ARM Slack -> Beagleboard newbie questions
 

Hi!

I am trying to get ARM Slack onto my Beagleboard rev C4, by piece-meal replacement of files on a working Angstrom installation. I am a complete newbie with ARM. Angstrom worked out of the box, as it requires not much to install it. The ARM slack is from: slack-13.37-miniroot_01May11.tar.

I figured, it would be a good exercise to "port" Slackware in this tedious way. But all my attemps have been absolutely frustrating, and I have no clue what's going wrong. So I would be really glad if someone could help me out.

I started with replacing /sbin/init. The result was, that the kernel couldn't find it. Which is strange, since there should be no problem: The ELF headers of the angstrom and the slackware init are identical (ARM, version 0x1, Version4 EABI), of course with different entry points etc. It cannot be a library problem, as both inits are statically linked. So, why does the arm init not work? Any clues anybody???


Ok, roll back, using angstrom's init again. I tried to replace getty, which did not work. Roll back. Then I changed the init process by replacing /etc/inittab and by providing the startup files, copying /etc/rc.d/*. But to no avail.

Init starts with these (partly) strange messages:

INIT: version 2.86 booting
single user...
grep: /proc/filesystems: No such file or directory
grep: /proc/mounts: No such file or directory
INIT: Entering runlevel: 3o such file
Going multiuser...

I don't know, but I thought that the kernel would provide the /proc hierarchy, irrespective of the platform. Where is the proc fs??

Then, at the end of the startup, comes the really nice part, that spoils the fun even more:

INIT: Id "c1" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: Id "s0" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: Id "c2" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: Id "c3" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes

So, that's all I could "achieve". Umm, basically nothing.

The part of my /etc/inittab that handles consoles reads as follows:
c1:12345:respawn:/sbin/getty 115200 tty1 linux
c2:12345:respawn:/sbin/getty 115200 ttyS1 linux
c3:12345:respawn:/sbin/getty 115200 ttyS2 linux
s0:12345:respawn:/sbin/getty 115200 ttyS0 vt100

That's the (working!) console line of Angstrom's inittab:
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1

Frustrating times, again with compiling ;-)
I have never cross-compiled. So I checked the GCC man page for options. When I applied the options according to the man page, gcc dropped me a line, saying that the option is not known. What`s that? Good documentation is really valuable, thank you! So, as I am running 32-bit slackware, using GCC version 4.5.2, could anybody please tell me proper (and sane) compile options for a cross-compile to ARM. Beagleboard C4 should be a Cortex-A8 CPU.

Maybe I make some (or a lot) really stupid mistakes, no idea. Any help, hints would be greatly appreciated! :-)

Thanks!!
GP

Hi,

I suggest reading through this:
http://lists.armedslack.org/pipermai...ne/000445.html

And then, asking on the ARMedslack mailing list, where you will find more people focused on this port of Slackware.

I installed Slackware ARM on the pandaboard, which is similar to the beagleboard.

Here are some notes:

http://giovanni.wordpress.com/pandaboard/

I hope that info can help you.

Thank you both for the links!!

gp

I was thinking about trying Slackware on the Pandaboard in the past. I no longer have access to a Pandaboard, but I'll save this because it will definately help if I ever buy myself one.