UPDATED: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS armhf rootfs and SD card images are here!

The rootfs and SD images here are now all armhf images. You should use an armhf distro on the A10 for best performance.

The rootfs archive is a basic Ubuntu 12.04 LTS armhf rootfs image with SSH and no other packages.

Here is the [coming soon] Ubuntu 12.04 LTS armhf rootfs
sha256sum: ??

You can also get an armhf rootfs directly from Ubuntu. I just found out about it and have not tried it. Ours were made with debootstrap and should have identical packages. But ours already have the A10 kernel and modules installed in /lib/modules, and also the password has been set to "password" in ours. So you can already login to ours without any extra effort.

You need to extract the rootfs to the 2nd partition on your SD card. The partition must be at least 512MB. SD cards are cheap. So 1-4GB would be better if you actually plan to use it long term. The first partition should be a vfat formatted partition that is 32MB (you will need this room for the future kernels) in size and of partition type c. You will need to copy the 3.0.36+ kernel and modules from the kernel archive. If you have a Mele you will need to enable the SATA and wemac Eth0 modules in /etc/modules. You also need to install the u-boot bootloader and the kernel. You also need to select the correct script.bin hardware initialization file to use and copy it to the first partition. See the u-boot thread on how to do that. If you use the bare rootfs then it may be helpful, but is not necessary, to create a 256-512 MB swap partition on your SD card. The SD card image includes a 512MB swap partition. The swap partition can be located anywhere after the first two partitions. You can add as many other partitions on your SD as you wish. But they must all be after the first two.

An X server is needed for most A10 devices, at least until final setup has been completed. So the rootfs below has LXDE, but no other additional packages. You can disable and remove LXDE, if desired, once setup has been completed.

Here is the [coming soon] Lubuntu 12.04 LTS armhf rootfs with LXDE
sha256sum: ??

You must use a 1GB or larger SD card partition to install the above rootfs. Otherwise the instructions are the same.

****************************************************************************************************************************************

The SD image is a full-featured Ubuntu image. It has the following features:

• LXDE Desktop Environment
• Easily accessible root password (the password is "password")
• One user account created (user) with a blank password (warning: the blank password is a security risk - change it!)
• Build-essential packages are preinstalled
• U-boot tools preinstalled
• Git preinstalled
• SVN preinstalled
• Vim preinstalled
• Unrar and 7-zip preinstalled
• Midnight Commander preinstalled
• SSH Bash shell directory color highlights
• Screen has been added so you can leave the SSH terminal
• Rdesktop and TightVNC clients so you can access other clients
• X11vnc running as a service for easy headless access to the GUI
• ability to easily mount SD card images with kpartx package has been added
• AbiWord word processor preinstalled
• Firefox web browser preinstalled
• Thunderbird email preinstalled
• FFmpeg preinstalled
• Gnome Mplayer
• Rhythmbox media player
• Nginx web server with php5-fpm (host your web site in your pocket!)
• Ubuntu multiverse repository has been added
• Ubuntu-restricted-extras ;)
• the SD card image uses a swap partition instead of a swap file

All of this right on your inexpensive little Mele box, MK802 dongle, or A10-based tablet!
Easily used on either a native HDMI display, or from Android or another OS using a VNC client!
Nginx and php5 are installed, but the services are disabled. Use update-rc.d to enable them if you like.


Here is the full Allwinner A10 Ubuntu 12.04 LTS LXDE SD card image - ready to boot on probably any A10 device.

• The [coming soon] standard 4GB edition - this is your standard size which leaves plenty of room for extra packages.
  sha256sum: ??

Please use the correct script.bin hardware initialization file for your device. There are script.bin files for tablets and the Mele in the first partition. Copy the correct file there to script.bin. Please also note that LCD video output is not normally enabled for any of these images. You must first use either HDMI or VNC. The LCD drivers are enabled but you must edit your script.bin on your own to get the LCD working. If you get your tablet LCD working please post instructions here in the forum to assist others. If you are using a Mele you must also edit /etc/modules to enable the SATA and Ethernet drivers. They are disabled by default to allow tablets to also boot this image.

