Ubuntu Linux 11.04 (natty) on Vega (update 13/4)

[Guest hybr1d]

These concerns about flash storage have been knocking around for years and asofyet theoretical estimates about the life of such devices have been wildly off-mark.

That said I do agree that a dual boot solution would be better in the long run

I agree about the flash storage write limitation 'mis-understanding' :D

The limitation is in the order of hundreds of thousands of writes now-a-days

After all even your cache is sitting on flash in the vega - so is being writted/deleted/re-written many, many times already.

Dual boot would be nice - but would require a new bootloader

[Guest steviesteve]

I agree about the flash storage write limitation 'mis-understanding' :D

The limitation is in the order of hundreds of thousands of writes now-a-days

After all even your cache is sitting on flash in the vega - so is being writted/deleted/re-written many, many times already.

Dual boot would be nice - but would require a new bootloader

Given the talent demonstrated by so many on this forum, is a new bootloader plausible or should we give up hope? i do love the idea of running Ubuntu on this and have had good edperience of this with my laptop but im not that motivated to have to keep writing the boot.img to change the OS.

[Guest vgrade]

There is a version of u-boot which I am in the process of building for a dual boot MeeGo / Android solution

Stay tuned

vgrade

Given the talent demonstrated by so many on this forum, is a new bootloader plausible or should we give up hope? i do love the idea of running Ubuntu on this and have had good edperience of this with my laptop but im not that motivated to have to keep writing the boot.img to change the OS.

[Guest the_corvus]

I agree about the flash storage write limitation 'mis-understanding' :D

The limitation is in the order of hundreds of thousands of writes now-a-days

Depends of the NAND type from 10K to 100K, i dont know exactly what kind of NAND flash our vega has and admit that 10K is a big number (2 writes a day will permit you 14 years of use), but the flash write limitation is here and i can say for sure that a rom cooker flash the vega more than twice a day.

After all even your cache is sitting on flash in the vega - so is being writted/deleted/re-written many, many times already.

So like i said... 10K write cicles and cache... but the cache dont write directly to flash... it writes to filesystem (Yaffs2) that will write bunch of data from time to time...

Corvus.

[Guest djlamore]

I have been playing with this all day...

First I had to use G-Parted to format my SD Card to ext3.

Next I had to install Ubuntu 11.04 through VM ware.

Then I could use Ubuntu to extraxt the vega_root.tgz to my SD (couldn't do that with windows).

I had to redownload the tgz 3 times because I repeatedly got errors on extraction (which took 30 minutes per download).

Then I used nvflash with the linux-kern.img file.

All worked, it got no errors on flashing.

Then I inserted my SD card and booted the tablet.

I got the 2 linux penguins and the lines of code which showed the installation progress.

After 20 minutes it seems to hang on these lines:

[ . ]

[ . ]

[ . ]

[ . ]

[ . ]

[ . ]

[ . ]

[ . ]

[ . ]

[ . ]

[ . ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

[ 4. ]

That's it.

That's what I can see on my screen.

Shold something more happen, or is the installation unsuccessfull?

[Guest djlamore]

I clicked on the power button to shut it down, but then I got back to the lines of code.

It seems it is stuck in a loop.

I repeatedly get this message:

INFO: task cpufreq-dvfsd:38 blocked for more than 120 seconds

"echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message

cpufreq-dvfsd D c04a747c 0 38 2 0x00000000

Backtrace:

Function entered at [<c04a747c>] from [<c00c288c>]

Function entered at [<c00c281c>] from [<c00af3ac>]

r6:00000000 r5:00000000 r4:00000000

Any idea what is going on here?

[Guest the_corvus]

Can you upload a video of this working... i specially wanna see performance and virtual keyboard.

Thanks.

Corvus.

[Guest Hexxeh]

Tried building a boot.img using my own kernel, just getting a black screen. Can someone who's done this post steps to creating the image so I can see where I've gone wrong?

Trying to enable the following config options:

CONFIG_PARTITION_ADVANCED

CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION

So that I can boot from a GPT partitioned microSD card.

[Guest blcollier]

I think I'm going to have to have a go at getting this running some time this weekend. I did also see that someone was working on getting MeeGo working too, so I'll dig that thread out... I think MeeGo's UI on a tablet would be ideal.

Tried building a boot.img using my own kernel, just getting a black screen. Can someone who's done this post steps to creating the image so I can see where I've gone wrong?

Trying to enable the following config options:

CONFIG_PARTITION_ADVANCED

CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION

So that I can boot from a GPT partitioned microSD card.

Is there any device that you *don't* tinker with? :D

I hope you're trying to do what I think you're trying to do.... :D

[Guest tj00139]

Loving the look of this. I hope a more simple install comes soon lol

Would help but.... baby. Keep it up! :D

[Guest Hexxeh]

I think I'm going to have to have a go at getting this running some time this weekend. I did also see that someone was working on getting MeeGo working too, so I'll dig that thread out... I think MeeGo's UI on a tablet would be ideal.

