WM8505 Debian - abrasive april 2010 - modified by styol may 2010
How to INSTALL to your WM8505 based netbook:
WARNING - this will destroy all user data - no warranty is given as to whether it will work, make your hair catch fire, or melt the screen off your netbook!
Examples using a linux operating system such as ubuntu to partition and prepare an SD card to install debian onto the WM8505.
1. Create a single, large FAT32 partition.
2. Extract the 'fatpart.tgz' archive to the root of the SD card
tar -xzvf fatpart.tgz -C /media/disk/
3. in the 'script' folder that was extracted into the root of the SD card, rename 'scriptcmd.install' to 'scriptcmd'
mv scriptcmd scriptcmd.live mv scriptcmd.install scriptcmd
4. copy 'extpart.tgz' into the root of the SD card
cp extpart.tgz /media/disk/
When you are done, there should be 1 folder (script) and 1 file (extpart.tgz) in the root of the SD card.
Insert the card into the netbook and start the device. It should give you a chance to turn off your device before it erases the NAND and installs debian.
It will ask you to remove the card, at which point it will reboot into your new Debian install! It will ask you to login, use the user 'root' with no password. You may want to configure a password using the 'passwd' command. This is a bare bones debian install, for a GUI follow the X11 instructions.
With X11
After booting from SD or installed on to internal flash, configure your network, then:
apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xfonts-base xinit
You should then either replace your /etc/X11/xorg.conf with the one from the 'useful' directory here, or add the line:
Driver "fbdev"
to the "Device" section of your xorg.conf.
Readme
Creating a bootable SD card:
You need at least a 256MB card.
1. Format the card with partitions:
1. FAT (32MB will do)
2. EXT2 (rest of the card)
2. extract fatpart and extpart to the FAT and EXT2 partitions, resp.
Card will boot to a text console, and won't touch any existing install (eg. WinCE).
Handy notes:
to reduce console spam on tty1, run dmesg -n 1
to enable wifi, modprobe rt3070sta
to disable, rmmod rt3070sta
(see also wi-on and wi-off scripts under 'useful')
sound is untested in this release
the kernel sets the system time from the RTC, but not vice versa; the driver interface is unknown
configure the time with 'date' and use /sbin/wmt-rtc --sys2hw
release includes apt-get, you should set up /etc/apt/sources.list for a local mirror
you may wish to mkdir /var/log/apt
wpa_supplicant is included also.
mtd(block)7 is a small (~300mb) flash partition; mtd9 is the rest of flash (~1.7gb)
X11 works fine; if you have a large enough card.
apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xfonts-base xinit
and your favourite wm.
the package scripts get the X conf wrong, you need to add:
Driver "fbdev"
to the Device section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf
(a working xorg.conf is under 'useful')
Download
extpart.tgz
fatpart.tgz
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Hi,
The Links to the files
extpart.tgz
fatpart.tgz
are down. you will get an 403 message!
could someone upoad these files somwhere else?
The site
http://bur.st/~abrasive/wm8505_linux/
says
"DISABLED_BY_BURST_SUPPORT_USING_TOO_MUCH_BANDWIDTH"
thx
sP
dear bento,
does this work on "VT"8505 with the same files you've provided?
it should, often times the distributor is confused and means to say WM8505
Because I'm not very good at this sort of stuff, I tend to follow instructions as well as can be expected. I have a 10.1" EPC on which I tried to install Debian. After 15 minutes of waiting for the install to complete (it never did) I gave up. It seems as if the install is for a 7" EPC because after I aborted the install, the penguin was on the main screen but the right 1/3 and bottom 1/3 of the screen were copies of the main screen. I reverted to the Wince install SD disk and am back where I started.
I've also tried the FAT and EXT2 partition install routines but they were failures. The puter went directly to the WinCe that was already installed. If someone can make me smart, it'll be muchly appreciated.
One thing - with WinCE, loading pages is quite slow and memory runs out - can't get the 'chine to change my memory settings with SD plugged into its slot.
Hi guys, thanks for your great work by the way :)
It gave me hope when I needed it while flashing my nearly-bricked device ;-)
Sooo, I eventually managed to install Debian on my WMT ARM926EJ-S WM8505 machine. I also succeeded in building (by cross compilation) some modules I usually find useful, like the iptables modules. Well, to my surprise, there were problems loading those modules under the supplied 2.6.29...-dirty kernel (like Adam stated, unknown symbol problems). So I tried to update the kernel and built a custom kernel 2.6.33.5, which booted fine... under QEMU. The modules load fine, everything runs smoothly.
My WMT machine however, goes blank when I try to boot from the SD Card (and I've mirrored the config from 2.6.29 supplied with the Debian that works).
I suppose, apart from some hacks, like the CONFIG_ARCH_WMT, we also need the arcNumber for u-Boot to be set. Do you know what it might be? I tried a few, including versatile, no joy.
