Development Team home > Projects

gNewSense metad will be the next major version of gNewSense. It supports the mipsel architecture (Lemote Yeeloong). This is a work in progress and still needs some polishing, but it is both usable and 100% free already. The instructions in this page refer to installing the mipsel version of metad.

Please do NOT add any sort of information about Lemote, the Yeeloong netbook or other distributions here. Such information is available in Lemote.

1. Installation

To install, see the following steps:

1. Obtain a netboot image.
2. Boot the image
   • For USB boot:
     1. Copy vmlinux and initrd.gz to a USB disk. USB disk must be well formatted in ext2 (a sudo fdisk -l should give no error on /dev/sda), FAT32 doesn't work.
     2. Power up the machine and press the <DEL> key to get to the PMON2000 prompt.
     3. Type:

     load (usb0,0)/vmlinux-2.6.31.6-libre1
     initrd (usb0,0)/initrd.gz
     g console=tty no_auto_cmd
     
     Notes: you may have to type the command load (usb0,0)/vmlinux twice. The initrd (usb0,0)/initrd.gz command takes around 15 minutes on Lemote Yeeloong.
   • For TFTP boot:
     1. Copy vmlinux and initrd.gz to your TFTP server.
     2. Power up the machine and press the <DEL> key to get to PMON2000 prompt and type:

     ifaddr rtl0 <addr.of.your.laptop>
     # to set the ip address of your Yeeloong, e.g. 192.168.1.31
     load tftp://<addr.of.your.tftp-server>/vmlinux 
     # to load the linux image on your tftp server, e.g. 192.168.1.30
     initrd tftp://<addr.of.your.tftp-server>/initrd.gz 
     # to load the initial ram disk image
     g console=tty no_auto_cmd
     # to set the console
     
3. Follow the installer process. Note that if you get errors after partitioning along the lines of "couldn't write partition table to disk because it is busy", you will need to reboot and restart the installation, at which time the install will work (sometimes a reboot is required for the installer to see the partition table changes).
4. For GRUB, the installer will ask 2 things:
   • Linux command line
   • Linux default command line
   See the GRUB section for what these should be.
   Note: sometimes, GRUB won't be installed by the installer. Read further to know how to boot your installed system with the USB key (or TFTP).
5. Once finished, you can check which disks are available and which kernel is installed with:

   devls
   dir (wd0,0)/boot
   
6. If you installed your system at the first partition of the first hard drive, it can be booted with:

   load (wd0,0)/boot/vmlinux-2.6.31.6-libre1
   initrd (wd0,0)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.31.6-libre1
   g console=tty no_auto_cmd root=/dev/hda1 rootdelay=8
   
   If, for instance, you installed gNewSense to the third partition of the internal disk, you'll have to change (wd0,0) to (wd0,2) and hda1 to hda3.

   Note: if the dir (wd0,0)/boot command gives you only one delo.2nd file, you have to boot your installed system from USB key (or TFTP):

   load (usb0,0)/vmlinux-2.6.31.6-libre1
   g console=tty no_auto_cmd root=/dev/hda1 rootdelay=8 machtype=8.9
   

   Once you are on your system, install the kernel you want:

   sudo aptitude update
   sudo aptitude install linux-image-2.6.xx.y-libre-lemote
   

   Where xx and y are numbers, see "Kernels" section in this page.
7. The default load and the g parameters are saved respectively in the "al" and "karg" variables. To make your system boot gNewSense it is sufficient to set the al variable:

   set al (wd0,0)/boot/vmlinux-2.6.31.6-libre1
   

2. GRUB

GRUB is the preferred way of booting gNewSense. If you need to manually configure it, add the following menu entry to your /boot/boot.cfg file:

default 0
timeout 0
showmenu 0
title Boot with GRUB
        kernel (wd0,0)/boot/grub.elf
        args some-dummy-string 

Note: some-dummy-string is required to work around a bug which causes grub to fail loading. Also make sure that /etc/default/grub has these lines (run sudo update-grub for changes to take effect):

