Hi,
today I upgraded my BeagleBone to check SPI device drivers, which
didn't work in 3.1.0+.
I did the following:
# opkg --tmp-dir ~ update
# opkg --tmp-dir ~ upgrade
(I used root's homedir as tmp-dir to avoid overflow of the tmp fs)
After succesful upgrading the /boot directory looked like this:
# ls -l /boot
total 6017
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 33 Feb 9 10:16 uEnv.txt
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Feb 10 09:46 uImage -> uImage-3.2.0+
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3042328 Jan 27 10:31 uImage-3.1.0+
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3116584 Feb 7 11:17 uImage-3.2.0+
After rebooting "uname -a" shows me that I am running still 3.1.0+.
So I mounted the FAT32 partition:
# mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt
# ls -l /mnt
total 3354
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 2048 Nov 16 15:28 Docs
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 2048 Nov 16 15:28 Drivers
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 2048 Jan 16 18:05 FRITZ
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5829 Nov 16 14:06 LICENSE.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 37151 Nov 16 15:36 MLO
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 19319 Nov 16 14:06 README.htm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 178 Nov 16 14:06 autorun.inf
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 93860 Feb 10 09:52 info.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230240 Nov 16 15:36 u-boot.img
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 33 Nov 16 15:36 uEnv.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3031456 Nov 16 15:36 uImage
Then I copied /boot/uImage-3.2.0+ to /mnt/uImage.
After unmounting and rebooting the 3.2.0+ kernel runs now:
# uname -a
Linux beaglebone 3.2.0+ #3 Tue Feb 7 11:52:09 CET 2012 armv7l GNU/Linux
Success!
But loading any module gives an error:
# modprobe spidev
FATAL: Could not load /lib/modules/3.2.0+/modules.dep: No such file or directory
# ls -l /lib/modules/3.2.0+
total 1
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 1024 Feb 9 17:51 kernel
All the modules.* files are missing!
Here the old ones:
# ls -l /lib/modules/3.1.0+
total 17
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 1024 Feb 10 09:44 kernel
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 151 Feb 10 09:51 modules.alias
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 154 Feb 10 09:51 modules.alias.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 69 Feb 10 09:51 modules.ccwmap
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 186 Feb 10 09:51 modules.dep
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 387 Feb 10 09:51 modules.dep.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 52 Feb 10 09:51 modules.devname
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 73 Feb 10 09:51 modules.ieee1394map
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 141 Feb 10 09:51 modules.inputmap
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 81 Feb 10 09:51 modules.isapnpmap
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 74 Feb 10 09:51 modules.ofmap
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 99 Feb 10 09:51 modules.pcimap
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 43 Feb 10 09:51 modules.seriomap
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 131 Feb 10 09:51 modules.softdep
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 237 Feb 10 09:51 modules.symbols
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 282 Feb 10 09:51 modules.symbols.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 551 Feb 10 09:51 modules.usbmap
When I look to the date/timestamp I thought the modules.* files
have been installed into the wrong directory 
All other kernel files seem to be in the right directory:
# du -sh /lib/modules/*
122K /lib/modules/3.1.0+
17M /lib/modules/3.2.0+
Many files of 3.1.0+ have been removed by opkg, many files
in 3.2.0+ are new and are in the right directory:
# find /lib/modules/ -name spidev.ko
/lib/modules/3.2.0+/kernel/drivers/spi/spidev.ko
It seems that only the modules.* files are in the
wrong directory...
So I copied the files into the 3.2.0+ directory:
# cp -a /lib/modules/3.1.0+/modules.* /lib/modules/3.2.0+/
and tried:
# modprobe spidev
FATAL: Module spidev not found.
Should I use another linux distribution for the BeagleBone?
It seems that I cannot count on the Angstrom distribution,
because there is also something other going wrong now:
# opkg --tmp-dir ~ update
... [no errors]
# opkg --tmp-dir ~ upgrade
Upgrading iw on root from 0.9.20-r0 to 3.2-r1...
...
shadow-dev: unsatisfied recommendation for pam-plugin-mail-dev
shadow-dev: unsatisfied recommendation for libpam-runtime-dev
shadow-dev: unsatisfied recommendation for pam-plugin-env-dev
shadow-dev: unsatisfied recommendation for pam-plugin-shells-dev
shadow-dev: unsatisfied recommendation for pam-plugin-limits-dev
shadow-dev: unsatisfied recommendation for pam-plugin-group-dev
shadow-dev: unsatisfied recommendation for pam-plugin-securetty-dev
shadow-dev: unsatisfied recommendation for pam-plugin-lastlog-dev
shadow-dev: unsatisfied recommendation for pam-plugin-nologin-dev
shadow-dev: unsatisfied recommendation for pam-plugin-faildelay-dev
shadow-dev: unsatisfied recommendation for pam-plugin-motd-dev
shadow-dev: unsatisfied recommendation for pam-plugin-rootok-dev
Upgrading shadow on root from 4.1.4.3-r5 to 4.1.4.3-r7...
Collected errors:
* check_data_file_clashes: Package libnl-3-200 wants to install file /etc/libnl/pktloc
But that file is already provided by package * libnl2
* check_data_file_clashes: Package libnl-3-200 wants to install file /etc/libnl/pktloc
But that file is already provided by package * libnl2
* check_data_file_clashes: Package shadow wants to install file /etc/login.defs
But that file is already provided by package * shadow-sysroot
* check_data_file_clashes: Package shadow wants to install file /etc/login.defs
But that file is already provided by package * shadow-sysroot
This is no really reliable (or stable) distro for me...
Regards,
Frank