If you do not have an HDMI monitor then you can login using ssh or vnc using the root password (password). If the device cannot be pinged upon first boot you need to setup wireless networking first using the wireless settings for your router.

****************************************************************************************************************************************

[These images have all been tested on tablets and Mele devices. The Ubuntu rootfs is likely production quality and should have few, if any bugs. But how the SD images will work on your particular device is unknown. We can only test on the devices we have. If you have any issues with the SD images please post comments below. If you are using the images on a device with serial console output then it should be included, if possible, to better assist us in resolving any bugs.



Edited 50 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2012 05:09AM by gnexus.

http://t-01/phpinfo.php

PHP Version 5.3.10-1ubuntu3

System 	Linux T-01 3.0.8+ #2 PREEMPT Fri Mar 2 14:28:08 CST 2012 armv7l
Build Date 	Apr 12 2012 09:56:53
Server API 	FPM/FastCGI
. . .
. . .

It IS in my pocket! (Is that a web server in your pocket, or are you just happy to see that the PHP works?)

root@T-01:~# ps aux

USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
root         1  0.0  0.5   2604  1588 ?        Ss   12:05   0:02 /sbin/init
root         2  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:00 [kthreadd]
root         3  4.1  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   5:29 [ksoftirqd/0]
root         5  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:00 [kworker/u:0]
root         6  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:00 [rcu_kthread]
root         7  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:05   0:00 [cpuset]
root         8  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:05   0:00 [khelper]
root         9  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:05   0:00 [netns]
root        10  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:00 [sync_supers]
root        11  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:00 [bdi-default]
root        12  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:05   0:00 [kintegrityd]
root        13  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:05   0:00 [kblockd]
root        14  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:00 [khubd]
root        15  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:05   0:00 [cfg80211]
root        17  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        D    12:05   0:00 [usb-hardware-sc]
root        18  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:05   0:00 [rpciod]
root        19  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:00 [khungtaskd]
root        20  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:00 [kswapd0]
root        21  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        SN   12:05   0:00 [ksmd]
root        22  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:00 [fsnotify_mark]
root        23  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:05   0:00 [nfsiod]
root        24  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:05   0:00 [crypto]
root        37  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:05   0:00 [kpsmoused]
root        38  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:00 [kworker/u:1]
root        39  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:05   0:00 [binder]
root        40  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:05   0:00 [codec_resume]
root        41  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:05   0:00 [krfcommd]
root        43  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:00 [hdmi proc]
root        44  0.1  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:09 [mmcqd/0]
root        45  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:00 [flush-179:0]
root        46  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:00 [jbd2/mmcblk0p2-]
root        47  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   12:05   0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root       194  0.0  0.2   2856   724 ?        S    12:05   0:00 upstart-udev-bridge --daemon
root       208  0.0  0.6   4964  1948 ?        Ss   12:05   0:00 /usr/sbin/sshd -D
root       209  0.0  0.4   2476  1344 ?        Ss   12:05   0:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
syslog     214  0.0  0.4  29548  1516 ?        Sl   12:05   0:02 rsyslogd -c5
102        224  0.0  0.3   2632  1196 ?        Ss   12:05   0:00 dbus-daemon --system --fork --activation=upstart
root       239  0.0  0.7   5672  2408 ?        Ss   12:05   0:00 /usr/sbin/modem-manager
root       247  0.0  0.4   3308  1380 ?        Ss   12:05   0:00 /usr/sbin/bluetoothd
