logIt » Ubuntu

Running Two Squid Instances in Upstart Init

Arif — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:55:16 +0000

After installing squid3 from repository, Ubuntu will place the init in upstart style (instead of /etc/rc*.d/ or /etc/init.d/ style used to maintain backward compatibility to legacy System-V init). The upstart job is placed in /etc/init/squid3.conf with default runlevel (2,3,4 or 5) to start the instance during reboot and relevant start/stop command using service:

$ sudo service squid3 {start|stop|restart}

To specify what to run, an upstart must have exec or script stanza. When the goal is to start two or more (multiple) instances of squid3, exec is meant to replace existing process image of /usr/sbin/squid3 executable, therefore will not start two instances.

Multiple squid3 instances started via upstart exec

As workaround we can have symbolic link to squid3 executable instead and add new upstart job configuration with exec call to the link. I need two instances running in the same machine due to the implementation design where the fist instance is HTTP proxy cache while the second one is accelerator/interceptor (reverse proxy) that serves default landing page telling user to use proxy (and how to do that). Hence, for the second instance I add:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 May  3 09:25 /usr/sbin/squid3ins2 -> squid3
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1156 May  6 13:30 /etc/init/squid3ins2.conf

and for the first instance I add:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 298 May  3 10:13 /etc/init/squid3.override

squid3ins2 is our link and /etc/init/squid3ins2.conf contains exec call to it to run second squid3. For the first instance I choose to write an override (/etc/init/squid3.override) so that the original job configuration file is left intact. For the complete content of all files check my github v1.1 of the Squid integration. There, in details you’ll also find how both instances PID, log, etc. are differentiated by each instance config via the following directives:

http_port
cache_dir
pid_filename
cache_access_log
cache_log

Cross-Compiling for Ubuntu ARM by ffmpeg Example

Arif — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 10:02:03 +0000

This has been a delayed post since I only figure out how to solve configure error just now. It wasn’t really necessary to cross-compile last year because compiling ffmpeg directly on the ARM-board finished overnight (despite the low CPU). Anyway, in this post I’m still using the board to easily retrieve package dependencies from Ubuntu ARM repository. Toolchain used is arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc-. The following steps will apply in general:

download source file (that is ffmpeg in this example)
retrieve development library/build dependecies
place header files and dependency libraries into toolchain path
configure with toolchain
make and create .deb installer package with checkinstall

cross-compile: Illustration of what's done on ARM-board and what's done on desktop

Prior to anything, install Linaro toolchain by adding their repo first:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linaro-maintainers/toolchain
$ sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi

A complete guide on how to compile ffmpeg can be found in their wiki. It applies generally. So, I’ll just skip to following configure:

[ubuntu-desktop]$ ./configure --cross-prefix=arm-linux-gnueabi- --enable-cross-compile --target-os=linux --arch=arm  --cpu=cortex-a8 --extra-cflags='-march=armv7-a -mfpu=neon -mfloat-abi=softfp' --enable-libtheora

As an example, the above configure requires Theora libraries. libtheora-dev itself requires libogg-dev. Use apt-get on the board to get them from Ubuntu ARM repository. Get the .deb files from /var/cache/apt/archives/ of the ARM-board to your desktop and extract them as root:

[root@ubuntu-desktop]$ dpkg -x libogg-dev_1.2.2~dfsg-1ubuntu1_armel.deb /usr/local/cross-compile
[root@ubuntu-desktop]$ dpkg -x libtheora-dev_1.1.1+dfsg.1-3_armel.deb /usr/local/cross-compile

The above /usr/local/cross-compile is just a temporary directory. The toolchain needs header files and dependency libraries to be placed inside /usr/arm-linux-gnueabi/include/ and /usr/arm-linux-gnueabi/lib/ consecutively. In my case I created the following link for header’s include:

[root@ubuntu-desktop]$ cd /usr/arm-linux-gnueabi/include
[root@ubuntu-desktop]$ ln -s /usr/local/cross-compile/usr/include/theora
[root@ubuntu-desktop]$ ln -s /usr/local/cross-compile/usr/include/ogg

and copied these from /usr/local/cross-compile/usr/lib:

libogg.a
libogg.so
libtheora.a
libtheoradec.a
libtheoradec.la
libtheoradec.so
libtheoraenc.a
libtheoraenc.la
libtheoraenc.so
libtheora.la
libtheora.so

After successful configure, run make (this will take some time), and then pack the whole working directory to the ARM-board. Instead of doing make install in the ARM-board, use checkinstall to install and create the .deb package. This way we can make use of dpkg to uninstall or re-install in the manner of package manager.

