ebox 2300sx is ready

[raffy]

getty was discussed in reference to Puppy's autologin:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=21338
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=20691

[tempestuous]

I am only worrying about the huge list of modules because others may use this.

I commend your intention to contribute for the use of others ... but I warn you, the history of this forum has shown that you may expect criticism as much as thanks.
And the list of additional third-party modules is significant. These are the ones I can think of:
WIFI
acx100 (Texas Instruments)
adm8211 (ADMtek)
ipw3945 (Intel)
linux-wlan-ng (Intersil Prism2/2.5/3)
MADWiFi (Atheros)
rt2400 (Ralink)
rt2500
rt2570
rt61
rt73
rtl8180 (Realtek)
rtl8185
rtl8187
ndiswrapper

WINMODEMS
LTmodem
SLmodem
ESS2898
Intel536
Intel537

And if the audio chip in your device is the same as in the eBox-2300 (SiS 7019) then you will need this patched driver source code -
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 4814#84814

[photonn]

.
More good progress to report today. With the fine help around here I have my hands around the unleashed process. I have made two different versions of puppy with my changes. They boot fine on my development machine.

However, on the ebox 2300sx they cause a kernel crash. The call trace implies that acpi has something to do with it. Looking at the kernel config supplied by the manufacturer, they had no acpi support in the kernel. The starting point for my compilation was the 2.14 config file, which has acpi enabled.

So, I'm off to start over again ..... anyone know if I'll kill anything in puppy if acpi is disabled?
.

[raffy]

You can put a boot parameter about acpi in syslinux.cfg. Perhaps "acpi=off" should be the setting.

Using a live CD, you get the opportunity to supply boot parameters at boot time, but for USB or IDEflash booting, you use syslinux.cfg.

[photonn]

Yeah, I tried that ... acpi=off had no effect.

I am currently compiling a kernel with no power management features at all. This is the way the manufacturer suggests with their kernel config (http://www.dmp.com.tw/tech/Vortex86SX/config-2.6.18-DMP)

There are many things to try. I just hope that I don't get into a situation where puppy requires something that this processor cannot live with.

[photonn]

More progress ... in kernel config, turning off all acpi, apm and saying no to pnp bios gives me a kernel that boots on the 2300sx!

Now I have a puppy problem. The boot hangs at with this on the screen.

Code: Select all

Now executing 'init' script in initial-ramdisk...
(Note: initial-ramdisk is retained an in /initrd after bootup)
Loading kernel modules  ...                                          done
Looking for Puppy in                                                 done
Looking for pup_save.2fs in hda1...                                  done

ERROR, cannot find Puppy on 'idecd' boot media
PUPMODE=1  PDEV1=
Exited to initial-ramdisk (/dev/ram0) commandline...
(the Linux-guru can now debug, 'e3' editor is available)

/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
#

At this point, the usb keyboard is unresponsive. Also, the boot media is in a usb cd drive, as this box is too small to have a built in drive.

I think the key to this problem is that PDEV1 is empty.... investigating ... expert puppy knowledge appreciated

Oh, an interesting coincidence.... usb-storage.ko is the *only* kernel module in the initrd-tree/lib/ directory that is not compressed. I found the original that way, so I did not change mine. I wonder if the script that loads kernel modules only loads .gz files ..... That could be it ...

[raffy]

While the more recent Puppy has tried to handle USB-CD and USB-HD, the changes you made could have altered some settings. BTW, am not exactly sure what Puppy version you're using now.

Before you do recompiling, one solution you can try is to install Puppy to USB, or better still, to the CF (as "CF in USB adaptor, later move CF to IDE"). You can do it with a standard (downloaded) live CD, then replace any/all these files if changed: (1) vmlinuz, (2) initrd.gz, and (3) pup_xxx.sfs (and even zdrv_xxx.sfs if that was changed, too).

If you boot it with the CF, then at least the boot should find Puppy in hda1. Or even if you use USB for booting, you can have the Puppy files ready in CF (hda1).

Addition: About the kernel modules, you can view loaded modules in a running Puppy at /initrd/lib, so you can make your own observations.

[photonn]

.
Well, thanks, that worked!

I have Xvesa up and running and surfing the net (slowly) using an encrypted wireless usb connection on the ebox 2300sx!

I am using this modified version of 2.14 ... Xorg not working yet... still have some tweaking to do.

I have to be at work in 5 hours and I am beat. I'll try to share something this weekend ... unless Xorg really starts owning me.
.

So why doesn't 2.14 like to boot off of a usb cd? .... sleep now ... debug later.
.

[raffy]

Congratulations!

USB CD booting may have been absent yet from 2.14, and pakt may have some suggestions about this.