root       251  0.0  0.9   8772  2860 ?        Ss   12:05   0:00 /usr/sbin/cupsd -F
root       291  0.0  1.7  29524  5452 ?        Ssl  12:05   0:00 NetworkManager
root       335  0.0  0.3   2472  1004 ?        S    12:05   0:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root       348  0.0  0.3   2472   984 ?        S    12:05   0:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root       370  0.0  1.1  25160  3696 ?        Sl   12:05   0:00 /usr/lib/policykit-1/polkitd --no-debug
root       444  0.0  0.1   1892   460 ?        S    12:05   0:00 upstart-socket-bridge --daemon
root       609  0.0  0.2   3368   716 tty2     Ss+  12:05   0:00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty2
root       612  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:05   0:00 [RTKTHREAD]
root       631  0.0  1.0  32916  3232 ?        Ssl  12:05   0:00 lightdm
root       634  0.0  0.2   1840   784 ?        Ss   12:05   0:00 cron
root       638  0.0  0.5   4376  1824 ?        Ss   12:05   0:00 /sbin/wpa_supplicant -B -P /run/sendsigs.omit.d/wpasupplicant.pid -u -s -O /var/run/wpa_sup
root       683  0.3  5.3  51540 16672 tty7     Ss+  12:05   0:28 /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch
root       690  0.0  0.2   3368   716 tty1     Ss+  12:05   0:00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty1
root       691  0.0  0.2   1608   648 ttyS0    Ss+  12:05   0:00 /sbin/getty 115200 ttyS0
root       695  0.0  1.0  16400  3400 ?        Sl   12:05   0:00 lightdm --session-child 16 19
root       700  0.0  1.0  15444  3380 ?        Sl   12:05   0:00 /usr/lib/accountsservice/accounts-daemon
root       705  0.0  1.6  21396  5320 ?        Ss   12:05   0:03 x11vnc -xkb -noxrecord -noxfixes -noxdamage -display :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -for
root       712  0.0  1.0  27080  3296 ?        Sl   12:05   0:00 /usr/sbin/console-kit-daemon --no-daemon
lightdm    786  0.0  0.1   1364   464 ?        Ss   12:05   0:00 /bin/sh /usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm-greeter-session /usr/sbin/lightdm-gtk-greeter
lightdm    793  0.0  0.2   2328   652 ?        Ss   12:05   0:00 //bin/dbus-daemon --fork --print-pid 5 --print-address 7 --session
lightdm    794  0.9  3.4  96004 10732 ?        Sl   12:05   1:16 /usr/sbin/lightdm-gtk-greeter
lightdm    796  0.0  0.5   6228  1832 ?        S    12:05   0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd
lightdm    798  0.0  0.9  33188  2972 ?        Sl   12:05   0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs//gvfs-fuse-daemon -f /var/lib/lightdm/.gvfs
root       806  0.0  1.0  26056  3260 ?        Sl   12:05   0:00 /usr/lib/upower/upowerd
root       885  0.0  0.5   5724  1824 ?        S    12:06   0:00 lightdm --session-child 12 19
root      1015  0.0  0.9   8716  2876 ?        Ss   12:06   0:01 sshd: root@pts/0    
root      1071  0.0  0.5   4128  1612 pts/0    Ss   12:06   0:00 -bash
root      1314  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    12:18   0:00 [kworker/0:0]
root      1455  0.0  0.3   1888  1036 ?        S    13:07   0:00 /sbin/dhclient -d -4 -sf /usr/lib/NetworkManager/nm-dhcp-client.action -pf /var/run/sendsig
nobody    1458  0.0  0.3   4092  1052 ?        S    13:07   0:00 /usr/sbin/dnsmasq --no-resolv --keep-in-foreground --no-hosts --bind-interfaces --pid-file=
ntp       1584  0.0  0.4   3372  1264 ?        Ss   13:09   0:00 /usr/sbin/ntpd -p /var/run/ntpd.pid -g -u 105:113
root      2173  0.0  0.3   9108  1036 ?        Ss   13:47   0:00 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx
www-data  2174  0.0  0.4   9264  1368 ?        S    13:47   0:00 nginx: worker process
www-data  2175  0.0  0.4   9264  1368 ?        S    13:47   0:00 nginx: worker process
www-data  2176  0.0  0.4   9264  1368 ?        S    13:47   0:00 nginx: worker process
www-data  2177  0.0  0.5   9264  1780 ?        S    13:47   0:00 nginx: worker process
root      2190  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    13:55   0:00 [kworker/0:1]
root      2219  0.0  0.8  15628  2580 ?        Ss   14:00   0:00 php-fpm: master process (/etc/php5/fpm/php-fpm.conf)      
www-data  2220  0.0  0.8  15916  2816 ?        S    14:00   0:00 php-fpm: pool www                                         
www-data  2221  0.0  0.8  15916  2820 ?        S    14:00   0:00 php-fpm: pool www                                         
www-data  2222  0.0  1.1  15916  3476 ?        S    14:00   0:00 php-fpm: pool www                                         
www-data  2223  0.0  0.8  15916  2820 ?        S    14:00   0:00 php-fpm: pool www                                         
root      2245  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    14:16   0:00 [kworker/0:2]
root      2256  0.0  0.3   3772   960 pts/0    R+   14:16   0:00 ps aux

