2:49 a.m.
Is there something non-obvious regarding your requirements (e.g. no working kernel
available supporting all of the board's features), or is this a simple matter of of
building and bundling a working kernel (rpm packaged being a requirement?) with the F20
rootfs?
Peter TB Brett <peter(a)peter-b.co.uk> wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>At my employer we're short of manpower at the moment, and one thing we need
>to do is to port Fedora to the Pandaboard A6 (and/or the Pandaboard ES B3).
>We are currently considering getting a contractor to do the work to create
>a Fedora 20 spin for us. I thought that this list seemed like the obvious
>place to ask.
>
>If you (or your company) are interested in carrying out this work, please
>get in touch at my work e-mail address: peter.brett(a)sharp.co.uk. We would
>be able to provide target hardware and (reasonable) fees, but would need
>the port to be completed by mid-April (sometime in the 14th April to 20th
>April timeframe).
>
>Regards,
>
>Peter
>
>
>--
>Dr Peter Brett
>http://peter-b.co.uk/
>_______________________________________________
>arm mailing list
>arm(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/arm
12:17 a.m.
New subject: Funding for creation of Fedora 20 Pandaboard spin
Hi Gordan,
Sorry for not replying sooner!
In the case of the Pandaboard ES B3, there is no known kernel able to boot the board.
In the case of the A6, the upstream kernel is believed to support the board with a very
recent version of uboot. However, recently one of our contractors (*not* an expert on ARM
kernel & boot issues) was unable to find any Linux distribution that could boot on
it.
Therefore, I would say that:
- In principle, all that is needed is to build a working kernel RPM, build a working boot
loader, and package them together with a F20 arm7hfp rootfs.
- In practice, the evidence suggests that there may be some non-trivial issues to
overcome.
On our Pandaboard A3s running F20, we carry one kernel patch: we patch the board file to
enable the spidev driver for the OMAP4's MCSPI1 controller.
Best wishes,
Peter
On 7 March 2014 08:49:24 GMT+00:00, Gordan Bobic <gordan(a)bobich.net> wrote:
Is there something non-obvious regarding your requirements (e.g. no
working kernel available supporting all of the board's features), or is
this a simple matter of of building and bundling a working kernel (rpm
packaged being a requirement?) with the F20 rootfs?
Peter TB Brett <peter(a)peter-b.co.uk> wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>At my employer we're short of manpower at the moment, and one thing we
need
>to do is to port Fedora to the Pandaboard A6 (and/or the Pandaboard ES
B3).
>We are currently considering getting a contractor to do the work to
create
>a Fedora 20 spin for us. I thought that this list seemed like the
obvious
>place to ask.
>
>If you (or your company) are interested in carrying out this work,
please
>get in touch at my work e-mail address: peter.brett(a)sharp.co.uk. We
would
>be able to provide target hardware and (reasonable) fees, but would
need
>the port to be completed by mid-April (sometime in the 14th April to
20th
>April timeframe).
>
>Regards,
>
>Peter
>
>
>--
>Dr Peter Brett
>http://peter-b.co.uk/
>_______________________________________________
>arm mailing list
>arm(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/arm
--
Dr Peter Brett
http://peter-b.co.uk
2:31 a.m.
New subject: Funding for creation of Fedora 20 Pandaboard spin
On 03/08/2014 06:17 AM, Peter TB Brett wrote:
In the case of the Pandaboard ES B3, there is no known kernel able
to
boot the board.
In the case of the A6, the upstream kernel is believed to support the
board with a very recent version of uboot. However, recently one of our
contractors (*not* an expert on ARM kernel & boot issues) was unable to
find any Linux distribution that could boot on it.
I think we need to make a distinction here between "kernel" and
"distribution". If you can boot a kernel, you can boot any distro's
rootfs (I'm completely ignoring installers here).
So to recap, you need a bootable solution for an A6 and/or ES B3
Pandaboard. A bit of googling finds this:
http://www.svtronics.com/support/pandaboard-es-b3-developers-guide/
which includes binaries that should get you booting with Ubuntu on an ES
B3 (it may or may not work on the A6). Have you or your engineer tried
those binaries? If this works then getting Fedora, or any other ARM
distribution's rootfs working is going to be pretty trivial.
Gordan
4:30 a.m.
New subject: Funding for creation of Fedora 20 Pandaboard spin
> In the case of the Pandaboard ES B3, there is no known kernel
able to
> boot the board.
>
> In the case of the A6, the upstream kernel is believed to support the
> board with a very recent version of uboot. However, recently one of our
> contractors (*not* an expert on ARM kernel & boot issues) was unable to
> find any Linux distribution that could boot on it.
I think we need to make a distinction here between "kernel" and
"distribution". If you can boot a kernel, you can boot any distro's rootfs
(I'm completely ignoring installers here).
