[Arm-dev] Gigabyte MP30-AR0

Tue Feb 23 12:22:13 UTC 2016
Michael Howard <mike at dewberryfields.co.uk>

On 23/02/2016 12:11, Gordan Bobic wrote:
> On 2016-02-23 12:07, Michael Howard wrote:
>> On 23/02/2016 11:53, Gordan Bobic wrote:
>>> On 2016-02-23 11:47, Michael Howard wrote:
>>>> On 22/02/2016 20:08, Gordan Bobic wrote:
>>>>> On 2016-02-22 17:29, Michael Howard wrote:
>>>>>> On 22/02/2016 17:04, Gordan Bobic wrote:
>>>>>>> On 2016-02-22 16:57, Michael Howard wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 22/02/2016 16:47, Gordan Bobic wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Anyway, the install does in fact succeed, which is great. I 
>>>>>>>>>> probably
>>>>>>>>>> should have stuck with the LVM partitioning scheme but hey 
>>>>>>>>>> ho, I can
>>>>>>>>>> re run things now that I know UEFI is working.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> So, I have a minimal CentOS install with 4.2.0-0.21.el7.aarch64
>>>>>>>>>> kernel. Great start, thanks to all.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> There is no networking so I need to get the installer to 
>>>>>>>>>> recognise the
>>>>>>>>>> nics at install time.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> So installer produces a bootable system, complete with a 
>>>>>>>>> working kernel?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Yes, and no. It produces a bootable kernel.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Right, but how does that kernel get booted?
>>>>>>> u-boot -> kernel ?
>>>>>>> u-boot -> UEFI -> kernel ?
>>>>>>> u-boot -> UEFI -> grub2 -> kernel ?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Does it use grub2 or does it do some magic to boot the kernel 
>>>>>>>>> straight
>>>>>>>>> from UEFI?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I haven't had the nerve to attempt to bun UEFI to SPI-NOR 
>>>>>>>> permanently,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Oh, I wasn't suggesting that. I cannot think of a good reason to 
>>>>>>> burn
>>>>>>> UEFI into SPI-NOR vs. chain-loading it from u-boot, since the boot
>>>>>>> cascade is automatable.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> so following the install (and any subsequent ones) I've loaded 
>>>>>>>> it from
>>>>>>>> u-boot manually and then booted directly from UEFI from there. 
>>>>>>>> I can
>>>>>>>> of course automate that I suppose.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Right, so post-install the boot process is:
>>>>>>> u-boot -> UEFI -> kernel ?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes.
>>>>>
>>>>> Sweet! Now I just have to try to scrape together enough to get
>>>>> me one of those cometh pay day. :-D
>>>>>
>>>>>>> No grub2 involved?
>>>>>> No.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'll see if I can do something about that when mine arrives. It
>>>>> would be nice to have it working the same way x86 UEFI works.
>>>>>
>>>> With my pre-occupation with having no networking, I gave you some bum
>>>> info.
>>>
>>> Oh... No NIC driver? Or something else missing?
>>>
>>
>> No, not a driver issue. On my first install the installer just
>> wouldn't accept that the nic(s) were indeed connected. After the
>> install the  system recognised that eth0, eth1 & eth2 existed but they
>> each had a hardware address of ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff and no ip address. To
>> resolve that I needed to set the hardware addresses in UEFI and they
>> then shone through. They were correctly set in u-boot.
>>
>> The installer still wouldn't accept the nic(s) were connected even
>> when set in UEFI. I could assign an ip using the installer shell on
>> [F2] but by then the installer had given up on vnc.
>
> No VGA framebuffer support gets detected by the installer?
>
No. X fails to start and it falls back to text install.
>> In the end, I
>> edited the grub command line and appended ip, netmask, gateway and
>> vnc, after which I got a gui install over vnc. Don't yet know if X11
>> works on the installed system, I haven't tried.
>
> I see, so is the installer running over serial console or VGA/USB 
> console?
>
The installer runs over VGA by default. I am connected to the serial 
port out of habit but a keyboard and monitor (vga port) work too. As I 
say, by default, once the installer is actually started it outputs to vga.

-- 
Mike Howard