Marcin Juszkiewicz

I own several developer boards and used many others. During last two years more and more so called cheap developer boards arrived on market but are they good or not?

This week I am at Linaro Connect Q3.11 now and there are many boxes here with Origen boards so I looked at one of them.

Board looks quite nice — there is CPU module and carrier board. 2 SD/MMC slots, serial, jtag, usb device, usb host (just one), power, audio in/out, lcd connector, few keys and microHDMI (cable to normal HDMI provided). Guess what is missing… Yes, they forgot to put Ethernet on board. Someone may say “but there is WiFi instead” but show me wireless operating at 100Mbps in all situations… I also got information that provided HDMI cable is quite fragile and can break. Normal size video output would fit without problems…

But board design problems are not limited to Samsung one. There is this nice i.mx53 Quick Start board from Freescale. You get VGA output and several other connectors. Nice change compared to other boards is SATA connector. But this also can be a problem cause you have to provide separate power for your Serial-ATA device. HDMI output (with audio) costs extra 49 USD but as this board is really small (3x3”) there was no space for it.

Next one? ST-Ericsson Snowball - board with lot of connectors with huge amount of different signals but without USB host ports. There is one USB OTG port and one USB device. Is USB host cable provided? No, it costs 8.04EUR more. What worries me is lack of USB signals in expansion slots (at least thats how I understood documentation). CPU for mobile phones^Wdevices only?

What we left? PandaBoard from Texas Instruments. I think that this is still best cheap developer board when it comes to ARMv7 cpus. It is not perfect (slow USB, lack of SATA) but things supported by OMAP4 processor are available. Ethernet is on USB but better such then none, 4 USB ports (2 on edge, 2 on expansion) and normal HDMI connectors for video.

Note that I do not compare speed of boards or how good/bad they are supported in mainline kernel — some of those things can not be compared, other are changing daily. For now I am staying with 2 Pandaboards and will wait for other boards to get up to it with kernel support.

Last week there was Ubuntu platform sprint in Dublin, Ireland. I was there as one of invited Linaro guys (we got own room). What for we went there?

Work. Simple word but so much content in it. Sprints like this one allow to cooperate with other developers and this time I spent some time with Ubuntu ARM, Foundations and Kernel teams. But most of time I spent with Linaro guys as we had release of 11.06 to do.

My part was building cross toolchains for Ubuntu — including few already released ones. So I pushed several updates to ‘oneiric’, ‘natty’, ‘maverick’ and ‘lucid’ versions:

• binutils 2.21.52.20110606-1ubuntu1
• gcc 4.4.6-3ubuntu1
• gcc 4.5.3-1ubuntu2
• gcc 4.6.0-14ubuntu1
• eglibc 2.13-6ubuntu2
• linux 3.0-1.2

If you are running 11.10 ‘oneiric’ then all you need is just apt-get install g-arm-linux-gnueabiand will get cross compiler. For "armhf" compatible oneapt-get install g-arm-linux-gnueabihf needs to be used. For those which run older releases there is Linaro toolchain backport PPA where packages are available for “amd64” and “i386” architectures.

Other part of my work was related with Star rating system which we plan to use to show status of boards supported by Linaro. I did some tests with PandaBoard connected to two monitors at same time and reported several bugs. Situation is nice but many things still need work.

At one moment I was creating “lucid” chroot on my “oneiric” system to be able to compile toolchain. And then I got a problem which ended in bug 802985 which needs fixing in all supported releases… Also debootstrap needs to be expanded to handle multiple suites at one time — otherwise there will be no way to populate chroots with older releases on any machine running 3.x kernels.

But work is not the only thing which we spent time on. Evenings were usually in pubs or similar places.

On Monday I went to hotel bar, grabbed a beer and started discussing with some random people. At one moment (when we were talking about OpenZaurus) one of them asked who I am and then went and bought me beer — he was Zaurus user whom I helped in past ;) So never know who you can meet…

As I have few friends in Dublin area I contacted them and on Wednesday evening I went with one of them to Club Chonradh na Gaeilge Irish pub where speaking English is nearly forbidden (but we were using Polish so no problems :). There was one bard singing Irish songs. Nice place, nice event.

