This is an old revision of the document!
Slackwarearm-14.1 ChangeLog (2013-01-01)
Tue Jan 1 01:20:13 UTC 2013
Toolchain and Kernel updates! This is the first time I've provided Kernels
with support for the Flattened Device Tree ('FTD'). I've shipped each Kernel
package with all of the '.dtb' files for the corresponding architecture - you'll
find them in '/boot/dtb'. The Kernels also _support_ having a DTB appended to
the Kernel zImage in case your version of U-Boot does not support FDT. If this
is the case, please read '/kernels/README.TXT' – but note that none of the
Kernels actually have any DTB appended.
I've been running the 3.7.1 Kernels for just over two weeks here on the Tegra20
and Kirkwood platforms, and they've proven to be stable. Unfortunately I've not
been able to get the 'versatile' Kernel in a good state due to a problem with the
'SYM53C8XX' SCSI driver (see below). If anyone can help fix that, please let me
know and send the fix upstream too.
Make sure you read and fully understand the notes for the 'Tegra/Trimslice'
kernels, otherwise you might get grumpy!
Happy new year!
Stuart.
/INSTALL_TEGRA.TXT: Updated.
Updated boot configuration settings to use DTB (Device Tree Blob) files.
You will need to upgrade the version of 'U-Boot' on your Trimslice in order
to boot the latest kernel provided in this batch.
I suggest first upgrading the kernel, then rebooting into the U-Boot command
prompt; upgrading the U-Boot firmware, reconfiguring then rebooting into the
new kernel.
See the first section of this document for more details.
Packages
Upgraded
- a/kernel_kirkwood-3.7.1-arm-1.tgz
Tested on booting on:
OpenRD Client
“U-Boot 1.1.4 (Oct 27 2009 - 21:57:24) Marvell version: 3.4.19”
SheevaPlug Development Kit:
“U-Boot 1.1.4 (Dec 27 2009 - 22:03:21) Marvell version: 3.4.27”
I would assume that since these old versions of U-Boot support booting this
new kernel, any newer versions of U-Boot will also work correctly.
For this Kirkwood kernel upgrade, you should be safe to just upgrade the
kernel and reboot. - a/kernel_tegra-3.7.1-arm-1.tgz
Once you have updated your U-Boot configuration (see above)
you need to update U-Boot config - refer to section 5.0 (“Booting the Slackware
ARM OS”) in the '/INSTALL_TEGRA.TXT' document. You will need to ensure you're
familiar with your existing partitioning scheme and adjust the settings
accordingly, as you would have originally when you installed Slackware on to
your TrimSlice. If you followed the partitioning scheme as described in the
documents, you can safely paste in the lines exactly as in the revised version
of the same document, save, and reboot.
Important note: You MUST remove all instances of memory configuration
values from your U-Boot settings. The Tegra install document (above)
contains values such as:
mem=384M@0M mem=512M@512M nvmem=128M@384M vmalloc=248M video=tegrafb
If you have any of those settings in your U-Boot configuration, they will
prevent the kernel from booting. Use the U-Boot 'printenv' command to
view your current settings, and 'setenv' to adjust the variables to remove
any instances of the above, then 'save;reset' to conclude the changes.
Whilst it's certainly not ideal to lose half of your useable RAM, it is
currently the only option until the Trimslice developers provide a new
U-Boot.
- a/kernel_versatile-3.7.1-arm-1.tgz
Tested with QEMU-1.3.0.
The SCSI driver ('SYM53C8XX') is broken in this release, so this kernel
is of limited value. I tried compiling it as a module and into the
kernel, but it fails:
[ 127.124417] sym0: SCSI BUS has been reset.
[ 132.117466] scsi 0:0:2:0: HOST RESET operation timed-out.
[ 132.117640] scsi 0:0:2:0: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery
[ 153.157485] scsi 0:0:3:0: ABORT operation started
Please do let me know if you know how to fix it!
Other than this particular issue with this driver, the kernel seems reliable.
Rebuilt
- ap/slackpkg-2.82.0-arm-4.tgz
Added the up to date mirror list from http://www.armedslack.org/getslack/ - xap/seamonkey-2.14.1-armhfp-2.tgz
I had previously built these packages with optimisations for the ARMv6 CPU.
However, I have now reverted the optimisations to 'armv5t'. This is due to
Slackware ARM stable releases being maintained on ARMv5 hardware.
The packages are still named 'hfp' since in order to run the packages, you still
need a hardware floating point unit (although they can still be _compiled_ on
systems without an FPU). - isolinux/*
You may notice that the size of the installer images has decreased. This is
because I have removed the unnecessary firmware from /lib/firmware. All of it
was for network interface cards that do not exist on the supported platforms,
and just wastes RAM when the installer is running.
kernels/README.TXT: Updated.
Added a section describing how to extract the 'zImage' from the U-Boot 'uImage'
files, and how to append a DTB (Device Tree Blob) to the zImage. You may need
to do this if your U-Boot does not support loading DTBs directly and cannot be
upgraded.
Added
- d/device-tree-compiler-1.3.0-arm-1.tgz
This tool is for working with Flattened Device Tree (FTD) and
Device Tree Source (DTS). For more information on Device Trees, see:
http://elinux.org/Device_Trees
http://www.devicetree.org
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1647051&seqNum=5
http://elinux.org/images/4/48//Experiences_With_Device_Tree_Support_Development_For_ARM-Based_SOC's.pdf
You need this to be installed in order to build the 'DTB' files that are now
shipped with the Slackware ARM kernels. - extra/kpartx/kpartx-0.4.9+git0.4dfdaf2b.6-arm-1.tgz
kpartx is part of the Linux 'multipath-tools' package. It's particularly useful
for creating device mappings to the partitions within disk 'image' files. You
can then loopback mount the newly created device mappings to access the contents. - kernels/*/dtb/*
Added the 'DTB' files for each supported architecture.
The DTB files are generated from the 'linux-x.x/arch/arm/boot/dts' directory
within the Linux kernel source, and are refreshed every time a kernel package
is built.
Giuseppe Di Terlizzi