That's not entirely true, Fedora for example has a hard requirement on
a number of kernel features that will cause major issues if they're
not present.
That said I honestly don't believe it should be too hard for someone
with a hard debugger and a bit of know how to work out what is wrong
with the Fedora kernel on the PandaBoard devices to allow them to be
supported again in the main distribution kernel. The main problem
we've got is people with the know how don't have the interest and visa
versa. I personally just don't have the time and gave my HW debugger
away as a result.
Peter
5:04 a.m.
New subject: Funding for creation of Fedora 20 Pandaboard spin
On 03/08/2014 10:30 AM, Peter Robinson wrote:
>> In the case of the Pandaboard ES B3, there is no known kernel
able to
>> boot the board.
>>
>> In the case of the A6, the upstream kernel is believed to support the
>> board with a very recent version of uboot. However, recently one of our
>> contractors (*not* an expert on ARM kernel & boot issues) was unable to
>> find any Linux distribution that could boot on it.
>
>
> I think we need to make a distinction here between "kernel" and
> "distribution". If you can boot a kernel, you can boot any distro's
rootfs
> (I'm completely ignoring installers here).
That's not entirely true, Fedora for example has a hard requirement on
a number of kernel features that will cause major issues if they're
not present.
I wasn't aware of that - I never ran into any problems with running any
distro with the stock kernel that comes with the device. Maybe I was
just lucky, but a more likely explanation is that the requirements are
such that practically all kernels shipping with ARM devices include them.
Can you point me at the documentation that lists those hard requirements
for kernel features are, and details on what might break if they are
missing?
Gordan
5:11 a.m.
New subject: Funding for creation of Fedora 20 Pandaboard spin
On Sat, 8 Mar 2014 10:30:38 +0000, Peter Robinson <pbrobinson(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>> In the case of the Pandaboard ES B3, there is no known kernel
able to
>> boot the board.
>>
>> In the case of the A6, the upstream kernel is believed to support the
>> board with a very recent version of uboot. However, recently one of our
>> contractors (*not* an expert on ARM kernel & boot issues) was unable to
>> find any Linux distribution that could boot on it.
>
> I think we need to make a distinction here between "kernel" and
> "distribution". If you can boot a kernel, you can boot any distro's
> rootfs
> (I'm completely ignoring installers here).
That's not entirely true, Fedora for example has a hard requirement on
a number of kernel features that will cause major issues if they're
not present.
That said I honestly don't believe it should be too hard for someone
with a hard debugger and a bit of know how to work out what is wrong
with the Fedora kernel on the PandaBoard devices to allow them to be
supported again in the main distribution kernel. The main problem
we've got is people with the know how don't have the interest and visa
versa. I personally just don't have the time and gave my HW debugger
away as a result.
The reason that we were considering providing some funding was in hope of
overcoming the lack-of-interest barrier.
Peter
--
Dr Peter Brett
http://peter-b.co.uk/
8:42 p.m.
New subject: Funding for creation of Fedora 20 Pandaboard spin
On Sat, Mar 8, 2014 at 5:11 AM, Peter TB Brett <peter(a)peter-b.co.uk> wrote:
On Sat, 8 Mar 2014 10:30:38 +0000, Peter Robinson
<pbrobinson(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>>> In the case of the Pandaboard ES B3, there is no known kernel able to
>>> boot the board.
>>>
>>> In the case of the A6, the upstream kernel is believed to support the
>>> board with a very recent version of uboot. However, recently one of our
>>> contractors (*not* an expert on ARM kernel & boot issues) was unable to
>>> find any Linux distribution that could boot on it.
>>
>> I think we need to make a distinction here between "kernel" and
>> "distribution". If you can boot a kernel, you can boot any
distro's
>> rootfs
>> (I'm completely ignoring installers here).
>
> That's not entirely true, Fedora for example has a hard requirement on
> a number of kernel features that will cause major issues if they're
> not present.
>
> That said I honestly don't believe it should be too hard for someone
> with a hard debugger and a bit of know how to work out what is wrong
> with the Fedora kernel on the PandaBoard devices to allow them to be
> supported again in the main distribution kernel. The main problem
> we've got is people with the know how don't have the interest and visa
> versa. I personally just don't have the time and gave my HW debugger
> away as a result.
>
The reason that we were considering providing some funding was in hope of
overcoming the lack-of-interest barrier.
Last I looked at it for the newer ES boards memory.
Just need to create a new dts file, limiting the emifX node to only
one cs instead of the two currently used by panda common. The memory
timing will have to also be copied from u-boot, and the emif driver
may need to be verified to only recognize one cs line.
Regards,
--
Robert Nelson
http://www.rcn-ee.com/
3694
days inactive
3696
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6 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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Gordan Bobic -
Peter Robinson -
Peter TB Brett -
Robert Nelson