Thursday was team dinner — went to Rustic Stone. Nice place, awesome food:

Friday was a day when many of us started packing and some even left earlier to catch flights. As Wookey asked me week before sprint to take my N900 with me we made a deal and I got some Euros and he got phone with all accessories. So guys — now really no more Maemo support from me (not that I did anything in this area since move to Nexus S).

On Friday also other part of visit started for me — my wife Ania arrived and we went to our family to spend nice weekend in Ireland.

We drove to Howth, spent some time looking at area from highest(?) mountain:

Then beach in Portmarnock where my wife started collecting sea shells… Quickly we got lot of them but I managed to put them in luggage somehow ;)

Evening was funny as we had to meet with one of my old friends. The “problem” was that we never met in real life yet and I forgot how does he looks. When I told that to wife and rest of group they were really surprised that such thing can happen ;D But we found each other and went to the Church Bar which is made from old St. Mary’s Church of Ireland which is one of the earliest examples of a galleried church in Dublin. Built at the beginning of the 18th century and renovated in 21st century. Nice place to visit in Dublin.

On Sunday we went into Wiclow county. Upper Lake at Glendalough then Glenmacnass Waterfall and few stops during trip to watch landscapes:

Monday was different — we went to Dublin for normal sight-seeing. You know: buildings, churches, castle…

Then packed bags and went to airport. The good part of Aer Lingus is that there were no problems with checking-in two bags on my ticket (but queue to just drop bags was insanely long). 2h flight, then another 2h in a bus and we finally arrived home. This part of conferences trip I like most — arrival at destination (as in Europe trips can take even 9h for me).

Now, when Linus Torvalds released Linux 3.0-rc many people are trying to update to this version. I did it recently on one of my machines and decided to share instructions with others.

For Ubuntu ‘natty’ 11.04 users the easiest way is to use packages from ‘oneiric’ 11.10 release. There are few ways of doing that.

Grab packages way

Not best option but easy do to and does not require lot of work — just need to grab three packages:

• Linux 3.0 kernel image — select newest version and required flavour (generic/server/virtual)
• module-init-tools — version 3.13 is required to get modules working, 3.16 is now available in oneiric
• procps — to make ‘ps’ not complain due to lack of 3rd digit in kernel version

Then install resulting debs and reboot computer.

APT pinning way

This method requires editing system configuration but is nicer. You need to create file (‘30-pinning’ for example) in /etc/apt/preferences.d/ directory with this contents:

Package: *
Pin: release n=natty
Pin-Priority: 900

Package: *
Pin: release n=oneiric
Pin-Priority: 800

This will tell APT that packages from ‘natty’ 11.04 release are what we want but ‘oneiric’ 11.10 ones can also be installed.

Then next step is adding ‘oneiric’ repositories. I did it by going to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ directory and making copy of ‘natty.list’ as ‘oneiric.list’ + search/replace ‘natty’ -> ‘oneiric’. Then use your preferred package manager frontend and install packages from first method — with “apt-get” it would be:

apt-get install -t oneiric linux-image-3.0-1-generic module-init-tools
apt-get install -t oneiric procps

funny note

My machine has two 50mm fans which were very loud with 2.6.39 kernel (something ~4700rpm). Under 3.0-rc3 they are unnoticeable at 1700-2700rpm only.

Since I created my first website (in 1996) it got moved many times and have different layout/contents. First version was kind of expanded bookmarks from Lynx browser, later it got improved and finally I started experimenting with dynamic websites. During that time it was hosted at university or on servers owned by friends. Finally few years ago I moved to commercial hosting but recently decided that it is a time to take control and host it by myself.

So now it is running on my home router — I hope that it will survive any amount of readers for websites which I host here (but no DDoS please — I need bandwidth for work). Will it stay here? Time will show.

Before UDS-O I decided that it is a time to change organization of my desk. Current setup is effect of two years of using several boards/computers etc.

Today I went on desk and under it and started disconnecting all cables which are no longer in use:

• 3 null modem serial cables
• 3 USB extenders
• ATX 200W psu modded to provide 5V/12V for developer boards
• E-SATA cable used with USB/ESATA hdd enclosure which is now connected over USB to PandaBoard
• 3 Ethernet cables
• mini-USB cable used as serial console with SheevaPlug
• VGA cable which was used with second LCD — will be reconnected when there will be time for desktop

But that’s just beginning. Next days will bring disconnecting all developer boards, moving cable modem and phone base near to router, mounting two PandaBoards on piece of MDF (so they will not float), mounting some extra shelves to get rid of stuff from desk.

