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<meino.cramer <at> gmx.de> writes: |
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> http://www.acmesystems.it/arietta |
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A very neat looking device for arm9. |
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> I setup a sdcard as described there and the board boots -- |
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> as far as I can tell, since the user led on the board starts to |
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> play the heartbeat blues ;) |
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> Now... |
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> I cannot access the board. |
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It looks (quick scan of their site only) like the vendor is only supporting |
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their debian image. So I would work with that image to profile and gain |
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insight into what the kernel supports/needs and aget everything working |
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first with their debian image.... |
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> As far as I understood the docs, the board uses ethernet over usb |
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> and I thought (read: dont know for sure), that gentoo should |
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> load the appropiate kernel modules itsself ... but it doesnt. |
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Look carefully at the docs the vendor supplies. Reseach what is |
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typcially included with a generic arm9 processor and what features |
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they make available, to the pins on there board. There might me |
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a serial port console hardwared to a grooup of 2 or 3 pins. You might |
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have to "toggle" some of the debian software to activate the serial |
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console, as it is normal for embedded board vendors to support a lesser |
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number of pins on the circuit board to minmize the size, while claiming |
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a greater number of features that (possibly) exist in sofware. Often you |
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have to pay extra for keen features to be enable. |
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Understand this about "ARM" processors. ARM ltd owns reference designs |
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and implementations. Different vendors either license and modify (customize) |
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the arm processor or license from another licensee a unique arm |
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implementation. So the Vendors 100% control the actual processor's features |
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and most use a matrix to figure out what and whom to make available to |
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it's customers. I. E. there is no such thing as a "Arm 9" processor |
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because there are thousands of variants. This is one the keenest reasons |
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for theirn(ARM Ltd) success as their licensees have a granularity of control |
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over their products that no other silicon (wholesaler) vendor allows, |
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except for expensive custom FPGA and ASIC based processors. |
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So this also means that both the NSA and Other countries intelligence |
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services can have undocumented features (backdoors if you like) into |
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any hareware that you purchase; not limited to ARM. |
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Your vendor holds the keys to what you seek. However, over time folks |
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discover things by "brute force experimentation" very simimlar to |
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software hacking...... WRT (& others) has many images that work on many |
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different arm processors, so that is also a good keyword to include in your |
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searches. |
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If you are stuck on running gentoo on an arm 9, find a reference |
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implementation for embedded gentoo on an arm-9 and start there. If |
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that does not exist, start with the debian embedded linux the vendor |
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offers. Arm 9 emulator on your workstation might also help decyphering |
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and debugging codes and hardware in the arm 9 family. |
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Good hunting! |
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James |
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