Releases for 22nd December 2009 - U-Boot, Kernel .31, Installer

Announcing doing final prep on the releases of the following updates for the Efika MX:

• Linux 2.6.31 release which should fix some instability problems. If you downloaded the source already please modify arch/arm/mach-mx51/mx51_efikamx.c and edit line 1132 and 1133 so that cpu_wp_auto[1] and cpu_wp_auto[2] are set. The net effect of this change is the CPU will be running at the correct voltage which solves some audio glitching and some performance problems. The source will be updated in place (no patch) so new users will get the new code. You can find this on Power Developer under Efika MX Kernel

• U-Boot 2009.01 release 1.1.7 which should improve RAM performance and a few other things. Auto-boot timeout has been increased to 10 seconds (to work around the "reboot hangs and shutdown just reboots" kernel bug, to give people time to remove the power cord) and the power LED is blue during U-Boot operation.

• Auto-flash tool which will create an SD card with rootfs, kernel and U-Boot flasher (as above). This tool and the above source code (the flasher includes binaries) are at Efika MX Firmware.

• Installer SD card image which is the result of the auto-flash tool plus the archives and installation script used to prep each machine. This has been put under Efika MX Linux along with the Karmic Root Filesystem released last week. You will need a 2GB SD card or larger (the one we shipped to everyone who ordered before 1st December will do perfectly) to use this image. Alternatively you can use a much smaller card (512MB) as the extracted rootfs is barely 300MB and the tools on top JUST about fit in 512MB, using the Auto-flash tool.

They should be up in the next few hours, instructions will be on this blog.

To install the new U-Boot you will need to do some quirky switch setting. You will need:

• Adequate Lighting (I really mean this)
• A small screwdriver (unless you already connected your serial board, in which case, you are already in there)
• A sewing needle, sturdy paperclip, or professional DIP-switch-flicking tool

If you open up your Efika MX (small panel on the bottom) you will see next to the serial cable port, 4 small DIP switches. Simply switch these to 0001 (off off off on) and the system will boot from the SD card slot. You can flash the installer image directly to an SD card, or use the Flasher tool to create this SD card yourself. You really need to grab nearly all the files seperately and put them in the right places (this is obvious if you read the "flasher" script). Please note, once it's flashed, switch them back! Or it will continue to flash the NOR Flash on every boot, and this is some wear and tear on the chip.

To switch the system back to boot from SPI, the switch settings are 1110 (on on on off) which is the exact opposite. If you have an Efika MX you've opened all the way you may notice that there is a MicroSD card slot - don't rely on this as it will be gone in a future revision, but you can boot from this (as if it were SPI flash) using switch setting 0000 (off off off off). I'll grab some photos and schematics to make this easier later :)

2.6.31 kernel

You can find the latest kernel for the Efika MX on Power Developer Platform Support. Documentation, an updated firmware, and extra drivers coming soon ;)

This kernel update should fix some of the display problems people have been having with DVI adapters and some Dell and Samsung monitors. There are a few known issues with power off and reboot (you will have to pull the power cord and reinsert it), and audio not working under Ubuntu when using GUI media player apps (such as Totem or Exaile) and we are looking into these.

The next kernel update will be shipped as a binary and a patch against this kernel version, to reduce bandwidth and hassle for developers. Hopefully we will be able to fix native panel display resolution support, enable 32-bit display modes and provide an accelerated 2D graphics driver in addition to the above fixes.

As always, in the spirit of open source development, we would appreciate any patches that fix problems you experience whenever possible.

Have fun!

Blog Blog (and clustering)

Some developers and customers have received their boards and written blogs already :)

Jeremy Olexa from Gentoo actually bought a board. Several Gentoo developers have also received boards through projects, and we're looking into a way we can provide systems for their tinderbox build farm. There are some pictures of what came in the box from Steev.. (BTW Boondock Saints, good taste in movies :)

We have also shipped a few boards to developers and some old Efika Development Edition 2.0 systems (yes, with the problems we had.. but they will still compile stuff) to create small scale clusters for this purpose, including members of the gcc team.

If anyone has any legitimate reason they could use a couple (up to 5) Efika MX systems with no cases, bootable using SD card, for this kind of work, please give us a nudge (matt@genesi-usa...). They support networking so NFS root filesystems are possible, and USB hard disks always work (please use powered drives though, as the Efika MX is not really geared for the kind of power drain on USB that those little 2.5" laptop drives need to spin up). They will need a little configuring but we are very happy to help out on this.

A note about the SD card gratuity program: we shipped all pending customer orders and quite a lot of developer systems this week, and after some frantic work from the guys at FedEx trying to find enough boxes and "Fragile" labels (thanks, guys :) we did finally run out of our stock of SD cards. Efika MX Open Client systems are still being shipped with debug boards for the forseeable future.

Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien

As you may have guessed (or been told if you mailed) we have been having some nightmares with software support, including a hard-to-reproduce crash bug related to bus clock speeds, and some other nightmares coming with the support of the iMX515 from Freescale as it moves into 2010.. not to mention Thanksgiving getting in the way.

