Slackware On Odroid U3

Slackware 14.2 On Odroid U3

3+ partition method

In 3 partition method, installer root , like from the initrd image, is installed onto second par tion, and booted to install the distribution to a third partition. You may refer to multiboot document ( Multiboot README ) to do a two partition method of installation. It is a bit more complicated than three partition method. This method can further be simplified to do installation into a single partition, provided a suitable u-boot firmware is fused.

See the multiboot page at github Multiboot for a two partition method.

Ref:

1. Odroid U3 related pages, from Gv

Requirements

16/32 GB Micro SD card

You may also install on to a pen drive or external hard disk for usb and boot from there. But you still will require a micro sd card for booting.

A working Ubuntu image like ubuntu-16.04.1.lts

ubuntu-16.04-mate-odroid-u2u3-20160920.img.xz

Slackware 14.2 for arm

Slackwarearm-14.2]

   rsync --exclude '*/source/*' --exclude '*/testing/*' -Pavv --delete ftp.arm.slackware.com::slackwarearm/slackwarearm-14.2.

Installation

Install the u-boot header and FAT partiotion for zIamge, uInitrd and boot.ini

Method one, using Ubuntu 16.04 boot files

   xzcat --verbose ubuntu-16.04-mate-odroid-u2u3-20160920.img.xz | dd of=/dev/sdX count=300000

Here is some info on how to download just enough data from site:

   wget -qO-  http://dn.odroid.com/4412/Linux/ubuntu_16.04lts/ubuntu-16.04-mate-odroid-u2u3-20160920.img.xz | xzcat | dd of=x.img count=1
   file x.img
   # rm x.img

from

   x.img: DOS/MBR boot sector; partition 1 : ID=0x6, start-CHS (0x0,97,34), end-CHS (0x10,178,34), startsector 6144, 262144 sectors; partition 2 : ID=0x83, start-CHS (0x60,0,1), end-CHS (0x24e,94,16), startsector 268288, 9216000 sectors

   # wget -qO-  http://dn.odroid.com/4412/Linux/ubuntu_16.04lts/ubuntu-16.04-mate-odroid-u2u3-20160920.img.xz | xzcat | dd of=ubuntu-16.04-mate-odroid-u2u3-20160920.img count=$((6144+262144))
   This is more useful when you want to download just partition one, not the entire distribution.

Create partitions on SD card

   fdisk /dev/sdX

From partition created by dd from img in step 1, delete second and add three more ( or as many desired ).

First partion created from the image has size of ~128MB. Make this partition bootable ( Boot flag on ), if not already so. Size of second partion should hold the installer initrd ( uncompressed ) and also the distribution (slackware) for installation, something like 4GB. Third partition is where the distributions are installed. Size in the order of 24GB or so. Fourth is the swap partion - 2GB or so.

   Device         Boot    Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
   /dev/sdX1 *        6144   268287   262144  128M  6 FAT16
   /dev/sdX2        268288  8656895  8388608    4G 83 Linux
   /dev/sdX3       8656896 58988543 50331648   24G 83 Linux
   /dev/sdX4      58988544 62945279  3956736  1.9G 82 Linux swap

Method 2, using u-boot files

See u-boot Parition the card like as in first method, manually. Next make the card u-boot capable by fusing the required firmware. Use sd_fusing_all.sh to fuse required U-Boot files on to sd card. See u-boot-stable directory for more info.

Mount partition two, install 14.2 setup initrd image, copy kernel modules, firmware and installation sources.

From PC host / Odroid running other Linux

   mkdir odroid
   cd ordoid
   mkdir boot
   mkdir root
   mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX2
   tune2fs /dev/sdX2 -L installer
   mount /dev/sdX2 boot

1. copy / download distribution files, say slackwarearm-14.2 to boot/

   wget http://www.arm.slackware.com/slackwarearm/slackwarearm-14.2/isolinux/initrd-armv7.img
   mkdir boot/slackwarearm-14.2
   cd boot/slackwarearm-14.2

For downloading: Refer to http://arm.slackware.com and also consider donations.

   rsync --exclude '*/source/*' --exclude '*/testing/*' -Pavv --delete ftp.arm.slackware.com::slackwarearm/slackwarearm-14.2 .
   cd ../..