At the end I plan to have 2-4 LCD panels (or 2 monitors + 4-port KVM switch), two keyboards, two mouses, two laptops on one desk. Hope to finish it before end of next week.

Some time ago I updated my Efika MX Smartbook to run latest natty (which it was running since I got it) and then to newer kernel: 2.6.38 version.

Most of informations how to do it I got from guys sitting on #efika irc channel. There are 3 git repositories involved:

• imx/sdma-firmware
• imx/linux-2.6
• rtp’s patchset

Fetch/checkout all three into separate directories.

First we need sdma firmware. Do not ask me what it is — you will need it to build kernel. Cd into directory, call “make” then copy sdma-imx51-to3.bin into firmware directory of linux kernel sources.

Second step is applying patches to kernel. Cd into linux dir, checkout a10aabd5e313ec6481569be20d120191692b4ca6 revision (this is which I used) and call:

QUILT_PATCHES=../rtp-patches/ quilt push -a

This will apply all required patches. Grab my kernel configuration and store it under .config name. Feel free to make some changes into it. Then build kernel.

How to get kernel to device is left for readers — if you know how to build then you are expected to know that.

Next step (we nearly finished) is to boot kernel. So reboot machine and watch how it gets up and running. With my kernel config you will probably see nothing… Cause I moved lot of things into modules. Edit /etc/modules file and add:

• snd-soc-imx-3stack-sgtl5000 — sound driver
• efikasb_rfkill — needed for wifi to work
• mx5fb — framebuffer

Do not expect that 2d/3d stuff which works on official images (with non-free packages) will work. But if you will check modules then you can also look what is in NOR flash (but better do not play with it):

hrw@efika:~$ cat /proc/mtd dev: size erasesize name mtd0: 00040000 00001000 “u-boot” mtd1: 00010000 00001000 “config” mtd2: 00010000 00001000 “test”

Is it worth playing? Yes and no. Good is that kernel is more fresh then 2.6.31.14.20 which was installed, but also it lost some 2d/3d acceleration support. But who knows… Maybe one day :)

This week I am in Budapest, Hungary attending Ubuntu Developer Summit for 11.10 ‘oneiric’ release discussions. But this is not only Ubuntu — there is huge amount of Linaro people discussing what to do next cycle.

Sunday

Travel, travel, travel… Usual way — bus from home to Berlin airport (SXF this time) where I met with Henning ‘woglinde’ Heinold to donate my old Linksys WRT54 which I got donated few years ago to be able to use my Zauruses wireless. Router had to be in use on OpenEmbedded stand at LinuxTag, Berlin — go there and visit them at booth 7.2b 112.

Again flight was with Easyjet. It is cheap airline but with speedy boarding it is good enough to go with. Bad side is that it lands at old terminal 1 in Budapest so I had to go to hotel by my own.

Evening was Canonical only meeting where there was a presentation of some things which will go into 11.10 Ubuntu release (nearly same to next day keynote). After food, discussions and finally sleep ;D

Monday

Sessions started — I attended few:

• Ubuntu LEB documentation
• cross toolchain user stories — my own session where most of time Micheal Hope was telling us about requests which Toolchain WG got
• user stories for nano image
• DMB regular meeting — I became Ubuntu developer during it!

During evening was ‘Meet & Greet’ social event sponsored by Openstack and Freescale. Nice way to catch with people. Especially when you meet old friends which you never met in person ;D I met Marek Szyprowski which whom I was writing to Polish Amiga paper magazine named ‘eXec’ (but website with similar name does not have nothing in common now). We talked for quite long time about misc things. Also met some other folks, refreshed faces memory etc.

Tuesday

Sessions:

• cross toolchain user stories (again) — we discussed notes from previous day, decided on some details and created work items so I can start working on it
• Ubuntu LEB documentation (also again)
• Linaro Ubuntu LEB process for 11.11
• GDB as cross debugger

As you see LEB was topic of a day. And it was not everything — next day was another session.

