[ARMedslack] DreamPlug hang

[Michael Langfinger]

Hi Innes,

the problem is that the kernel that is delivered with ARMedslack has MTD support compiled in. For some strange reason, this causes the Dreamplug to hang. [1]

The workaround for this is pretty simple. Just compile a kernel without MTD support or - which i did - use the kernel from "with-linux" for the dreamplug. [2]

You also have to ensure that the uImage is on a FAT partition, because the u-boot version on the Dreamplug doesn't support booting from ext2 (except they fixed this in newer revisions, it's been a while since i installed ARMedslack on the dreamplug).

Of course this workaround has the disadvantage that you have to take care that a system update doesn't overwrite your custom uImage and you have to take care about kernel upgrades yourself. I circumvent the problem of an accidental upgrade (leading to an unbootable system) by mounting the partition that contains the custom uImage to /boot-vfat; /boot is just a folder. In this case a kernel upgrade will overwrite the uImage in /boot, which doesn't affect the system boot at all. Maybe not the best way, but it works. ;)

You also might need to set the arcNumber (in u-boot) to the correct value (should be 2659, iirc - unfortunately the dreamplug is about 50 kilometers away from my current position, so i can't look it up ;)).

Cheers,
Michael



[1] http://www.plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?PHPSESSID=manimc8t872rscog9oeti7adb5&topic=5731.0

[2] http://archlinuxarm.org/mirror/with-linux/index.php?dir=2.6.38%2F2.6.38.8%2F
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