As it stands right now all units are shipping TODAY or TOMORROW with the following packing list:

• Efika MX Developer Edition 3.0
• i.MX515 "TO2" at 800MHz
• 512MB RAM (configured at 166MHz because of above software bug)
• RT3070 USB Wireless
• 4GB SSD (soldered)
• 12V/5A Power supply with "C5" Power connector (US). European users will need to buy a ~5,00 EUR cable.
• Serial & JTAG debug connector dongle (whether you ordered developer edition or not)
• 2GB MicroSD card with SD adapter

Remember the ONLY difference between a Developer Edition board and the Open Client is the inclusion of the serial/JTAG board, which we are providing anyway. The 2GB microSD card is both useful at this stage, and a gratuity to our customers for hanging on :)

Software on the boards:

• U-Boot 2009.01
• Ubuntu Karmic Koala (9.10) "ubuntu-minimal" - a console environment ready to install whatever desktop or software you like
• Kernel 2.6.28 - we understand this is not 2.6.31 as Ubuntu 9.10 would ship with..

We decided against providing a GNOME desktop as it is a pain to uninstall once it's there - and if you prefer GNOME or Xfce or KDE or LXDE, and these are all available using "apt-get whatever-desktop". It also means developers will be able to get compiling without dealing with a 3GB+ software install :)

We will be providing software updates in the next weeks for:

• U-Boot performance update
• Accelerated X11 graphics and YUV video overlay
• Media codecs (especially H.264)
• Precompiled wireless driver (although you can build it yourself from the source at www.ralink.com.tw)
• Precompiled 3D GPU driver (closed source, sorry)
• a proper package repository for Ubuntu/Debian
• .. and maybe Fedora 12 & openSUSE 11.2/Factory.

This will include, by the end of December, a 2.6.31 kernel and possibly a 2.6.32 kernel once it gets past Release Candidate (soon!). Aura should be on track for release by New Year's and will replace U-Boot and possibly several of the precompiled drivers. Software development is on a fast track, and we feel that we can adequately provide updates to solve issues, however there are enough major issues solved that this is shippable to customers.

Again, sincere apologies for slow shipping. Support will be available on the forums and customers need not hesitate in contacting me personally (matt@genesi-usa...) for any problems or quirks they may experience. Documentation and software downloads will appear on PowerDeveloper before the end of the week.

Efika MX Developer Edition 3.0

Just a little note to explain the change on the store to the Efika MX Developer Edition 3.0:

The Efika MXDE 2.0 was basically a bare-board model of the Efika Open Client, geared for developer use. It was based on the production prototype ("ER1") and was verified to a certain level of quality assurance for operation with Linux. Wire fixes were added to solve certain problems where necessary and for this reason it was VERY developer-oriented.

However, late in the stage of development (after it had passed initial verification), we found that certain features did not work as well when pushed for performance.. Parallel ATA needed a heavy hardware fix, sometimes caused random corruption, and some features on the board were otherwise unreliable in operation (VGA for example) and did not give the performance or features we initially envisioned. Fixing these problems would require far more than simple wire fixes.

We also decided that shipping developers one version of the board and "consumers" another version of the board was not fair on the developers who may have to deal with several problems which would impact development of their solutions, which would in turn affect consumer usage of the design.

You might notice we didn't ship too many of them for the above reasons! We apologize to everyone who is still waiting for a system but we really do want to give everybody the BEST POSSIBLE solution with as few problems as possible. It is for this reason alone that we postponed shipment. We do appreciate your support and your patience :)

Anyone who did not receive their board yet, will now receive an Efika MXDE 3.0 - this is a PCB fixed version of ER1 (no wire fixes required) inside the same case as the Open Client and will ship just before the Open Client ships. That is a $50 extra value for the price you already paid. Everyone who already received a 2.0 board will receive a 3.0 system too.

• The hardware difference between the MXOC and MXDE is a bundled JTAG & UART dongle with the developer board. They are the same price, same board.
• The software difference is that the MXDE has a developer environment installed and the MXOC has a desktop environment installed. Both of them are Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala Beta) but to fit the distribution on the board we had to cull a few "useless" features for the developer edition, while still giving all the tools (build-essential, debugger etc.) and ample space for development (we do not envision many people using Brasero CD burner anyway..)
• The VGA port has been dropped - we will only provide HDMI in future models. While this means developers with no digital monitor are going to have to buy a new monitor, these are very affordable these days (<$100).
• HDMI - in contrast to the VGA solution - will allow 1920x1080@30Hz (1080i) operation where the VGA support would only run at "WXGA" which is tantamount to 1024x768 or 1366x768. We deemed this too low resolution and too few displays could be supported.
• The Efika MX Open Client and Efika MX Developer Edition no longer come with Bluetooth but it is an easily installable additional module. We can provide this in special circumstances but otherwise it may be on the store as an additional product. Considering a USB Bluetooth Dongle can cost little more than $10 we do not feel that it is useful to provide this module when most people would not use it, although the internal module has the benefit of integrated coexistence signalling for better radio performance. Wireless 802.11n is still standard.
• Due to the extra development the Efika MXDE will come with a first version of the Aura firmware rather than alternative open-source boot solutions. This means developers and consumers get a better experience out of the box.

Introducing the Efika MX Development Blog

Just a first post to explain what this blog is all about :)

Basically, this is where we are going to post all our development discussions, links, topics, help, which come from the software team here at Genesi. This will include kernels, drivers, other OS support, and maybe some exposition of Projects that are doing great things..

We're close to a release now of the kernel source, and will follow that up very quickly with an update which should encompass accelerated graphics, multimedia codecs and a preview of Aura for i.MX515.

Stay tuned :)