Some issue with Angstrom

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21

narcissus just hangs every time, for me.
i get a green check next to preconfiguring image, but nothing moves after that.

following guidelines here: http://elinux.org/ECE497_Lab01_Installing_Angstrom_via_Narcissus

22

It happens to me too if I select a lot of stuff.
I ended up to build an image with minimal packages - you will install the others later, using opkg.
In this way you'll get the download link in a couple of minutes.

I added all kernel modules and nothing else.
But it miss a lot of important things! For example all standard commands (ls, grep, etc...) are not available.

Which package will provide them?

23

Marco,

If you have a Linux PC, then the easy way to create an Angstrom Image on your SD card is:

  1. Download one of the 2 files at http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/demo/beagleboard/ that end with .gz. I believe that Angstrom-Cloud9-IDE-eglibc-ipk-v2011.11-core-beagleboard-2011.11.21.img.gz is closest to, maybe identical to, the one from the CircuitCo web site – it’s the one that I used, anyway.
  2. Insert the SD card.
  3. Run the following, where /dev/sdX is the device ID for your SD card:
  $ sudo -s
   (type in your password)
  # zcat Angstrom-Cloud9-IDE-eglibc-ipk-v2011.11-core-beagleboard-2011.11.21.img.gz > /dev/sdX
  # exit

If you take this approach, you can ignore the instructions on that page about formatting the SD Card and copying over the MLO, etc. The image file already has already taken care of all that.

These instructions are, unfortunately, not on the Beagleboard demo files page – instead, you’ll find them on the Beaglebone demo files page: http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/demo/beaglebone/

If you only have a Windows PC, not Linux, then it is best to follow the instructions on CircuitCo’s web site instead.

By the way, Narcissus is, I think, for more advanced users who require very specific packages in their image file. I haven’t used it recently.

Dan.

25

the sd card still needs to be formated with mkcard.txt though, correct?

26

You may use mkcard.txt or you can do the partitions with fdisk and mkfs.
If you want to dd the image directly there's no need to do anything else before.

27

I was refering to using zcat… is using mkcard still needed?

  $ sudo -s
   (type in your password)
  # zcat Angstrom-Cloud9-IDE-eglibc-ipk-v2011.11-core-beagleboard-2011.11.21.img.gz > /dev/sdX
  # exit
28

No, you don’t need to run mkcard. The zcat command will write a “raw image” to the SD card – the existing partitions on the SD card will be wiped out.

Dan.

29

Hi Marco,

Cloud9 is a Node.JS IDE that runs in a browser. ( https://github.com/ajaxorg/cloud9/ ). The Beagleboard demo image includes the Cloud9 server. Cloud9 is one of the central features of the Beaglebone demo image, and has made its way over to the Beagleboard by popular demand.

I don’t think an X Server is included in that image, but I don’t have access to my BB-XM right now to check.

Sorry, I don’t know what’s in the other images either – like you, I haven’t found any documentation. Not being a Linux whiz, I stick to the prepackaged .img.gz files, then install/uninstall packages as needed.

I haven’t used Narcissus for a year or two. Back when I did, the approach described in this blog worked: http://treyweaver.blogspot.ca/2010/10/installing-angstrom-on-beagleboard-xm.html. In particular, I needed to run the shell script to prepare the SD card, and I needed to include the Bootloader files in the Narcissus build and manually extract the MLO, etc. from there.

Dan.