[wdlDonnie]

First, a quick introduction. I'm Donnie. I do pre-sales support at WDL Systems, although I try to help out with some post-sales technical support before sending folks to the manufacturer for help. I wanted to get that out of the way since I don't think I've actually posted here before.

Secondly, I think USB CDROM on 2.14 requires the following at the boot prompt:

PMEDIA=usbstorage

Also, there may be more posters looking for an eBox-2300SX compatible Puppy in the near future. We just received the End of Life notification for the original eBox-2300, and the beefier eBox-4300 is not yet available.

Finally, I was about to PM this to photonn, but I might as well post it here: I'm afraid I can't offer much help in terms of development help. It's mostly beyond my skill set and much of my time is occupied by my regular duties, but I'd be glad to check with our web people to find out if we can host images of this project if it continues to gain momentum. I can also do a little testing now and then. PM me if I can be of help, otherwise I'll continue to lurk. Cheers!

[raffy]

Thanks Donnie, but I guess it will have to be

Code: Select all

PMEDIA=usbcd
or
PMEDIA=usbhd

I recall (perhaps incorrectly) that enabling these USB devices came much later than 2.14, but there's no harm in trying.

[photonn]

We just received the End of Life notification for the original eBox-2300, and the beefier eBox-4300 is not yet available.

Really? Can you share any specs on the 4300 at this time? I'm getting addicted to the silence. Also, I am impressed with the build quality of the 2300sx. I would definitely buy again, especially with a little upgrade in power. I am also considering a 4800 series box. (Not that it matters, but I bought the 2300sx from you guys.)

I'm afraid I can't offer much help in terms of development help. It's mostly beyond my skill set

Don't let that stop you. I am as un-qualified as they come.

Seriously, thanks for writing ... It was just the motivation I needed to get back to work on this.

The only real heavy lifting left to do is to get xorg working .... after that, it is just optimization. I could cut out lots of stuff that is not needed because the hardware is defined. I might do this in stages.... release a working one and then a smaller one. Not sure, didn't really think this out yet.

[tedson]

This is what is coming down the line...

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9828354233.html

Same form factor, 500mhz via based, up to 1gb of ram, 4.5watts. That will be a nice machine if the price is right. WDL should sell that one.

This little box should also be out soon...

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS6395777363.html

I have a robot running the motherboard from that machine right now and it totally rocks.

I'm not sure if WDL will carry that one. I hope so. I have bought from WDL a couple times now and they have good prices, fast service and reasonable shipping. I used to buy the 2300s from Nortec but the shipping was insane (like $45 shipping for a $85 computer.)

Anyway, if someone gets an iso that will work for these 2300sx boxes I would love it. I'm using a puppy based 2300 for a files server right now but the USB 1.1 is killing me. Puppy + samba + a 2300sx should run pretty well.

[wdlDonnie]

Raffy: thanks for clearing that up. I use an older Puppy cd pretty regularly with a USB CD-ROM drive... I was thinking it was version 2.14, but it might be 2.16.

Photonn: thanks for the encouragement. If time allows, maybe I can roll up my sleeves with you. On a personal level, I'd like to set up one of these machines at home running Puppy and perhaps some at my daughter's school. Maybe in a solar powered satellite internet cafe attached to a dive shop in a land where beer is cheaper than water.... a guy can dream, can't he?

Tedson: The PicoITX is a very cool product. We do distribute VIA products, but we aren't working with STTech right now.

Regarding the 4300: I'm pretty sure that it will only ship in a 512MB DDR2 configuration. 1GB is unlikely due to the limited amount of surface area on the PCB. We'll find out by the time they start shipping in Q1 2008. Also, the total power consumption will be in line with the 2300 and 2300SX-- 15W max.

One last note; a 2.5" HDD will work with the 4300-H model, same as the 2300SX-H model. These models don't have MiniPCI or the two serial ports, though.

[photonn]

Just a quick update on the weekend activites.

I ran into another problem with xorg that added some time to this effort. Since I have xorg running on this machine in Debian, I thought this would be the easy part. Well, the xorg in Debian is 7.1 and the xorg in puppy 2.14 is 7.0. I got bit by one of the bugs in 7.0 that was corrected in 7.1 (https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6377).

I applied the patch for the above problem and got xorg to work on the 2300sx! I still have a few little problems ... the xorg log file is being written to the wrong place ... the xorg.conf file is not generated correctly by the wizard ... lots of little stuff...

Short story is this .... I am close.

[photonn]

In my testing, PMEDIA=usb-storage is what I need to use to boot 2.14 from a usb cd drive.