Still need to work on the kernel and swap file "swappiness." Android kernels do not need to swap, as it suspends each Java VM when it is not being used. GNU/Linux needs swap badly, especially with only 512MB on this tablet. Swap settings are in sysctl.conf. But will they have an effect when using an Android kernel? I'm fixing to try the kernel I compiled. I hope they removed the Android stuff in their kernel sources. But I seriously doubt they have yet. . . Once I get the swap fixed I will make an SD image of the Ubuntu system.

Is there a link for the 2GB and the 8GB versions? Also what's wrong with the drivers delivered by Mali? Why nobody has been compiling these to have GPU acceleration?

http://www.malideveloper.com/developer-resources/drivers/open-source-mali-gpus-linux-exadri2-and-x11-display-drivers.php

Thanks for your work!

Quote

Is there a link for the 2GB and the 8GB versions? Also what's wrong with the drivers delivered by Mali? Why nobody has been compiling these to have GPU acceleration?

I'm still working on the Ubuntu 2GB and the 8GB versions. Currently, getting the Debian Sid armhf SD image completed is my highest priority, as currently it has much improved performance over the Ubuntu.

Edit:
If you want the 8GB version just put the 4GB version on an 8GB SD card, and then add a /home partition. . . ;)

The Mali drivers provided by ARM work fine in Android. But to get them to work in GNU/LInux requires linking the Xorg calls to the Mali kernel driver. That requires a bit of programming work. If you read all the documentation from ARM on the Mali you will see that they have only released some portions of the Mali driver source code. The remaining source code is only available to ARM licensees, which are the big SoC manufacturers. There currently are only a few developers working on getting full functionality on GNU/Linux for the A10 and other SoCs using Mali. So progress is slower than some desire. But much progress is being made.

My reason for releasing these images is to encourage more developers to work on A10 GNU/LInux, and to help us improve the kernel, Mali drivers, and the VPU/GPU libraries.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2012 10:17AM by gnexus.

Testing the image I can't get the wireless to work. The device is a generic tablet with 7 inch screen and 1GB RAM. Do you know what should I do to get this working? Also the memory seems to be limited to 512MB. It is not recognizing the full 1GB.

Thanks again!

Quote

Testing the image I can't get the wireless to work.

First item to check:
I accidentally left the following line in /etc/network/interfaces:

iface wlan0 inet dhcp

Remove that line and it should solve your problem. I just realized that issue and I apologize for the oversight.
A new version of the SD image has been uploaded that resolves the above bug .
***************************************************************************************************************************************
I also had lots of trouble with the wlan device. It seems primarily an Ubuntu issue. So far I have not had similar problems with Debian. But the Debian image is not ready quite yet. The following procedure seems to fix the wireless:

Please be advised that if your tablet is strange and does not use rtl8192 for wifi I cannot help, as that is the only wifi driver I am familiar with. Check that first.

First, try to login to LXDE as root. Check with ifconfig to see if wlan module is there. If it is then restart NetworkManager and the network. If wlan0 or wlan1 appears in ifconfig, but NetworkManager does not work, try lsmod to look for the wifi module and rmmod 8192cu and modprobe 8192cu to reload it. udevadm trigger will reload the udev config.

If the wlan module is there in ifconfig try the following:

cp /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules 70-persistent-net.rules.bak
vi /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

Then change wlan0 to the MAC address of your tablet if it is not already correct
Delete any other wlan devices in the file.
Reboot.

If that does not fix it then use a fake MAC in /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules for wlan0, and your correct MAC for wlan1. That is what worked for me in Ubuntu, and what the config in the original udev rules contains.

You will likely need to play around with all the above a bit until the wifi is working. Keep experimenting.