Best regards
im not the best one to be answering these sorts of questions so i would recommend you join the IRC room and perhaps try your questions there. however one thing i am aware of is that most WM8505's ship with a hardware limitation that prevents booting from the SD card.
Great job, bento. Debian is running very well on my device.
There is just a little problem with it.
Because I want to use the APM module I tried to compile a new kernel for the debian but I have no success with it.
Steps:
1. installation like explained above
2. download of linux-2.6.29 from kernel.org
3. unpacking kernel-sources to /usr/src
4. zcat /proc/config.gz >/usr/src/linux-2.6.29/.config
5. make oldconfig in /usr/src/linux-2.6.29 accepting defaults
6. make all
7. make uImage
8. mounted fat partition to /boot/
9. cp /usr/.../arch/arm/boot/uImage /boot/script/uzImage.bin
After the reboot the screen remains black and I have to restore the basic configuration again.
cat /proc/cpuinfo results in:
Processor : ARM926EJ-S rev 5 (v5l)
BogoMIPS : 149.50
Features : swp half thumb fastmult edsp java
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture : 5TEJ
CPU variant : 0x0
CPU part : 0x926
CPU revision : 5
Hardware : WMT
Revision : 0000
Serial : 0000000000000000
One of the defaults is called ARCH_VERSATILE_PB=y
But I can't find any option for the WMT (where did you get the option CONFIG_ARCH_WMT=y ?).
Any idea?
Just to save time: I can't change to Android since there is no chance to get the utilities I need for my daily business.
Repos and the ability to use gcc are necessary for me.
But I need Advanced Power Management/ACPI, too.
Like you, I'm new to this & needed some kernel changes.
I don't think we can build our own kernels - I think the source for the machine's devices is not available.
I just did something very similar to you (not ACPI though), but instead of building the whole kernel, did a "make menuconfig" to ask it to build some extra modules, then a "make modules". I then installed the modules on my existing system. That worked fine.
You could probably do the same - maybe set CONFIG_APM_EMULATION=m and do a make modules.
Hello Adam.
Thanks for your reply. Today I have read the configuration.
Now I'm *really* confused about this kernel.
At first the version numbers seem to be wrong: under mkimage there is a version 2.6.10 and uname says that it is a 2.6.29 kernel (I call it here "SelfMade").
Then it seems to be an Android kernel but the APM doesn't work. But the confusing about it is that (according to config.gz) the kernel has built-in APM and RTC. Why does the apmd not work?
> I don't think we can build our own kernels
Because this is a (modified(?)) linux kernel it is licensed under the terms of the GPL: IMHO there must exist source code of it.
But I can't find any source code about it, too.
> You could probably do the same - maybe set
> CONFIG_APM_EMULATION=m and do a make modules.
CONFIG_APM_EMULATION=y
is set in the functional kernel. So it should work but it doesn't actually.
For the module set I would need the option to build from the same sources like the "SelfMade" one.
So I need at least the option to flag WMT. Otherwise it does not boot. Or I made a mistake which I cannot see at the moment.
Do you have any idea or solution?
A last question: Does the Jaybook 9901 work with ARCH_VERSATILE_PB=y or should I use ARCH_VERSATILE_AB=y?
> Because this is a (modified(?)) linux kernel it is licensed
> under the terms of the GPL: IMHO there must exist source
> code of it.
Sorry. I have to correct myself. The kernel can be also distributed under the terms of the BSD. So the source code is unfortunately _not_ mandatory.
Sorry. I have to correct myself. The kernel can be also distributed under the terms of the BSD. So the source code is unfortunately _not_ mandatory.
As far as I know, this is simply not the case. Linux has always incorporated some BSD-licensed code, but in doing so it relicenses that code under the GPL v2, as the BSD licence permits. Linux itself has always been licensed under GPL2, and thanks to some contributors who can't be traced and omitted the "or later" clause, only GPL2.
we haz source http://bento-linux.org/wiki/todo-list/kernel-source-code
Where can I find the source code for the fat & ext parts?
Thanks.
I would like to add some kernl modules to my system.(e.g. dm-crypt).
I tried downloading the 2.6.29 kernel, setting the local version string to march this system's, but ran into unknown-symbol problems when I try to load the new modules.
Please can you point me to the actual source + ".config", plus any specific build scripts used when this kernel was built.
Thanks very much.
OK, I see the section on building Android modules.
I'm following that approach for debian.
hi,
i have erased nand using erase nand all
after that i am not able to boot in debian,wince
try android, that may fix things for you and then after that try debian or windows.. although, windows should have fixed stuff for yah.. id try android anyway if you havent gotten this resolved
Does the Debian install work on the VT8500 or only the WM8505?
If the answer is no, then is it possible to install easypclinux on the VT8500 and then chroot Debian?
Thanks.
chroot would probably work. contact nextvolume on the irc or on the forum.
Thanks for porting info.i am able to boot in debian with xfce as display manager.
but still touchscreen is not working in debian armel lenny.
can you please tell me how to enable touchscreen?
we were talking about this in irc and we would love it if you documented your work on this