Cubieboard Install

[beerstein]

hi peter pudney:
thanx for your help. I do not get any messages when I try to boot from sd in cubietruck. Screen stays dark. No LED blinking.
Here is what I did:
1. cleaned as recommended in "Bottable SD card" description from linux-sunsi.org
2. formatted 2GB sd card FAT16
3. copied (sunxi-spl.bin and u-boot.bin) files from  cubietruck_hwpack using dd to formatted FAT partiion. This destroys the FAT 16 partition and places the code in front of sector 2048.
4. Now I followed the instructions "Single Partition" from the card description mentioned above (experimental)
5. here I needed the --force option to create a partition. $ cat <<EOT | sfdisk --in-order -uS /dev/sdc did not work. I needed $ cat <<EOT | sfdisk --force -uS /dev/sdc to get that partition.
6. Then the description recommends to format ext4 - should I use FAt 16 here? I can see from your last post that you have FAT?
7. then I created a /boot partition and copied uImage and script.bin from CT hw_pack into that /boot folder.
8. then copied uCore, uEnv.txt and boot.scr from A10  Tyne Core website also into /boot
9. result: no boot

May be the A10 stuff from TinyCore works with A10 on CB2 but not on CT?

There is also an additional u-boot.img in that cubietruck hw pack. I have no idea for what is this for?
 

[Peter Pudney]

The boot messages are not on the HDMI screen, they are from the Cubie serial port. You need to connect a TTL-serial to USB cable to the Cubie board and monitor it with a terminal program. The instructions are here: http://linux-sunxi.org/Cubieboard/TTL

When you initially partition your card, you have to place the partition and file system after sector 2048, so it does not get overwritten by the dd commands. I used FAT because it was easy. I also tried ext2, but ext2 is not supported natively on Mac OS X and the ext2 file system I created did not work on the Cubie.

What do you get if you examine your SD card with fdisk, before and after copying sunxi-spl.bin and u-boot.bin?

I did not create a separate boot partition, and I did not place uCore, uEnv.txt and boot.scr in a /boot folder.

[beerstein]

I got it. It was a bit tricky but it works with CB2 now. Since I had trouble to get it running on my CT I made an sd card for the CB2. It boots nicely on my CB2. But - now what?
the dCore has busybox installed and the the dhcp client is running and connected to the net. The same sd card works in CT also, but no dhcp running. For hat I need to do a ct card.

Here are some questions where I would like to get help from our community.
1. How to find extensions for that dCore version? Where are they? And how can I install those extensions?
2. I assume that dCore means debian or? So can we use applications from the Allwinner A20 repos of debian?

I discovered that this dCore version works only on HDMI. Even a HDMI - VGA converter cable did not work OK.
I have a HDMI DVI converter cable and will try that out too.

So before we get an X system there will be some work to do. I will try to produce a CT sd card asap.

[beerstein]

I managed to get A10Core running on my Cubieboard3 = cubietruck.
It boots within a few seconds into command line. There is no eth0 network card recognized. I have no idea how to install a network interface card.
May be somebody can help me here.
 

[beerstein]

Hi Peter Pudney: Please take not of my new post on Allwinner A20.
Have you been able to get x running?

[Peter Pudney]

I have not yet had a chance to try installing X. I see from your notes that I need to change my FAT partition to an ext2 partition so that permissions work properly.

I will follow your progress on the Allwinner A20 thread, and let you know if I make any progress.