Re: [gentoo-user] Re: question regarding usb gadget / eth usb

[meino.cramer@gmx.de]

Hi James :)

James <wireless@tampabay.rr.com> [14-11-14 02:38]:
>  <meino.cramer <at> gmx.de> writes:
> 
> 
> > http://www.acmesystems.it/arietta
> 
> A very neat looking device for arm9.
> 
> > I setup a sdcard as described there and the board boots --
> > as far as I can tell, since the user led on the board starts to 
> > play the heartbeat blues ;)
> 
> > Now...
> 
> > I cannot access the board.
> 
> 
> It looks (quick scan of their site only) like the vendor is only supporting
> their debian image. So I would work with that image to profile and gain
> insight into what the kernel supports/needs and aget everything working
> first with their debian image....

The first (and only) thing I wanted to do with the debian image was 
to check, whether the board is ok and running (no case of warranty).

After that: GENTOO! :))

> 
> > As far as I understood the docs, the board uses ethernet over usb
> > and I thought (read: dont know for sure), that gentoo should
> > load the appropiate kernel modules itsself ... but it doesnt.
> 
> Look carefully at the docs the vendor supplies. Reseach what is
> typcially included with a generic arm9 processor and what features
> they make available, to the pins on there board. There might me
> a serial port console hardwared to a grooup of 2 or 3 pins. You might
> have to "toggle" some of the debian software to activate the serial
> console, as it is normal for embedded board vendors to support a lesser
> number of pins on the circuit board to minmize the size, while claiming
> a greater number of features that (possibly) exist in sofware. Often you
> have to pay extra for keen features to be enable. 

In the meanwhile I found the IP Adress, the board is falling back to.
I managed to setup RNDIS and Ethernet over USB and could ifconfig
an new usb0 to an appropiate address.
Finally I found the password for that board and could login via ssh.
O happy day! (read: "Oh happy early night"...I started 3:00 o'clock this
morning...hrrmppphhf)

> Understand this about "ARM" processors. ARM ltd owns reference designs
> and implementations. Different vendors either license and modify (customize)
> the arm processor or license from another licensee a unique arm
> implementation. So the Vendors 100% control the actual processor's features
> and most use a matrix to figure out what and whom to make available to
> it's customers. I. E. there is no such thing as a "Arm 9" processor
> because there are thousands of variants. This is one the keenest reasons
> for theirn(ARM Ltd) success as their licensees have a granularity of control
> over their products that no other silicon (wholesaler) vendor allows,
> except for expensive custom FPGA and ASIC based processors.
> 
> So this also means that both the NSA and Other countries intelligence
> services can have undocumented features (backdoors if you like) into
> any hareware that you purchase; not limited to ARM.
> 
> Your vendor holds the keys to what you seek. However, over time folks
> discover things by "brute force experimentation" very simimlar to
> software hacking...... WRT (& others) has many images that work on many
> different arm processors, so that is also a good keyword to include in your
> searches.

  ...will look for a stage 3 image/archive of gentoo for this little
  beast. Many distribution are too colorful ;) and to much "emulating
  ...hrrrmmmm.... known OSes" for me. I do like more these old school
  stuff...not so much OK/CANCEL decisions to confirm that I really
  want what I have confirmed, which is my will.
  Just:Do it! ... so in the worts case, my faults remain /my/ faults
  ;)

  Ok, I could log into the board in the meanwhile and it seems to
  work. Mission accomplished.
  Next will be to setup GENTOO for that board.

  By the way: It is really fascinating...when UNIX recognized the
  electrical light of the world, computers had a printer and a 
  keyboard and were of the size of a greater room. And one could
  count the CPU cycles in realtime. PDP10/PDP11 and friends...
  Now...I login into a board of 5cm x 2.5cm size and I am nearly
  sure that it will be possible to run SIMH on it to emulate 
  a PDP11/PDP10 and start one of the old UNIX system tapes...
  and with a little luck with 100% of the original speed.
  

> If you are stuck on running gentoo on an arm 9, find a reference
> implementation for embedded gentoo on an arm-9 and start there. If
> that does not exist, start with the debian embedded linux the vendor
> offers. Arm 9 emulator on your workstation might also help decyphering
> and debugging codes and hardware in the arm 9 family.

  ...ARM9 emulator...nice idea.
  Does such thing exists for Linux?

> 
> Good hunting!

  ...thanks! Your good wish has already worked!
  I got access to the board 8)

> James

Best regards,
Meino