Evening was taken by The Linaro Technical Showcase sponsored by IBM. What was there? Many interesting things:

• Arnd Bergmann was talking why class4 SD card can be much better then class10 one
• Freescale Landing Team was presenting i.mx53 Quick Start boards
• Ash Charles from Gumstix was presenting their new miniboards with DM37xx cpus and few carrier boards
• Paweł Moll from ARM was presenting Cortex A15 running from two biggest FPGA chips. It had just 11MHz clock but it was enough to show Doom game running on connected monitor.
• Oxlab guys shown their work on Android and how you can hibernate BeagleBoard
• ST-Ericsson guys presented Snowball boards — we had a talk on some hardware details
• Konstantinos Margaritis shown what kind of difference can be between armel and armhf ports on same hardware
• Angus Ainslie presented Samsung developer board and we had interesting discussion about it

I do not remember all presentations — those ones interested me most. ARM one was amazing — huge FPGAs which were able to emulate A15, A5, A9 just by booting with different MicroSD card… And it is not related only to CPU emulation cause there were two expansion slots on mainboard so FPGAs can became graphics card with Mali core flashed into. Second board was ‘simple’ A9 with Mali and some OpenGL(ES) demo was running there.

And again — new faces to join with names. Talked with Ash Charles about discussions in past when I helped Gumstix developers with OpenEmbedded, Angus Ainslie from ST-Ericsson was working for Openmoko at time when we had cooperation and so on…

Wednesday

Woke up early… What to do after 6:10? Go swimming! So I went to Royal SPA and spent some time in swimming pool and sauna so day started nicely.

Sessions:

• automated cross-buildd system/service
• Ubuntu LEB Star Rating documentation — my session again on how we want to rate level of support of member boards
• ARM Linus interface 3 — attended just to check how kernel developers are discussing how to improve arch/arm/ situation

Met Mark Brown with whom I was working in OpenEmbedded project and after lunch I went to do some sight seeing with Paweł Moll. Budapest is nice city and I have to came back here one day.

Team dinner somewhere in the city was quite good. We had a fun going back to hotel when ~half of us used phones to navigate though city ;D

Thursday

Sessions:

• arm and other archs certification program — Canonical has certification program of machines which came with Ubuntu pre-installed. I have to check at their tools.
• ALIP mini-distro and build system user/developer stories — interesting discussion
• cross-toolchains for the ARM hard-float ABI — will have to provide them for Ubuntu and other but it is doable
• next steps with multiarch in Ubuntu — where do we go and how

Evening was sight seeing with local guides. We saw parlament building, chain bridge, castle area and ended in interesting pub.

Friday

Ending day and nearly no sessions today:

• port to the ARM hard-float ABI — Ubuntu armhf someone?
• Linaro Review of LDS week
• easier access to -dbgsym packages

Some of people already packed and left, rest will go to have fun at UDS party.

Summary

It was my third UDS and I feel that it was best one. I had two blueprints to handle and both had great discussions which ended in many notes and work items. There was lot of people both from Ubuntu community and Linaro teams. I met many developers, some old friends, went to so many sessions that it took me most of time (I do not remember is list in post is complete).

It was nice to see amount of ARM netbooks at people hands — mostly Genesi Smartbooks but also several Toshiba AC100 ones. I think that it shows that times are changing and who knows… maybe at next event I will not use my ASUS UL30A laptop.

And this is another UDS with some added hardware. This time it is Pandaboard A1 which can replace my EA1 at my work for Linaro. Probably will keep both running one to another but one (EA1) with Ubuntu and second (A1) will be used for misc tests.

Now it is a time to drop laptop in hotel room and go for party!!!

When I bought Nexus S in January I was using stock Android for few weeks. But somewhere around FOSDEM I moved to nightly builds of Cyanogenmod which is alternative “distribution” of Android done in more open way.

Why moved? New features, out of box support for Polish language, no problems with getting root access for applications, big community behind project were main reasons. And more… I have now custom kernel (Netarchy 1.3.0.2), DPI changed to 210 (from original 240) with use of Font Changer and normal font replaced by Ubuntu one (also done in Font Changer).

I was updating my phone from one nightly build to another. From one RC to other and today moved to final version. Upgrading usually went fine, but each time I had to reinstall custom kernel or change back to 210 DPI but that’s how it works. I will probably check other alternative builds one day but today I am satisfied with Cyanogenmod7.

But as this is final version then maybe I will find some time and (after discussions with our Android magicians) will do build of it with Linaro cross compiler — who knows, maybe will give few more percent of speed extra?