Help newbie with Liva X installation

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

Ok. Pay no attention to the fact that I've been a member of this forum for over a decade. The fact of the matter is that all those years ago a friend of mine who was a Gentoo user installed the OS onto my laptop, after which he turned it over to me and I administered the system for a time. That was when/why I joined this forum. I spent a few months administering the system before deciding that Gentoo was just too complex and time-consuming for me. I went back to Debian/Ubuntu after that, though I did, some years later, switch from that to Arch. All this is to say that, though I've been a member of this board for a long time and do have limited experience running Gentoo, I am still a newbie when it comes to installing and running this distro.

I'm coming back to Gentoo after all these years as a MythTV user who is upgrading hardware. I learned on the MythTV users list that someone had managed to install and run quite well on their 1st generation Liva, a MythTV installation under Gentoo. So I thought I'd have a crack at it too. See the posts of those Liva users at https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1006786-start-0-postdays-0-postorder-asc-highlight-liva.html

So yesterday I used my Bohdi bootable USB stick to install Gentoo. I went through the handbook, adapting the directions to my boot media, prepared disks, got and unpacked the stage 3 tarball on the prepared partition. Everything went pretty smoothly and I got to the part that I was most hesitant about, compiling the kernel. I made my way through that--even though at least 50% of the options made little to no sense to me--and got to the stage of rebooting the machine. I should mention that, when compiling the kernel, I went with the suggestion offered in this thread https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1012666.html of "the . . . built in command line. . . . edit it during menuconfig to have a correct root= option." The option I entered in was root=/dev/mmcblk0p3 (3rd partition on the main hard drive, which is eMMC storage). Copied the kernel over to the fat32 partition on /boot/efi/boot and renamed it accordingly, crossed my fingers and rebooted.

On the reboot, as the machine began to boot into the new Gentoo installation, I got . . . drumroll . . . kernel panic. I actually would have been surprised if the system had booted on a first try like this. So I need help determing what the issue is and how to fix it. The kernal panic message, by the way, at the end of the stack trace, is "end kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount the root fs on unknown--block (0,0)." So it's obviously not finding the root file system and likely the drive/partition itself. I should also state that my aim was to do without an initramfs--that's why I took the recommendation to do the built-in command line. I did not use genkernel.

So I know how to boot from my Bohdi USB drive and chroot back into Gentoo. It looks like, at the least, I've got to do another kernel compilation. What I need now is help in interpreting the kernel panic message and recommendations for how to recompile the kernel. I'll post below some output I generated using my Bodhi boot disk that will tell you more about the target hardware. Thanks in advance for any tips or pointers.

Hardware specifics:

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

Gotta admit that I find this whole eMMC storage thing a bit confusing. Here's some relevant dmesg output (gotten via Bodhi live environment), in case it may be helpful:

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

Looking over my kernel config I've noticed that, under "USB physical layer drivers" I have "CONFIG_MMC is not set." Could this be a factor in the kernel panic? I remember seeing that option when I went through make menuconfig but was confused by it. The eMMC in this hardware is not, after all, a USB drive. Thoughts on this kernel option anyone, and whether, in my scenario, it should be set to Y?

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

I found a thread at http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?t=3486&p=27572 that seemed to have some relevant information. To wit, in response to the question "which option in the config enables booting from eMMC cards?" the reply was :

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

Just noted this at the https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1006786-highlight-liva.html thread:

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

The rootdelay argument does seem to be a valid one for the built-in kernel command line--at least a period of inactivity occurs shortly after the boot starts, once that argument has been introduced and the kernel recompiled (the command line under discussion is root=/dev/mmcblk0p3 rootdelay=5). But I still get a kernel panic--just takes longer for it to show up. I tried both rootdelay=5 and then rootdelay=10, but I get the kernel panic with both.

I decided to compare my kernel config file with the one SiliconFiend posted at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6715292/ECS%20Liva%203.17.7-gentoo.config . That config, with respect to the mmc options, pretty much matches what I had in my config before I introduced changes suggested at the porteus forum as listed above.

So I'm kinda at a loss here. Short of receiving input from someone more knowledgeable than myself as to what could be the nature of the problem I'm dealing with, the only thing I could think of to try would be to go the initramfs route. Seems like a bit of a cop-out if part of the idea of going through this sort of an installation is to learn something: doing that would be kind of like grasping at straws. So I think I'll have to set aside this project for now, waiting to either get input from someone who might have a better understanding of what I might be doing wrong, or until I get some other ideas, possibly from conducting further research about this hardware and about Gentoo.

Again, any input will be appreciated.

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

Thought of a couple other things I could try. Decided first that, since I'm trying not to use an initramfs, and since the kernel seemed to be having problems detecting the mmc storage, that it didn't make sense to have mmc-related stuff compiled as modules. So I changed a bunch of MMC/SD/SDIO stuff from M to yes. Then I ran across another kernel option that can be passed instead of rootdelay=: that is rootwait. According to the kernel docs,

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

Still at a bit of a loss here, even after having done some additional research. In retrospect I might have named this thread differently--something along the lines "how to boot Gentoo from eMMC." But I presumed that this would be the first of a few problems I would confront, then resolve, with the Liva X: I envisioned adding additional requests to the thread as issues got resolved, so I gave it a more generic-sounding title. Of course if I can't resolve this first one, there'll be no further issues to discuss: I obviously can't finish installing Gentoo unless I'm able to boot to the drive where I'm already partway through the installation.

