Towards Microcore on Allwinner A10

[karlmw]

Here are some notes on how I setup wifi and ssh using PK authentication: http://mowson.org/karl/mini-x/a10Core-20120920/
The approach is crude and unlikely to be of long-term use to anybody, but it's enough to be able to access the mini-x over wifi, and that makes it a whole lot easier to play with.
I haven't setup sftp yet.
Despite the crudeness of the script (extracting all the deb packages at every boot), it takes about 22s from connecting power to being pingable over wifi.

[roberts]

Karl, Thanks for sharing. As time permits, I am making progress on the "import" program to easily access Debian Repositories directly from Tiny Core x86, and A10 devices. Then auto generate full tcz extensions with dependencies. I now have another test suite, wireless and wpa, via your blog post.

[roberts]

Another cut 20120923 now posted:
 http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/4.x/arm/armv7

This will set time via getTtime.sh when nortc is specified and net access is available.

[roberts]

Karl, Thanks for sharing. As time permits, I am making progress on the "import" program to easily access Debian Repositories directly from Tiny Core x86, and A10 devices. Then auto generate full tcz extensions with dependencies. I now have another test suite, wireless and wpa, via your blog post.

More progress to report.
I have been able to easily import wireless-tools and wpasupplicant to get wifi working with the auto generated tczs + deps.
This is all done without running any debian distro and without storing any .deb files. I have been able to import running Core x86 as well a10Core and rpiCore.  I have also be able to use the wifi.tcz to scan, select, and connect. The concept is proving to be a viable additional tool.

[suzuke]

More progress to report.
I have been able to easily import wireless-tools and wpasupplicant to get wifi working with the auto generated tczs + deps.
This is all done without running any debian distro and without storing any .deb files. I have been able to import running Core x86 as well a10Core and rpiCore.  I have also be able to use the wifi.tcz to scan, select, and connect. The concept is proving to be a viable additional tool.

Great, so I can stop converting the deb to tcz .

[roberts]

Posted an update: a10Core-20120928.img.gz
This brings the image up to 4.6.2 base and also changes provides from cgi to zsync'ed local database.

[karlmw]

Thanks to Robert's clear notes - http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,13827.90.html - I have successfully built extra modules for my mini-x, despite committing a newbie mistake on my first attempt.  I tried to build modules without building the kernel first (ie. I didn't follow the instructions), assuming that the makefile would take care of any dependencies.  I was mistaken - it appears that successful module building depends on some files which are created during the kernel build process.  Attempting to load one of my bad modules gives this error:

        modprobe: can't load module fuse (kernel/fs/fuse/fuse.ko): invalid module format

with this in dmesg:

        fuse: no symbol version for module_layout

I was using the fuse module for testing because it was one I already had a good copy of, so could confirm that the good one could be loaded OK.  Now that I have built a kernel, everything is fine - my modules work with the existing a10core kernel.

I did the build in an x86 TinyCore VM (running inside qemu on windows).  Needed to load two more tcz's which weren't mentioned in the notes (but were pretty obvious from the errors) - compiletc and ncurses-dev.  There's also a missing dependency for a "mkimage" command - this just means I didn't get the final kernel file out of it all.  That's OK for now - I didn't want my own kernel.  I imagine that grabbing mkimage from Debian would work.

Unfortunately for me, my module building has not been immediately productive - I have got my USB-serial adapter working, but it seems that the adapter doesn't work with my onewire interface anyway. 

On an unrelated note, I'm now using sftp-server from the Debian Wheezy openssh package to handle sftp with dropbear.  So, now I can ssh into the mini-x, and use sftp as well.  I was getting tired of having to shuffle a flashdrive back and forth between machines.

[poshat]

Karl, I will post my modules directory. If all you want is 8192 its in there!
Wait while I upload if.

....

Done: Look for allwinner-sunxi-v3.0.39-modules.tgz in the armv7 directory.

How correct add this modules to flash card?

Now I'm using Army only with command line, because system can't tune wifi device without modules.

[roberts]

I have posted 8192cu.tcz for wireless support typically found in Allwinner devices. Find it in the armv7 repository.

Also posted in the armv7 repo is wifi.sh. However, you will need to import wireless-tools and if needed wpa-supplicant. Both were found to be very easy imports.

Later, I will produce a README for wireless, when demands of my time lessen, or anyone else volunteers.

[roberts]

Just for kicks, I have moved my tce directory onto the internal nand drive.
I found much free spaces on nandd.

[roberts]

I have compiled, posted, and currently using rsync and dropbearmulti extensions.
Now available in the armv7 report.

[bricolodu13]

Hello,

Sorry I'm newbbie but trying to learn 

First I succeeded in making squeezelite runing on USB Card on Roman's headless Debian server.
Now, I'm trying to do the same on Tinycore.
Up to now I have Tinycore and Dropbear running, Alsa-utils, Flac, Limad, Libvorbis,  installed and most probably running.
Alsamixer shows The HDMI but not USB soundcard, Kernel must probably be moded (how to) ?
Squeezelite-armv6hf (that is running fine on Roman's Headless Debian) is not running on TinyCore, no idea why ?

Any thought ?

Best regards,
Jean

[athouston]

Hi @Roberts,

Have you seen this site..http://elinux.org/Hack_A10_devices.. it details loading linux internally rather than on the external sd card. It also seems a pretty good outline of the whole A10 boot process.

I wouldn't be surprised if you have but ... just in case.

Cheers.

[roberts]

I have seen LiveSuit. But since it is a Windows program and I do not have, nor desire Windows, I am unable to comment on its function with regard to Core.

Most of the A10 devices that I have enabled Core, have been borrowed with the promise that I would not wipe out Android. So I have not ventured there. I do know, that it is quite easy, to specify one of the larger nand partitions for use as your tce directory. Doing so, will not harm Android and provides a slightly faster sce loading.

My main A10 device, mele, supports SATA, so my sces loads from that.

[athouston]

OK, that answers my unasked SATA question. None of the sticks have SATA connections.

I have a running TCL on the MK802 and therefore I have access to the internal sd card partitions. Hence some of my questions.

If you would like a device as a development toy to get this working on a quad core stick, as per other discussions, just say the word and I will get one to you. Once you have a TCL on the the external sd card I thought it would be simple to copy the internal card out to a file and therefore not care about the Android. I have the livesuite program so that would not matter anyway.