Well, I finally got through all the major headaches and got puppy to boot on the 2300sx. Xorg and XVesa both seem to work. So, I have an iso that I am ready to share.

FTP space was kindly offered by raffy. So, I put the files up on his server.

ftp://ftp.servage.net/puppy-2.14-eboxsx-v1.iso
ftp://ftp.servage.net/puppy-2.14-eboxsx-v1.iso.md5

Remember, this box is *slow* ... when you start either X server, you are sure the box has hung ... go get something to drink and when you get back you just might see a new desktop.

This version 1 only has the modifications needed to make 2.14 run. More optimization is certainly possible. We could remove lots of drivers and modules that are unnecessary (e.g. why carry around video drivers for cards that cannot even be used with this hardware?)

I plan to upload an unleashed-core for this as well, to make further modification easier.

Thanks to all of you for your help in sorting all this out. Thanks to the guys on the irc channel for putting up with my stupid questions. And, thanks raffy for the ftp space.

Feel free to post problems you run into in this thread. I may not be able to help, however, if it involves hardware I don't have(e.g. problems with wireless network using a usb nic I don't own) .

[photonn]

This was painful enough that I decided to try to document the process a little in case
that anyone ever wanted to do this again. After all of this, I wonder if learning T2
would have been easier.

Here are the steps I took to get from puppy-2.14 to puppy-2.14-eboxsx

- Downloaded and booted (from CD) puppy 2.14 on a reasonably powerful computer.
(ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributio ... rivers.iso)

- Used GParted to make two ext2 partitions on the internal hard drive.
(/dev/hda1 and /dev/hda2 in my case)

- Installed puppy onto the first partition /dev/hda1 (normal install, not coexist).

- Mounted the second partition as /mnt/hda2.
>> mkdir /mnt/hda2
>> mount -t ext2 /dev/hda2 /mnt/hda2

- Downloaded the development environment and stored it on the second partition.
(ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributio ... vx_214.sfs)

- Mounted the devx and installed and rebooted.
>> mkdir /mnt/devx
>> mount -o loop -t squashfs /mnt/hda2/devx_214.sfs /mnt/devx
>> cd /
>> cp -a /mnt/devx/* ./
>> powerdown

- Fixed a broken link in the devx.
>> rm /usr/X11R7/lib/libXaw7.so
>> ln -s /usr/X11R7/lib/libXaw8.so.0.0 /usr/X11R7/lib/libXaw7.so

- Downloaded the kernel sources and unpacked them in /usr/src
(http://puptrix.org/sources/kernel-2.6.1 ... 14.tar.bz2)
>> cp linux-2.6.18.1-source-patched_sfs_log_via_dpath-pup214.tar.bz2 /usr/src
>> cd /usr/src
>> tar jxf linux-2.6.18.1-source-patched_sfs_log_via_dpath-pup214.tar.bz2

- Downloaded all the kernel modules and unpacked them to /usr/src/modules.
(http://puptrix.org/sources/kernel-2.6.18.1/filesystem/*)
(http://puptrix.org/sources/kernel-2.6.18.1/modem/*)
(http://puptrix.org/sources/kernel-2.6.18.1/sound/*)
(http://puptrix.org/sources/kernel-2.6.18.1/wireless/*)

- Patched the kernel with the file supplied by the manufacurer
(http://www.dmp.com.tw/tech/Vortex86SX/p ... .18-DMP.gz)
>> cp patch-2.6.18-DMP.gz /usr/src/linux-2.5.18-1
>> cd /usr/src/linux-2.5.18-1
>> gunzip patch-2.6.18-DMP.gz
>> patch -p1 < patch-2.6.18-DMP.gz

- Configured the kernel according to the manufacturers suggestions.
(ftp://download@ftp.dmp.com.tw/vortex86s ... _HowTo.pdf)
>> cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.18.1
>> make menuconfig
(follow directions in pdf, disable apm, acpi, cpu frequency scaling, and pnp bios)
(see included config file /lib/modules/DOTconfig-K2.6.18.1-dmp for details)

- Built the kernel.
>> cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.18.1
>> make dep clean bzImage

- Moved the old kernel modules and built the new ones.
>> cd /lib/modules
>> mv 2.6.18.1 2.6.18.1.old
>> cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.18.1
>> make modules modules_install

- Installed the new kernel and rebooted.
>> cp /usr/src/linux-2.6.18.1/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz
>> powerdown

- Built all the extra modules downloaded from puptrix site (in /usr/src/modules) one
at a time. Each has a README or INSTALL file that describes what to do to build it.
It is usually some sequence like ./configure; make; make install ... or just make; make install.

