Modifying the kernel compilation setting in "make menuconfig" and changing the boot parameters to

"CONFIG_CMDLINE="mem=512M@0x40000000 console=ttyS0,115200""

does not affect the total memory available (mem=512M is ignored). It seems that u-boot (or the kernel after bootup) calculates the available RAM.

It depends on how u-boot is configured, and how you have the environment set up - and also whether your kernel is compiled to use the boot string from the loader (default) or ignore it and use the one in the CONFIG_CMDLINE.

[nvd]

http://limadriver.org/ has reports of great quake rendering. worth a look? im no gamer but they are the best way to test if hardware is working tiptop

To be honest, I am not interested in testing the GPU.
I wanted it to be headless. Thanks for the info though.

[nvd]

I went for no display at all but ended up giving up 32 MB to the LCD (frame buffer?).
It is helpful when SSH connectivity is not possible because of WiFi problems.

One another thing:
Modifying the kernel compilation setting in "make menuconfig" and changing the boot parameters to

"CONFIG_CMDLINE="mem=512M@0x40000000 console=ttyS0,115200""

does not affect the total memory available (mem=512M is ignored). It seems that u-boot (or the kernel after bootup) calculates the available RAM.

It depends on how u-boot is configured, and how you have the environment set up - and also whether your kernel is compiled to use the boot string from the loader (default) or ignore it and use the one in the CONFIG_CMDLINE.

Agree.

[drspastic]

by the way, this kernel has working support for the pegasus usb/eth dongle. could jwischka please include the same support in his next release? good work nvd