Is there any device that you *don't* tinker with? :D

I hope you're trying to do what I think you're trying to do.... :D

Nope, all devices receive equal punishment from me... :(

[Guest vgrade]

Hi There,

MeeGo status report.

I've been working towards porting Meego to the Vega see the following page for details and bringup instructions.

http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/TEGRA2#Advent_Vega

I have recompiled the kernel to allow host USB access and also changed some of the kernel settings to suit the MeeGo OS.

Recent progress has been with Qt support and Handset UX and the bleeding edge MeeGo Tablet UX.

http://mge.bz/6k

vgrade

Nope, all devices receive equal punishment from me... :D

[Guest hybr1d]

Hi There,

MeeGo status report.

I've been working towards porting Meego to the Vega see the following page for details and bringup instructions.

http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/TEGRA2#Advent_Vega

I have recompiled the kernel to allow host USB access and also changed some of the kernel settings to suit the MeeGo OS.

Recent progress has been with Qt support and Handset UX and the bleeding edge MeeGo Tablet UX.

vgrade

Looking awesome :D

[Guest vgrade]

Thanks,

You got any videos up yet!

vgrade

Looking awesome :D

[Guest hybr1d]

I've just uploaded a newer root image for natty.

It fixes most of the wlan issues (but you may still need to run 'sudo restart network-manager' so that network-manager notices it)

I've also moved from 'onboard' as the virtual keyboard to 'florence' which is much nicer to use and look at :D

Also I've moved the application menus into the panel bar to free up some screen space.

[Guest tj00139]

I don't use windows much anymore so I can't really suggest any solutions to anyone wrt that.

However I can help if you guys are prepared to use linux, whether a live CD or full installation.

Step by step :

> Partition SD card to ext3 ( > 2gb)

> Create boot image specifying the ext3 partition you created

> Extract rootfs to partition

- On a linux box :

cd <location of ext3 partition>

# Change directory to partition


sudo tar -xvf <rootfs.tgz wherever it's stored>

# As superuser, extract FS to current director in verbose mode - this means that it'll tell you which files it's currently working on

[/codebox]

The extraction takes a while, took me about 30/40 mins if I remember.

Once you have that....

> Flash the boot image from step 2,

> Insert memory stick

> And boot :D

> After a bunch of text which you don't need to worry about unless it goes wrong, you should get something that prompts for a

[codebox]vegatab login :

or similar.

> As you (probably) dont have a keyboard, you won't be able to log in here. Leave it for about 2 mins and the program that loads ubuntu (plymout) will fail on a lack of keyboard assertion.

> This will log in as required.

> Congratulations B)

Feel free to PM/ask more questions ^^

Zeb

Looks easy enough but...... Don't suppose you could make a video of it? Just so we know for sure that er are doing things right.

Keep it up. ;)

[Guest quazar666]

How well does Natty handle touch? Guess that that is one of the major improvements in 11.04?

[Guest Anton2k]

Whats the flash video playback like?

[Guest kaostheory]

Has there been/will there be any movement on the bootloader for dual/triple booting of android/ubuntu/meego ?

Absolutely amazing work guys, I am making a custom case with bluetooth keyboard embedded so this will be amazing for me, being able to develop in ubuntu.

[Guest Zebrahead]

Has there been/will there be any movement on the bootloader for dual/triple booting of android/ubuntu/meego ?

Absolutely amazing work guys, I am making a custom case with bluetooth keyboard embedded so this will be amazing for me, being able to develop in ubuntu.

I'm not sure whether there's been any progress wrt the bootloader, but you can use the flash_image utility provided in the CWM sticky to flash the android and linux boot images from the other patrtition.

For example, put your linux image into the droid partition and android imagine in the linux partition (each with a copy of the flash_image binary). From there, you can just invoke

'flash_image boot <droid/linux boot img>; reboot'

And you can switch between them without the use of an external device.

Good luck,

Zeb ^^

[Guest raz0r38]

:) :) :(

Edited April 24, 2011 by raz0r38

[Guest liamb1234]

Hi guys will installing ubuntu get rid of android!! Or can we dual boot yet?? Want this badly but havent got a cluee how to do it!!!!!!!! Any simple tutorials?

Thanks guys

[Guest Zebrahead]

Hi guys will installing ubuntu get rid of android!! Or can we dual boot yet?? Want this badly but havent got a cluee how to do it!!!!!!!! Any simple tutorials?

Thanks guys

It's a bit complicated. You may struggle if you have no clue.

As for will it remove android, depends what you mean by that.

Will it remove the android internal partition? No.

Will it remove the android boot img? Yes.

Will it remove your android data from the sd card? If you let it.

Zeb

[Guest owenoliver1]

Ok realised something while trying to work out how to extract the rootfs to the 2nd partition. First load up an ubuntu cd then use gparted to partition the drive into 2 after this dont try to use the terminal to extract it unless you know what you are doing just go to the terminal and write:

sudo nautilus

this will let you change things as root and should be easy from there

[Guest raz0r38]

--

Edited April 24, 2011 by raz0r38