Topic: Alternate o/s for the Infocast 8, booting issue.

Hi all --

I'd like to resurrect a topic that we've been over before

In regards to the Infocast 8:

The original uSD card has 4 partitions.

1 - approx 9 mb function unknown
2 - 189 mb primary o/s
3 - 189 mb backup (factory reset?)
4 - the rest of the card (about 1.6 gb)

Let's suppose that I want to put Arch Linux on the Infocast 8. Here we have a generic Arch Linux ARM release for ARMv5 PXA168/910 platforms.

According to this, the tarball is supposed to be unzipped to a uSD card after it is partitioned into one ext3 partition and the "device" will boot. Inside the /boot folder of the Arch ARM release is a 2.6 mb file called uImage.

Of course it does not boot.

AFAIK, the Infocast 8 has a two-stage booting system. First some code is run from NAND, then it goes over to the uSD card. I'm not exactly sure what to ask here, but it seems I need to know how to change something in the boot process, to let it see the /boot/uImage file on the Arch uSD card. I'm thinking that that file is the Arch kernel.

I don't have the Infocast 8 in front of me at the moment. But I seem to recall that the Infocast 8 /boot folder has a vmlinuz and an initramfs in it.

Confusingly, this Arch ARM page says:

"The released downloads are designed for the specific systems above; however, our package repositories work with any ARM device compatible with ARMv5 or Cortex-A8/A9 instructions. Simply download the tarball that best fits and supply your own kernel." So do I have a kernel (/boot/uImage) or don't I? If not, do I have to compile one? (This is probably more a question for the Arch folks.)

Wouldn't the kernel be the /boot/uImage file? I feel I am missing something basic here. I've been over the forums until I think I've memorized them. I've seen that people have put up some sorts of alternate systems that don't need to be done through the chroot method.

Can anyone enlighten me as to what I'm doing wrong? And what is the mysterious unknown partition 1? Does something need to be changed in there?

Many thanks for any help!

Brian, #1 Joan Jett Fan

2 (edited by unwiredben 2013-05-14 08:37:09)

Re: Alternate o/s for the Infocast 8, booting issue.

http://wiki.blueocty.com/index.php?titl … for_chumby has information about replacing the kernel on the Chumby.  The Infocast is a Silvermoon device, so it looks like its NAND bootloader is looking for a file named /boot/vmlinuz which is the linux kernel image compressed with gzip.  Try putting the Chumby's /boot/vmlinuz in the /boot folder in the Arch distro and see what happens.

Edit: apparently, someone else is also working on this, see http://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic … amp;t=3275

Re: Alternate o/s for the Infocast 8, booting issue.

Thanks unwiredben. Yeh, that's my thread over there....I thought that guy grizzly was on here too. I'll try your suggestion and report back.

Brian

Brian, #1 Joan Jett Fan