CRUX PPC

I finally had the change to try installing Crux 2.7a to my ACube Sam460ex, and this is a report.

My configuration:
- ACube Sam460ex
- RAM: 2GB kingston SODDR II 800
- PCI SATA controller: silicon image 3512
- HD: seagate momentus 2.5', 500Gb, 7200rpm, SATA
- DVD-RW: plextor PX-L890SA
- video card: silicon motion SM502 (onboard)
- power supply: silverStone SST-ST40NF (fanless)
- case: lian li PC-Q11A silver

Before trying anything I had a quick look at the /crux/releasenotes.txt and found the following info for Sam460ex users:
- partial support for Acube Sam460ex (vga on SM502)
- the support for these machines has been added into 32bit ISO;
- please, consider to update u-boot on your board;
- boot from SDHC and audio support aren't yet implemented;
- onboard SATA2 controller works only with LBA48/NCQ hard disk drives.

My usual setup has a PCI Radeon 9250 for 3D usage on AmigaOS4.1 (Warp3D) and I use a Jmicron USB SATA adapter dongle for using the DVD.
As the JMicron dongle doesn't support the boot I had to unplug the Radeon 9250 from the PCI and plug the Silicon Image 3512 for the DVD.
As the only officially supported graphic card is the onboard SM502 that wasn't a problem.
By default I usually use the onboard SATA port for the HD as I think the internal port is faster.

When first booted the CRUX 2.7a CD a crash occured (see picture).
I then connected the HD to the SI3512, and with this configuration CRUX booted and I proceed installing CRUX following the handbook.txt found in /crux.

My HD partition tables is as follow:
SDA1 - SFS, Workbench
SDA2 - JXFS, Work
SDA3 - AmigaOS4.1 SWAP partition
SDA4 - ext2, mounted as /
SDA5 - linux swap

The handbook explain how to compile the kernel by giving the following information:
$ cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.36.x
$ patch -p1 < ../your_patch
$ make menuconfig
$ make all
$ make uImage (for Sam460ex)
$ make canyonlands.dtb (for Sam460ex)
$ make modules_install
$ cp arch/powerpc/boot/cuImage.sam440ep /boot/uImage (for Sam440ep)
$ cp arch/powerpc/boot/uImage /boot/uImage (for Sam460ex)
$ cp arch/powerpc/boot/canyonlands.dtb /boot/canyonlands.dtb (for Sam460ex)
$ cp System.map /boot/System.map

Well, I could't find any patch for the Sam460ex, only found "linux-2.6.36.4-Sam460ex.config" so not a patch, and "linux-2.6.36.4-Sam440ep.patch", which is clearly for Sam440ep.
I proceeded without any patch and entered "menuconfig" for the kernel configuration features and here I must admit I've got scared: way too many details I never even heard of...
As you may imagine, I've ended up using the ready made uImage, the dtb file and the System.map (originally called System.map-460, then renamed to System.map) from the installation cd found in ppc/sam4x0.

I've set my root password and installed the Parthenope boot loader. That's it, finished.
Reboot. Finger crossed.

Booting from the HD went fine, I was welcomed to the usual Linux text console.
The console complained about two things, the first one about the missing folder lib/modules/2.6.36.4-Sam460ex, so I've copied its content from the installation CD.
The second complain was about a folder called /run/udev which the system says is not writeable. Well, the /run/udev folder didn't exists, but once created with chmod 777 (just to try), the console at boot still complain that such folder is not writeable. The system just works, so I left as it is, apparently it's working anyway...

As I don't like using a slow PCI for connecting the SATA HD I then tried connecting the HD to the internal SATA port on the Sam. All seems OK, Linux boots just fine, strange.

Then I tried using X entering "startx" and suddently I've was stuck with a segmentation fault on /lib/libc.so.6 (which is a link to /lib/libc-2.12.2.so).
I've tried many things like "Xorg -configure" but the method couldn't find any device to configure.

The only internet connection I've got is a Mobile HSPA Internet USB key and, in order to write this report, I wanted to transfer some logs to my PC.
I've inserted a USB memory stick (formatted as fat32) for transfering the files.
Automatically a message appears recognizing that the drive /dev/sdc is now available, so I've tried to mount it using "mount -t vfat /dev/sdc1 /mnt" and it worked.
Here the list of log files from /var/log:
auth
backup
boot
btmp
cron
kernel
lastlog
messages
wtmp
Xorg.0.log

One last notice on the high probability that Linux starts complaining that the HD "was not cleanly unmounted".
So many times it starts checking the partition and then you have to reboot. What a pain.

Resuming I have the following problems:
- how to starts X in order to use gnome, xfce, kde or whatever graphical environment?
- I usually turn off Linux using the "shutdown" command, is there anything better in order to leave the filesystem intact?
- is there a chance to use a PCI or a PCI-e video card?

thanks for your report.
There is something wrong in latest xf86-video-siliconmotion and I need to investigate.

CRUX PPC is a lightweight and optimized DIY Linux distribution targeted at experienced Linux users.

Thanks a lot!
I'm aware of the CRUX main target, but, please, keep in mind that at the moment your distribution is the *only one* that has some sort of support for the Sam460ex.
Any kind of effort from you could be useful to many people!

Please, note that the onboard silicon motion SM502 is not commonly used by Sam460ex users because of its limitation (max resolution 1280x1024!).
The most common graphic card configuration among Sam460ex users are (in order of importance):
1) PCI Radeon 9250;
2) PCI-e Radeon HD 4650.

It would be great being able to boot from one of those cards (at the moment CRUX 2.7a boot only using the silicon motion SM502).
If it can be of any help, I can be a beta tester of your test-builds, but I must alert you that I'm not an experienced Linux user at all...

Pretty much solved!!

I've been playing around for a while and keeping in mind that the silicon motion driver is broken I thought of adding a second graphic card.

The solution found is:
- use for the text console the internal silicon motion SM502
- plug a PCI-e Sapphire Radeon HD4550 to be used for X
- adding "exec `where startfluxbox`" into /usr/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc
- as both the mouse and the keyboard are not working by default I had to add a file called /etc/X11/xorg.conf with:
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AutoAddDevices" "false"
EndSection
- startx
- switch the monitor to the Radeon HD4550
- it works!!!

The only remaining issue now is to enable the boot console on the Radeon HD4550 in order to avoid using two different cards.
Any idea how to specify from which card Linux should boot?

Thanks a lot for your update.