Preparing the installer root partition:

   cd boot
   gzip -dc ../slackwarearm-14.2/isolinux/initrd-armv7.img | cpio -i --make-directories
   sync
   cd lib
   rm -rf modules/*
   rm -rf firmware/*
   # mount and copy from Ubuntu.

Install ubuntu on third partition, copy module and firmware files to installer partition.

   mkdir ubuntu

if you have the image installed onto an sd card, use the second partition from there.

   mount -r /dev/sdY2 ubuntu

Or If you only have the image

First

   unxz ubuntu-16.04-mate-odroid-u2u3-20160920.img.xz )
   parted -s ubuntu-16.04-mate-odroid-u2u3-20160920.img unit B print
   find partition 2 start offset from the output.
   p2offset=....
   mount second partition from ubuntu-16.04-mate-odroid-u2u3-20160920.img -
   mount -o loop,ro,offset=$p2offset ubuntu-16.04-mate-odroid-u2u3-20160920.img ubuntu

Or

   # find info about partitions
   xzcat ubuntu-16.04-mate-odroid-u2u3-20160920.img.xz | dd of=x.img count=1
   file x.img
   # rm x.img
   xzcat ubuntu-16.04-mate-odroid-u2u3-20160920.img.xz | dd of=ubuntu-16.04-mate-odroid-u2u3-20160920.img count=9216000 skip=268288
   mount -o loop ubuntu-16.04-mate-odroid-u2u3-20160920.img ubuntu

   mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX3
   tune2fs /dev/sdX3 -L slackware14.2
   mount /dev/sdX3 root
   mkdir root/ubuntu-16.04.1.lts
   mkdir root/installer
   mkdir root/slackware-14.2
   (cd ubuntu; tar cfz - *) | (cd root/ubuntu-16.04.1.lts; tar xfz - )
   # copy modules and firmware? to installer.
   (cd root/ubuntu-16.04.1.lts/lib/ ; tar cfz - modules firmware ) | (cd boot/lib/; tar xfz - )
   sync
   sync
   umount ubuntu
   umount boot
   umount root
   

Reboot odroid, and if everything goes fine, will boot into slackware installer.

press enter to login as root run setup:

        setup

During installation, Choose partition 3 as target, and dont' format it. It already has Ubuntu on it. Choose source directory for installation - /slackwarearm-14.2/slackware Proceed with the normal slackware installation.

Modify boot.ini and reboot.

   mount /dev/sdX1 boot
   edit and modify boot/boot.ini to boot from parition 3
   setenv bootargs "console=tty1 console=ttySAC1,115200n8 root=/dev/mmcblk0p3 rootwait ro mem=2047M ${videoconfig}"
   sync
   umount boot

If you are planning for multiboot

   cd root
   mv * slackware-14.2
   mv slackware-14.2/ubuntu-16.04.1.lts .

Now you have both Slackware and Ubuntu on same partition. See multiboot to see how to get a multiboot setup ( choose distribution at boot time ) so that you can choose the distribution at boot time. No fancy chooser this time, you need to enter the number corresponding to the distro at a prompt.

Other info

Mouse pointer issue.

       Xorg ( with blackbox wm ) seems have no mouse curser until you open an xterm or s

o by clicking the right mouse button. Mouse pointer is okay if you have an .xinitrc that starts an xterm or so.

No web browsers.

Browsers you can compile and run on odroid u3, slackware 14.2: sadly none of these browsers are available in the distribution. text based ones like lynx are there. Emacs supports web browsing mode too.

1. Dillo version 3.0.5 ( fast , but premitive ) first step
2. Mozilla Firefox 50.0 ( compile from source, took long time like more than 6 hours)

firefox-50.0.tar.xz

No libreoffice.

       Office compilation - fail
               Libreoffice libreoffice-5.2.2.2 compiled, ( took very long time, 12 ho

urs or more ) starts, but fall into libreoffice docuement discovery mode and fail (repeat):

(soffice:1091): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: :1:59: 'min-width' is not a va lid property name

(soffice:1091): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: :1:76: 'min-height' is not a v alid property name

Shutdown seems not shutdown/poweroff complete, but keeps printing message, should not hav e reached here.

But no other issues on reboot after shutdown. This gets fixed with linux-4.8.y u-boot-stable