Parallella Ubuntu 14.04 release

[ameetgandhare]

Hi All,

I am trying to get my Parallella board to boot with "headless" configuration. I have followed all the (on PC/Linux) steps from step 1 to step 6. I downloaded and burned http://downloads.parallella.org/ubuntu/ ... 611.img.gz on my micro SDHC card I got with the board.
After burning the image file. I tried to mount the partition on a mount point on my host PC just to check if the burning was correct. I tried giving various file system options with the mount command, but couldn't mount it on my host PC. The host Linux flashed message

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdc2,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

The dmesg output does not reveal any thing useful.

So I booted the parallella board(with headless configuration files) and connected the USB-RS232 cable, started Minicom terminal software with right parameters, and powered up the board. I could see messages saying that the U-BOOT loaded the Linux kernel(headless version) downloaded from the specified location. The kernel panics while mounting the file system on the parallela board

No filesystem could mount root, tried: ext4
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(179,2)

It seems either the wrong root file system type is being used or image is not valid(failed to mount on PC/Linux host as swell as on Parallella board) .

Please let me know if any of you faced the same problem and how did you solve the problem or what mistake I might be making.

Does anybody know What is the file system name for which the image has been created ?
Please help. Thanks in advance.

[ajtravis]

[9600]

Can you try running through the SD card process once again, but type "sync" at the end of step 4 and wait for the command to complete before moving on to step 5. Looks to me as though your root filesystem did get fully written out or was somehow otherwise corrupted.

Regards,

Andrew

[ajtravis]

[9600]

Tony, my reply was to @ameetgandhare, who appears to be booting a kernel which is then unable to mount a root filesystem.

Regards,

Andrew

[ajtravis]

[maynarde]

If you are bothered by the timezone not setting - it is because the timezone data has circular symbolic links. I simply copied the /usr/share/timezone folder from my PC Ubuntu distro over the same directory on the SD card in the rootfs partition. Works like a charm now.

[capiman]

Hi,
I just got my board, wanting to use headless images.
I am able to start booting, but during boot it hangs. I have connected a USB <-> serial converter,
so I can see output from kernel:

...
hidraw: raw HID events driver (C) Jiri Kosina
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
usbhid: USB HID core driver
mmc0: new high speed SDHC card at address b368
mmcblk0: mmc0:b368 USD 7.46 GiB
ashmem: initialized
mmcblk0: p1 p2
logger: created 256K log 'log_main'
logger: created 256K log 'log_events'
logger: created 256K log 'log_radio'
logger: created 256K log 'log_system'
TCP: cubic registered
NET: Registered protocol family 17
Registering SWP/SWPB emulation handler
drivers/rtc/hctosys.c: unable to open rtc device (rtc0)
ALSA device list:
No soundcards found.
EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p2): recovery complete
EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p2): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
VFS: Mounted root (ext4 filesystem) on device 179:2.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 188K (c0878000 - c08a7000)
Mount failed for selinuxfs on /sys/fs/selinux: No such file or directory
íZ+ïù☻é▒ÕÁ¢ıÐíÁ¬┴═Ðà╔ÐÁ↕╔ÑæØòüjàÑ╣üé╔¢ìò══ü*╣æòæ▒☻Æò═┴à¦╣Ñ╣Ø5☻ init: plymouth-upstart-bridge main process (893) terminated w
íZ+ïù☻é▒ÕÁ¢ıÐíÁ¬┴═Ðà╔ÐÁ↕╔ÑæØòüjàÑ╣üé╔¢ìò══ü*╣æòæ▒☻Æò═┴à¦╣Ñ╣Ø5☻ init: plymouth-upstart-bridge main process (897) terminated w
íZ+ïù☻é▒ÕÁ¢ıÐíÁ¬┴═Ðà╔ÐÁ↕╔ÑæØòüjàÑ╣üé╔¢ìò══ü*╣æòæ▒☻Æò═┴à¦╣Ñ╣Ø5☻

I don't reach a prompt and network (SSH) worked only once.

I assume I need the changes suggested for devicetree.dts
But I don't have an environment (at least I think so) to create the devicetree.dtb
(Windows computer, I have a raspberry pi, if this helps)

Can someone upload the needed devicetree.dtb, so I can directly use it?

Or can someone give me a step-by-step tutorial, what I need to do from using the ubuntu 14.04 (from June 2014)
- headless image, to be able to login to parallela board. I have no HDMI cable here,
so at the moment only headless via network is possible.

Is it correct that headless has DHCP client enabled? Or does it work with a fixed IP address?

Many thanks!

Best regards,

Martin

[maynarde]

Capiman-

I am going to assume that you are more familiar with Linux than I am. I started in exactly the same place as you but I have everything working like a charm (except for eclipse - just starting down that path). Some notes:

1) The images on the parallella site _do_ work.
2) You can use the HDMI versions headless and they work as well - you can always try this as it only involves changing the BOOT files. Just makes the FPGA run a little warmer.
3) The console cable seems to be problematic - I've put mine away since SSH works just fine. It just seems to mess a lot of stuff up when it is plugged in.
4) Not sure how you find out your IP address, I use Angry IP scanner. Use this to find your device on the network.
5) Sometimes on the first power up of the day, my system does not acquire an IP address. Likewise, it might not initialize the USB hub either. I have gotten into the habit of starting it up - wait 1 minute - search for it using Angry IP scanner - if it is not there, do a quick power cycle (10 count) or a longer power cycle (30 seconds) if I want to go for the USB hub. It pretty much always shows up on the second boot.
6) At this point you should be able to SSH in since the image is set up to start it
7) You can fix your timezone information if it bugs you
8) You can also set up a VNC server at this point.

Now here's the part that I skipped - I did boot it once with all the peripherals attached (monitor, keyboard, mouse, powered USB hub) so i don't know if that is important.

Good luck and stay in there!

Ed

[capiman]

Many thanks for your hints!

Meanwhile I was able to log in once again. I saw that dtc is installed in parallella
and executed the changed directly on the board.

The init sequence has changed and runs longer:

...
* Stopping Send an event to indicate plymouth is up←[74G[ OK ]
* Starting System V initialisation compatibility←[74G[ OK ]
* Starting configure network device security←[74G[ OK ]
* Starting modem connection manager←[74G[ OK ]
* Starting configure network device security←[74G[ OK ]
Starting fake hwclock: loading system time.
* Starting configure network device←[74G[ OK ]
Tue Aug 5 15:42:48 UTC 2014
* Starting Mount network filesystems←[74G[ OK ]
* Starting Failsafe Boot Delay←[74G[ OK ]
* Starting network connection manager←[74G[ OK ]
* Stopping Mount network filesystems←[74G[ OK ]
* Starting configure virtual network devices←[74G[ OK ]
* Starting Bridge socket events into upstart←[74G[ OK ]
* Starting Bridge file events into upstart←[74G[ OK ]
←[74G[ OK ]up X socket directories... ←[80G
* Stopping System V initialisation compatibility←[74G[ OK ]

But still (most of the time) no answer from ping, nor login possible via SSH.
I am still using the headless version, will try to switch to HDMI version to compare,
if there is a difference.

Best regards,

Martin