I did finally find and enable the CONFIG-MEMSTICK option, but a recompile after that didn't resolve my issues. I did manage to find out something about the mysterious /dev/mmcblk0rpmb partition at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acer_Aspire_ES1-111M (Replay Protected Memory Block partition) as well, but that's not really pertinent to getting the kernel to see the eMMC.

Let me close this post by asking whether my understanding of what I'm trying to do here sounds correct. I see myself as trying to compile into the kernel support for all hardware related to this machine so as to not have to do any module loading and, corollary to this, having a ramdisk. Is there anything incorrect in my understanding of the task or my conception of how all this is supposed to work?

Finally, on the issue of an initramfs. I cannot see how having one would address the issues I'm seeing: if I can't get the kernel to see the eMMC storage by compiling into the kernel support for it, how will having an initramfs (that will, presumably, contain loadable modules for the eMMC) help? Trying out an initramfs is still the only alternative I can think of to try. But, as I said, it seems a bit like grasping at straws, since I can't understand what is keeping the kernel from seeing the eMMC. It looks to me at this stage that trying that would end up being a matter of just kicking the can a bit further down the road. But I may well be wrong. Anyone see the initramfs approach as being a viable path forward?

Again, input will be appreciated.

gentoodriver · n00b Joined: 16 Mar 2015 Posts: 1

Here is a 32-bit kernel config that works with the LIVA X:

http://pastebin.com/z0cNGi67

A couple things to look for: there are a lot of Synopsys DesignWare components in this system, most of them have a DW in the config name. Good luck!

Edit: remove the "CONFIG_USB_OZONE=y" line, that is for a custom driver that isn't in stock kernel.

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

Thanks for your response, gentoodriver. I'll be having a look over your config file, comparing it with mine, and paying particular attention to lines containing DW. I'll just point out additionally that it looks like we're not doing quite the same thing: I note that you do not have CONFIG_CMDLINE_BOOL set, and thus have no CONFIG_CMDLINE="root=" line either. That, it seems to me, is where my installation is getting tripped up.

I decided to follow your example as well and have posted my current kernel config at http://pastebin.com/tSsmxNRj . Perhaps this will enable me to get some further input on my issues.

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

I took someone's suggestion to put the device into Windows 8 mode with CSM (compatibility support module), then to make the eMMC the first in boot device order. I don't know whether it was this by itself, or this in combination with additional kernel compilations I did, but the device began fully booting after I'd done that. Now that I've finally gotten it to fully boot, I'm trying to finish up the base installation and get networking and other central system features operational.

One thing I will want to do soon is to get a DHCP server running on the wired NIC in this thing. I'm setting up the wifi card as the main interface that will be used for most internet stuff, but will have a device that hooks to the wired port and should get its IP from the Liva. Can anyone offer some suggestions on getting a DHCP server running on the wired interface? Thanks.

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

I'm moving on now to installing MythTV, which will be the primary function of this hardware. I'm following instructions that can were posted recently on the mythtv-users mailing list, as follows:

jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

Now I've gotten kind of confused about what goes in make.conf regarding my video hardware. I've got Intel video hardware, the one that uses the i915 driver. Particularly, I'm confused by the statement '"intel" is for x11-base/xorg-drivers and i915 resp. i965 are for media-libs/mesa' as found on the wiki at https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Intel . Does this mean I need both VIDEO_CARDS="intel" and VIDEO_CARDS="intel i915" in my make.conf? Or just one of those two entries . . . and if so, which one? Your input will be appreciated.

Jaglover · Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2015 8:41 am Post subject:

VIDEO_CARDS="intel i915" will work.

Just looked up this hardware, you do not want compile much on this baby, it is reported to reach 80 C under load (you can fry eggs on it). I strongly recommend distcc in pump mode.
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jamtat · Apprentice Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 162

Thanks for your input, jaglover: I've now got X up and running. I'll look into distcc and see whether I might be able to implement that.

Meantime, here's my latest roadblock. I've got a USB tuner, the KWorld UB435-Q USB ATSC TV Stick (see http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/KWorld_UB435-Q_USB_ATSC_TV_Stick ) that is supposed to be compatible with MythTv, but I'm having trouble setting it up. I believe the modules for it are all present, since I specifically tried to compile them into the kernel. The stick shows up when I run lsusb as Bus 001 Device 003: ID 1b80:e34c Afatech. Yet I am unable to set it up under mythtv-setup; I believe the issue is that there is somehow no device node present for it. Can anyone offer advice on how I can get the system to make this stick present to MythTV? Maybe I'll have to make a separate thread on this since the stick is actually an add-on I've connected to the Liva and so this is not a Liva-sepcific query. Anyway, input will be appreciated.

Follwoing is dmesg output related to this device:

Jaglover · Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2015 5:19 pm Post subject:

You probably miss a driver or two for this stick in your kernel.
_________________
My Gentoo installation notes.
Please learn how to denote units correctly!