- Downloaded the sources for xorg 7.0 and unpacked them to /usr/src.
(http://gsmp.tfh-berlin.de/mirror/t2-sou ... .2.tar.bz2)
>> cp xorg-server-1.0.2.tar.bz2 /usr/src
>> tar jxf xorg-server-1.0.2.tar.bz2

- Patched the xorg tree for freedesktop.org's bug 6377.
(https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=637)

- Edited /usr/src/xorg-server-1.0.2/fb/fbpict.c to disable the function detectCPUfeatures.
(Replaced all the assembly languaage with "return 0" )
The vortex86sx processor does not support cpuid extensions. This function uses them and
if allowed to run, will crash the x server.

- Compiled the xorg package.
>> cd /usr/src/xorg-server-1.0.2
>> ./configure --prefix=/usr/X11R7 --exec-prefix=/usr/X11R7 --with-log-dir=/var/log
>> make
>> new2dir make install

- Downloaded the puppy-unleashed package for 2.14 and unpacked in /usr/src
(http://mymirrors.homelinux.org/puppy/pu ... .14.tar.gz)
>> cp puppy/puppy-unleashed-core-2.14.tar.gz /usr/src
>> cd /usr/src
>> tar zxvf puppy/puppy-unleashed-core-2.14.tar.gz

- Downloaded all the pet packages and put them in /usr/src/puppy-unleashed/packages
(ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributio ... ackages-2/*)

- Expand all the tarballs in the packages directory.
>> cd /usr/src/puppy-unleashed
>> ./expandtarballs.sh

- Navigated to the puppy-unleashed/boot/ directory. Deleted the initrd.gz there.
Replaced all the kernel modules in puppy-unleashed/boot/initrd-tree/ with new versions
from /lib/modules/2.6.18.1/. If the modules in the initrd-tree were gzipped (*.ko.gz)
they were replaced with gzipped copies.

- Created a new initrd.gz.
>> cd /usr/src/puppy-unleashed/boot
>> ./makeinitrdgz.sh

- Navigated to the puppy-unleashed/kernels directory and replaced the kernel image
(/puppy-unleashed/kernels/2.6.18.1/vmlinuz) with the new kernel
(/usr/src/linux-2.6.18.1/arch/i386/boot/bzImage)

- Replaced the System.map (/puppy-unleashed/kernels/2.6.18.1/System.map) with the new one
(/usr/src/linux-2.6.18.1/System.map)

- Replaced all the modules under /puppy-unleashed/kernels/2.6.18.1 with new versions
from /lib/modules/2.6.18.1

- Replaced the modules.dep, modules.isapnpmap and modules.pcimap files under /puppy-unleashed/kernels/2.6.18.1
with new versions from /lib/modules/2.6.18.1

- Replaced binaries in puppy-unleashed/packages/xorg_BASIC-7.0/usr/X11R7/bin/ with new versions
from /usr/src/xorg-server-1.0.2-i486/usr/X11R7/bin/

- Replaced librariesin puppy-unleashed/packages/xorg_BASIC-7.0/usr/X11R7/lib/ with new versions
from /usr/src/xorg-server-1.0.2-i486/usr/X11R7/lib/

- Edited puppy-unleashed/packages/xorg_BASIC-7.0/etc/X11/xorg.conf0 to comment out the line that
loads the glx module. This hardware does not support glx and loading the module will crash the server.

- Edited puppy-unleashed/packages/0rootfs_skeleton-2.1.4/usr/sbin/xorgwizard to automatically add
'Option "BenchmarkMemcpy" "no"' to the xorg.conf file if the detected video driver is "sis".
The memory benchmarking routine uses cpuid extensions and will crash the server if allowd to run
on the vortex86sx.

- Created the iso file.
>> cd /usr/src/puppy-unleashed
>> ./createpuppy

That is more or less how it all went.

Now, it could be made a lot better. This iso is carrying around a lot of dead weight in
kernel modules and xorg drivers for hardware this box will never have. I think the next
version should focus on reducing size by removing unneeded drivers.

[raffy]

Gee, thanks - that was fast.

That servage.net hosting is compliments of GermanPup:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=8172

I guess you'll have to use a username and password to get the files, so use this link:
ftp://puppy:puppylinux@ftp.servage.net

Re-uploaded to http://minipc.org/ebox/puppy-2.14-eboxsx-v1.iso with checksum
http://minipc.org/ebox/puppy-2.14-eboxsx-v1.iso.md5.txt

[tedson]

Out of curiosity why did you go for puppy 2.14 instead of 3.X?

As soon as I get home tonight I will give this iso a shot on my ebox and see how it goes.

[the_squire]

Many thanks for working through this!

I too will try this version (hopefully today)... I'll let you know how it goes.

Peace.