[fedora-arm] Fedora 21 Allwinner A10 Booting?

[Robert Brown]

For the benefit of others this is about booting this device without 
having serial console or a monitor to view first boot prompts.
On 14/12/14 11:27, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
>
> On 12/13/2014 01:52 AM, Robert Brown wrote:
>>
>> On 08/12/14 22:36, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
>>> On 12/08/2014 06:30 AM, Robert Brown wrote:
>>>> On 08/12/14 22:11, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
>>>>> On 12/08/2014 05:16 AM, Robert Brown wrote:
>>>>>> Thanks for the reply.
>>>>>> On 08/12/14 14:43, Peter Robinson wrote:
>>>>>>> On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 10:57 PM, Robert Brown 
>>>>>>> <rebrown at exemail.com.au> wrote:
>>>>>>>> Anyone working on a FC21 image for the A10? My device does not 
>>>>>>>> give me
>>>>>>>> access to a serial monitor so am hoping to change the dtb file 
>>>>>>>> for the A10
>>>>>>>> on a remix build and get this unit booting on 3.17.
>>>>>>>> Thanks
>>>>>>> You don't mention what your device is but a change in the .dtb 
>>>>>>> won't
>>>>>>> fix the lack of display, there's a complete lack of driver,
>>>>>> Yes my wording could have been better.
>>>>>> Changing the .dtb was only about getting the device to boot as I 
>>>>>> realise hdmi is not yet ready.
>>>>>> The device is a Rikomagic MK802II. Booting it headless with 3.17 
>>>>>> is my aim but the soldering job for a serial console is a 
>>>>>> challenge beyond my soldering skills - see 
>>>>>> http://www.rikomagic.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2488
>>>>>> so am hoping some-one with a compatible device such as Mele A1000 
>>>>>> or CB1 could develop an image. A howto for the build and to get 
>>>>>> wireless configured for an ssh connection is an alternative.
>>>>>
>>>>> You could just try booting without serial console if you provide 
>>>>> --norootpass on building the SD card.   SSHD permits logging in as 
>>>>> root, just don't do this on the Internet, as you are sitting wide 
>>>>> open!
>>>> I think I would need to manually configure and select my local 
>>>> network SSID and passphrase to get it on the network so I can ssh 
>>>> to it. A new world for me under systemd.
>>>
>>> After first boot, you can see what interface name it used, the 
>>> create an appropriate ifcfg- file.  They still work.
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Thinking about the firstboot script the only really needed things 
>>>>> it does is set the timezone and root password.  You can add your 
>>>>> user after logging in as root.
>>>>>
>>>>> I would suspect that if no serial console, it just comes up as 
>>>>> ready as possible.  All you need is your WiFi to be working; that 
>>>>> is a pretty big assumption.  You might have to get a supported 
>>>>> ethernet dongle.
>>>> As above.
>>>>>
>>>>> What has happened in booting without a serial console so far?
>>>> I am running blind so I either see a new connection open up when I 
>>>> do an nmap search from my PC or more likely there is no new 
>>>> connection for the reasons I mention. The real trick is to know if 
>>>> I have even had a successful boot.
>>>
>>> What else are you going to do right now but try?
>> So on my attempts using Fedora-LXDE-armhfp-21-5-sda.raw.xz written to 
>> the sdcard using the manual instructions here 
>> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/ARM/F21/Installation
>> including writing the appropriate u-boot to the media
>>
>> and setting up wpa using tips from 
>> http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Laptops/WpaSupplicant with edits of 
>> /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf and 
>> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0
>
> Do you know what ethernet name is being used?  Since your WiFi is a 
> USB dongle, there are a lot of possiblities.  All the more reason for 
> journalctl.
>
> If you know the MAC address you can create:
>
> /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
>
> SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", 
> ATTR{address}=="02:c3:04:01:77:c3", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", 
> NAME="wlan0"
>
> This will 'fix' the name you need for ifcfg-wlan0
I will have ago at this but atm I don't think I am getting far into the 
boot. Certainly does not seem to be logging in. Not sure if networking 
can be enabled prior to login to allow ssh connection.
>
>> I don't believe the boot is getting very far as messages in /var/log 
>> is empty.
>
> No /var/log/messages anymore.  It is all journalctl.  Look in that 
> directory.

 From my reading on journalctl I have not seen how to view any logs it 
may have created. /var/log contains a folder named journal but this is 
also empty so maybe same conclusion.
>
>> Maybe because I am not yet logged in. Tried setting autologin  in 
>> lxdm.conf.
>
> Would not know about lxdm.conf
Yes I have considered using Minimal or xfce instead.