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="console=tty no_auto_cmd machtype=8.9"

3. PMON2000 Boot file (boot.cfg)

If you would rather avoid grub, you can try booting directly using PMON2000. Assuming you have installed your system on /dev/hda1, your boot file (/boot.cfg or /boot/boot.cfg) should have the following parameters (adjust kernel and partition numbers to your own setup):

default 0
timeout 3
showmenu 1
title gNewSense metad - hda1
	kernel (wd0,0)/boot/vmlinux-2.6.27.7-libre
	initrd (wd0,0)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.27.7-libre
	args console=tty no_auto_cmd root=/dev/hda1 rootdelay=8

title gNewSense metad - rescue via USB
	kernel (usb0,0)/boot/rescue
	args root=/dev/sda1 console=tty no_auto_cmd rootdelay=7
	#initrd (usb0,0)/boot/initrd.img

title gNewSense metad - reinstall via USB
	kernel (usb0,0)/gns/vmlinux
	initrd (usb0,0)/gns/initrd.gz
	args console=tty no_auto_cmd

4. Correct gNewSense metad sources.list

deb http://archive.gnewsense.org/gnewsense-metad/gnewsense metad main
deb-src http://archive.gnewsense.org/gnewsense-metad/gnewsense metad main

## gnewsense security
deb http://archive.gnewsense.org/gnewsense-metad/gnewsense-security metad main
deb-src http://archive.gnewsense.org/gnewsense-metad/gnewsense-security metad main

5. Kernels

5.1 Linux 2.6.32.3

This is currently the default and preferred kernel.

New features:

• a GNU logo next to Freedo
• built to avoid CPU lock-ups

If you don't have it yet you can install it with:

  sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.32.3-libre-lemote

This kernel still needs the machtype=8.9 boot parameter.

5.2 Linux 2.6.32.2

It shows Freedo when you boot it. If you don't have it yet you can install it with:

  sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.32.2-libre-lemote

To make power off and suspend work, add the machtype=8.9 boot parameter. E.g. in boot.cfg:

args console=tty no_auto_cmd root=/dev/hda1 resume=/dev/hda2 rootdelay=8 machtype=8.9

5.3 Linux 2.6.31.6

Install it with:

  sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.31.6-libre1

To make wifi start at boot time make sure you have yeeloong-base installed.

5.4 Linux 2.6.30.9

I packaged a deblobbed derivative of Linux 2.6.30.9 from Lemote's loongson branch.

Improvements: it provides working wifi, apm, webcam by default.

Install it with:

  sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.30.9-libre++

If you use the wireless chip, don't forget to install its driver, which is packaged separately:

  sudo apt-get install linux-rtl8187-yeeloong-2.6.30.9

-- Robert Millan

5.5 Linux 2.6.27.7

You can install a linux with beta suspend-resume (to disk only) support by following the instructions at the rms linux for you page.

Note: It appears that lemote ships newer Yeeloongs with 2.6.27.1 linux with s2disk; this may be a stable Linux with suspend/resume support. We are investigating.

6. Network

If your network connections are managed by NetworkManager (default in a regular desktop setup) then make sure that only the "lo" interface is configured in /etc/network/interfaces: comment or remove all lines referring to other interface (e.g. eth0, wlan0). After rebooting it could be that you can't connect properly. If that's the case then re-try a few times by clicking on the NetworkManager icon and then your network interface.

Wireless may not be working, there is no solution at this time (feb. 5th 2010), but there are discussions on this on the gnewsense-users mailing list. A bug has also been reported.

7. Bugs

File your bug reports at Savannah, under Category "gNewSense 3" and Item Group "mipsel". Check if your problem hasn't been reported already first.

7.1 Xserver "(EE) Silicon MotionCannot read V_BIOS (5)" error

For those of you who get this error with the X.org Xserver refusing to start up with this error do:

sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion

Then restart your computer.

Reference (mailing list): http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnewsense-users/2009-09/msg00110.html