Using other distros?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by josolanes, Oct 17, 2013.

  1. josolanes

    josolanes New Member

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    Hi,

    I'm interested in learning how to modify other distributions to work on UDOO, for instance Debian. This would allow a lighter working environment among install that could be a bit easier to run - such as XFCE or similar. Though, it'd just be nice to learn how to modify others to work with UDOO for the added flexibility :)



    A bit OT:
    Regarding Gnome as the default desktop environment, I'm considering installing XFCE on the Ubuntu install and making XFCE the environment to boot to instead - it's a much lighter environment which I feel would better suit the UDOO when using more intensive applications within it. I've done this in the past on PC's with success so I'm sure it's doable with the UDOO as well to allow it to perform even better overall :)

    -Josh
     
  2. mkopack

    mkopack Member

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    I wonder how helpful something like the "Linux From Scratch" instructions would be for doing something like this? Roll your own Udoo-specific distro. I just don't know what all the specifics are in terms of dealing with the Kernel and drivers and such (the sort of things the UDoo team is doing, or getting from Llanaro...)
     
  3. josolanes

    josolanes New Member

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    If I don't get a response in about 7 days I'll try it myself. I used to run Gentoo (which was very from scratch except it came with thorough instructions and a package manager) quite often and was proficient in compiling kernels and the modules/drivers. The kernel part isn't "hard" necessarily, but it is very time consuming and I imagine even worse having to flash it to an SD card then trying it.

    The process, with a normal computer, is to compile the kernel with all drivers you suspect are part of it then boot the computer on the kernel and see if everything functions properly. The time consuming aspect is getting everything working as intended - if something doesn't boot you go back and compile the kernel again and try again with the different modules or built-in drivers. I imagine this would then mean adjusting the SD Card Image then trying again

    If I don't get much feedback in 7 days (my next work day off, working 12hr/day til then) than I'll try it myself or even see if I can get the information from the Ubuntu kernel to allow me to compile another kernel.

    The flexibility of changing distros relatively easily would be very nice and we're all using 1 of 3 types of hardware so it's just a matter of getting the 3 different hardware configurations for the kernel. In theory, at least
     
  4. tibmeister

    tibmeister New Member

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    I am currently working on a 12.04 distro for the Udoo because the one provided is 11.10 and is not supported. I plan on having three forms of the distro; bare/server, lightweight desktop (XFCE4), and heavy desktop (Unity). I'm having some issues getting any custom rootfs or kernels to boot, and hopingto get a glimpse of the source for U-boot the team used so I can try and get this working.
     
  5. fireblade

    fireblade UDOOer

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    ive noticed that the current version of the kernel appears to have iptables/netfilter support missing

     
  6. lhl

    lhl New Member

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    For my Beaglebones and Wandboard, I found Robert C Nelson's netinstall script to be really useful.
    It's organized around a set of hardware conf files that load specific images for the bootloader/kernel and write the appropriate U-Boot/kernel configs. I wonder if this is something that could be used to get things up and running? I'd love to have a bare raring/saucy setup.
     
  7. Semilucid

    Semilucid New Member

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    I see Debian has armel and armhf images. Could someone please explain why we can't install any old linux distro compiled for arm on these dev boards?
     
  8. brunod

    brunod New Member

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  9. DracoLlasa

    DracoLlasa UDOOer

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  10. whitakeshriram

    whitakeshriram UDOOer

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    I'm having some issues getting Showbox jiofi.local.html tplinklogin any custom rootfs or kernels to boot, and hopingto get a glimpse of the source for U-boot the team used so I can try and get this working.
     

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