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[ts-7000] Re: Debian Lenny Armel EABI on TS-7390

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Subject: [ts-7000] Re: Debian Lenny Armel EABI on TS-7390
From: "Dunge2" <>
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:45:01 -0000
Thanks everyone for this help!

I found out my error. I tried to put back etch as I was doing before on the 
same card, and it was still not booting. So something else was wrong. I then 
tried to install lenny/armel on my old card, and it booted! Both cards are 
Kingston, but the non-booting one was 512mb and the working one is 2GB. I guess 
this have to do with geometry/cylinders difference. I'll keep the old TS kernel 
since I don't need more features for now.

I still don't know if it's faster though. New problem is getting Xorg running. 
I tried many things, managed to get through a few errors, but it still won't 
start. I guess many details are missing in this distribution and it would be 
very hard to execute it.

I know most people seems to recommend using Qt, but since our application is 
using GTK+, we have either the choice to use Xorg or DirectFB. So I guess I'll 
go and try to get GTK-DirectFB working. I did it previously with etch, 
rebuilding every libs cause packages were not up-to-date enough, but on lenny 
they are. I just have to find out how to link against them,.. will probably be 
able to handle it.

--- In  "akmartin73" <> wrote:
>
> The kernel will execute EABI even if you're running arm (etch) and not armel 
> (lenny). The key is to use an EABI toolchain and statically link your 
> executable. Unless that's not practical because of dependencies, it's 
> probably the simplest way to find out whether EABI will help your app's 
> performance. (See 
> ftp://ftp.embeddedarm.com/touch-panel-computers/ts-tpc-7390-linux/cross-toolchains/README.EABIvsOABI)
> 
> Unfortunately you can't use Martin's toolchain for kernel because gcc 4.1.1 
> miscompiles __weak, but it seems to work just fine otherwise. Just make sure 
> you force static linking in your build if you're running etch because unlike 
> the TS toolchain, Martin's does not static link default.
> 
> To run lenny, I opened my working SD on my local machine, reformatted and 
> mounted partition 4 then unpacked the lenny filesystem. Be sure to untar as 
> root or you won't get everything. If you follow Ted's instructions exactly it 
> should work. The problem I had initially getting his instructions to work was 
> ignoring the drive geometry bits.
> 
> My approach has been to start with a working SD card using stock images and 
> filesystems and make sure everything works, then change only one partition 
> (eg filesystem or kernel) so I really know if the problem is my new partition 
> or the whole card. So trying to get a new kernel working I can switch back to 
> the TS kernel and if it boots I know I haven't borked something else.
> 
> I still don't have this whole thing figured out myself, but if you can avoid 
> building a new kernel you may save yourself some headaches. I need latest 
> bluetooth drivers and bluez4 so unfortunately I have to use a later 
> kernel+distro.
> 
> Good luck,
> Andy
> 
> 
> --- In  "Dunge2" <dunge2@> wrote:
> >
> > Hello all,
> > 
> > Sorry, I know this has been discussed a lot before, but I'm missing some 
> > answers.
> > 
> > We are developing a GTK+ application on this board. We were preparing the 
> > dev SDCARD as follow:
> > fdisk, create 4 partitions, 2+3 as Non-FS
> > # dd if=sd-mbr.dd of=/dev/sda bs=440 count=1 
> > # dd if=kernel-image-latest.dd of=/dev/sda2 
> > # dd if=initrd-busybox-rootfs-latest.dd of=/dev/sda3 
> > # mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sda4 
> > # (mount, untar debian-etch-xorg-512mb-aug252008.tar.gz, unmount)
> > The device then booted on the SDcard on a etch/arm distribution and our 
> > application ran EXTREMELY slow. So I got as a goal to gives it a speed 
> > boost, and after searching a bit I learned about EABI/armel.
> > 
> > So I grabbed this distribution from TS ftp and extracted to partition4 
> > instead of etch: debian-lenny-eabi-armel-512mb-apr092009.tar.gz
> > 
> > Of course, simply doing this the device won't boot anymore.
> > 
> > Question #1: Does the kernel-image-latest.dd is compiled to support EABI or 
> > only OABI?
> > Question #2: Does I need to update the initrd to be in EABI too or since 
> > the EABI kernel also support OABI it's unneeded? Cause I can't find any 
> > EABI initrd on the TS ftp.
> > Question #3: I communicated by email by a certain Martin guy who seemed to 
> > know a lot about this. He recommended to use his cross-compiler instead of 
> > the one on the TS website, because he patched GCC to use "armv4t, eabi and 
> > maverik-crunch fix" which supposedly gives even more speed boost for 
> > floating points. Is that a good choice? The link is:
> > http://freaknet.org/martin/crosstool/packages/arm-ep9312-linux-gnueabi-gcc-g++-4.1.1-glibc-2.4-crosstool_0.42-1_i686.tgz
> > 
> > Finally, on this mailing list I found this guide link:
> > http://ted.openavr.org/Lenny-on-ts7390/
> > It seems nice, but I wonder why he goes trough the trouble of 
> > debootstrapping when TS offer a debian-eabi already packaged 
> > (debian-lenny-eabi-armel-512mb-apr092009.tar.gz).
> > 
> > So, the most important question is, how do I get this thing to boot?!
> > Thanks
> >
>




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