Quote

Also the memory seems to be limited to 512MB. It is not recognizing the full 1GB.

A tablet with 1GB. That is nice! The script.bin in the first partition is from my tablet. It controls the h/w config. You need to use the script.bin for your device instead. There is plenty of room in partition 1. So backup script.bin to script.bak before replacing it with the script.bin from your tablet. Script.bin could also be the cause of your wireless problems.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/07/2012 03:49PM by gnexus.

> I accidentally left the following line in
> /etc/network/interfaces:
>

> iface wlan0 inet dhcp
>

> Remove that line and it should solve your problem.

That was it!, that fixed the wireless problem. In fact I'm writting this from the device running Firefox.

> A tablet with 1GB. That is nice! The
> script.bin in the first partition is from
> my tablet. It controls the h/w config. You need to
> use the script.bin for your device instead. There
> is plenty of room in partition 1. So backup
> script.bin to script.bak before replacing it
> with the script.bin from your tablet. Script.bin
> could also be the cause of your wireless problems.

How do I get the script.bin from my tablet?

Thanks!

David.

Quote

That was it!, that fixed the wireless problem. In fact I'm writting this from the device running Firefox.

Nice!

I assume you are using Firefox as root. I haven't been able to get it to work as a normal user due the the problems with the Android "Paranoid Networking" kernel.

Quote

How do I get the script.bin from my tablet?

That, unfortunately, requires too much time and effort for me to explain in detail in this thread. Please see the script.bin thread.

If you have success with changing your script.bin I would greatly appreciate you sharing how you copied your own script.bin. Thanks.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/07/2012 06:32AM by gnexus.

Very interesting and I'm already considering to buy a Mele Ax00.

What about publishing the image as a torrent at Linuxtracker?

Klaus

Quote

What about publishing the image as a torrent at Linuxtracker?

I would highly advise somebody to push the Unbuntu image out as a torrent. I doubt I am going to continue to maintain Unbuntu when the Debian image works better. It is also doubtful we will continue to host the Ubuntu image indefinitely when Debian works much better.

So somebody please push it out as a torrent. Thanks!

Phpinfo on the Ubuntu armhf with the new kernel from nginx with php5-fpm:

http://mele/phpinfo.php

PHP Version 5.3.10-1ubuntu3

System 	Linux mele 3.0.36+ #34 PREEMPT Sat Jul 21 11:34:33 IST 2012 armv7l
Build Date 	Apr 11 2012 19:45:05
Server API 	FPM/FastCGI
Virtual Directory Support 	disabled
Configuration File (php.ini) Path 	/etc/php5/fpm
Loaded Configuration File 	/etc/php5/fpm/php.ini
Scan this dir for additional .ini files 	/etc/php5/fpm/conf.d
Additional .ini files parsed 	/etc/php5/fpm/conf.d/pdo.ini
PHP API 	20090626
PHP Extension 	20090626
Zend Extension 	220090626
Zend Extension Build 	API220090626,NTS
PHP Extension Build 	API20090626,NTS
Debug Build 	no
Thread Safety 	disabled
Zend Memory Manager 	enabled
Zend Multibyte Support 	disabled
IPv6 Support 	enabled
Registered PHP Streams 	https, ftps, compress.zlib, compress.bzip2, php, file, glob, data, http, ftp, phar, zip
Registered Stream Socket Transports 	tcp, udp, unix, udg, ssl, sslv3, tls
Registered Stream Filters 	zlib.*, bzip2.*, convert.iconv.*, string.rot13, string.toupper, string.tolower, string.strip_tags, convert.*, consumed, dechunk 

Hello. Maybe anyone tellme how to install required packages for ubuntu rootfs from my pc (arch linux x86_64 ) ? Or for debian basic rootfs. I know one way, but it's very bulky ( maybe I chose inrrevalent word ).

The method consit in untar the data.tar.gz from .deb package in to rootfs. But packets may have much dependencys...


Sorry for my English).

Where are these images? Or, how can users download them?

There are no links in the original post that point to any images that can be downloaded.

Can any one help please??

The images seem to be not available any more.
Will the Ubuntu images be reuploaded and if, where?

If you want the images to be available please vote in this thread.