[root@beagleboard]$ sudo checkinstall --pkgname=ffmpeg --pkgversion="5:$(./version.sh)" \
     --backup=no --deldoc=yes --default

Please mind that even if we put “--install=no“, the above checkinstall will overwrite all ffmpeg binaries in /usr/local/bin/. This is the reason why I move the process to the ARM-board: to keep other running version on my desktop stays as it is.

Check the test of streaming from our cross-compiled ffmpeg in previous post.

A Little History

When first attempt to configure exited with ERROR: libtheora not found, I found the following test failed in the output log:

$ arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc -D_ISOC99_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200112 -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600 -march=armv7-a -mfpu=neon -mfloat-abi=softfp -mcpu=cortex-a8 -std=c99 -fomit-frame-pointer -marm -pthread -E -o /tmp/ffconf.UdYctJgq.o /tmp/ffconf.mwXpf9Tl.c
...
/usr/lib/gcc/arm-linux-gnueabi/4.6.1/../../../../arm-linux-gnueabi/bin/ld: cannot find -ltheoraenc
/usr/lib/gcc/arm-linux-gnueabi/4.6.1/../../../../arm-linux-gnueabi/bin/ld: cannot find -ltheoradec
/usr/lib/gcc/arm-linux-gnueabi/4.6.1/../../../../arm-linux-gnueabi/bin/ld: cannot find -logg

What was inside the above temporary file (/tmp/ffconf.mwXpf9Tl.c):

1 2	#include int x;

You can run that test to check whether all dependencies are met.

Simple ffmpeg UDP Video Streaming (from BeagleBoard running Ubuntu)

Arif — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 09:04:49 +0000

I really mean simple, this is a one command line UDP stream from the BeagleBoard (running Ubuntu ARM) to my desktop (IP address 192.168.1.19 in this example), the source video is an FLV file inside the ARM-board:

$ ffmpeg -i UNIQLO_MIXPLAY.flv -v 0 -vcodec mpeg4 -f mpegts udp:192.168.1.19:1234

ffmpeg streaming from BeagleBoard played by VLC on the desktop

Although it’s a break-dance video, it plays uninterrupted, without any break.

Here is how my desktop see the stream with VLC player:

VLC setup (on the desktop) to play the UDP stream

With less documentation, a more complex setup with integration to Wowza Media Server is available on my github.

Compile Zabbix Proxy in Ubuntu ARM (BeagleBoard)

Arif — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 08:28:57 +0000

I needed to tackle practical limitation of SNMP monitoring under unreliable communication, a serious consideration was made for Zabbix Proxy. It was an option said to be ready for embedded hardware. I already had BeagleBoard xM Rev C running Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric and needed to proof that it would port functionally to this Linux ARM board. There existed zabbix-proxy-mysql in Oneiric repository, but sqlite seemed to be a better scale option for embedded deployment.

Zabbix Proxy Distributed NMS

An example set out for Zabbix Proxy on Debian appears to be pretty straightforward to follow. With the ARM board already installed with build-essential, snmp, and snmpd, the following needs to be added:

$ sudo apt-get install libsnmp-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev fping curl sqlite libsqlite3-dev ntpdate

then start the pre-compilation configure (in this case Zabbix 1.8.7 is used):

cd zabbix-1.8.7
./configure --enable-proxy --enable-agent --with-sqlite3 --with-net-snmp --with-libcurl

It will go smooth. However, during make there are complains about undefined references to ‘sqlite3_open‘, ‘sqlite3_close‘, etc.:

../../src/libs/zbxdb/libzbxdb.a(db.o): In function `zbx_db_connect':
/home/zabbix/zabbix-1.8.7/src/libs/zbxdb/db.c:331: undefined reference to `sqlite3_open'
/home/zabbix/zabbix-1.8.7/src/libs/zbxdb/db.c:343: undefined reference to `sqlite3_busy_timeout'
/home/zabbix/zabbix-1.8.7/src/libs/zbxdb/db.c:334: undefined reference to `sqlite3_errmsg'
/home/zabbix/zabbix-1.8.7/src/libs/zbxdb/db.c:335: undefined reference to `sqlite3_close'
../../src/libs/zbxdb/libzbxdb.a(db.o): In function `zbx_db_init':
/home/zabbix/zabbix-1.8.7/src/libs/zbxdb/db.c:385: undefined reference to `sqlite3_open'
/home/zabbix/zabbix-1.8.7/src/libs/zbxdb/db.c:387: undefined reference to `sqlite3_errmsg'
../../src/libs/zbxdb/libzbxdb.a(db.o): In function `zbx_db_close':
/home/zabbix/zabbix-1.8.7/src/libs/zbxdb/db.c:446: undefined reference to `sqlite3_close'
../../src/libs/zbxdb/libzbxdb.a(db.o): In function `zbx_db_vexecute':
/home/zabbix/zabbix-1.8.7/src/libs/zbxdb/db.c:827: undefined reference to `sqlite3_exec'
/home/zabbix/zabbix-1.8.7/src/libs/zbxdb/db.c:852: undefined reference to `sqlite3_changes'
/home/zabbix/zabbix-1.8.7/src/libs/zbxdb/db.c:833: undefined reference to `sqlite3_free'
../../src/libs/zbxdb/libzbxdb.a(db.o): In function `SQ_DBfree_result':
/home/zabbix/zabbix-1.8.7/src/libs/zbxdb/db.c:1363: undefined reference to `sqlite3_free_table'
../../src/libs/zbxdb/libzbxdb.a(db.o): In function `zbx_db_vselect':
/home/zabbix/zabbix-1.8.7/src/libs/zbxdb/db.c:1121: undefined reference to `sqlite3_get_table'
/home/zabbix/zabbix-1.8.7/src/libs/zbxdb/db.c:1127: undefined reference to `sqlite3_free'

this is obviously from the database related code compilation. I run the gcc manually for the db.c file inside its directory by adding the flag ‘-lsqlite3‘ in the tail of ‘../../src/libs/zbxdb/libzbxdb.a‘ to make it work. Afterward by going to the initial directory first, running make again will then continue successfully.

$ cd src/zabbix_proxy
$ gcc -DZABBIX_DAEMON -g -O2     -L/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabi    -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/lib/perl/5.12/CORE -I. -I/usr/include      -I/usr/include -lsqlite3  -L/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabi -lcurl  -L/usr/lib -lnetsnmp -lcrypto  -L/usr/lib -lnetsnmp -lcrypto   -rdynamic    -o zabbix_proxy zabbix_proxy-servercomms.o zabbix_proxy-events.o zabbix_proxy-zlog.o zabbix_proxy-proxy.o heart/libzbxheart.a ../../src/zabbix_server/dbsyncer/libzbxdbsyncer.a ../../src/zabbix_server/discoverer/libzbxdiscoverer.a housekeeper/libzbxhousekeeper.a ../../src/zabbix_server/httppoller/libzbxhttppoller.a proxyconfig/libzbxproxyconfig.a ../../src/zabbix_server/pinger/libzbxpinger.a ../../src/zabbix_server/poller/libzbxpoller.a ../../src/zabbix_server/trapper/libzbxtrapper.a ../../src/zabbix_server/nodewatcher/libzbxnodewatcher.a datasender/libzbxdatasender.a ../../src/zabbix_server/selfmon/libzbxselfmon.a ../../src/libs/zbxsysinfo/libzbxserversysinfo.a ../../src/libs/zbxsysinfo/linux/libspecsysinfo.a ../../src/libs/zbxsysinfo/common/libcommonsysinfo.a ../../src/libs/zbxsysinfo/simple/libsimplesysinfo.a ../../src/libs/zbxlog/libzbxlog.a ../../src/libs/zbxdbcache/libzbxdbcache.a ../../src/libs/zbxmemory/libzbxmemory.a ../../src/libs/zbxalgo/libzbxalgo.a ../../src/libs/zbxnix/libzbxnix.a ../../src/libs/zbxsys/libzbxsys.a ../../src/libs/zbxconf/libzbxconf.a ../../src/libs/zbxcommon/libzbxcommon.a ../../src/libs/zbxcrypto/libzbxcrypto.a ../../src/libs/zbxcomms/libzbxcomms.a ../../src/libs/zbxcommshigh/libzbxcommshigh.a ../../src/libs/zbxjson/libzbxjson.a ../../src/libs/zbxexec/libzbxexec.a ../../src/libs/zbxself/libzbxself.a ../../src/libs/zbxserver/libzbxserver.a ../../src/libs/zbxicmpping/libzbxicmpping.a ../../src/libs/zbxdbhigh/libzbxdbhigh.a ../../src/libs/zbxdb/libzbxdb.a -lsqlite3 -lcurl  -lnetsnmp    -lm  -lresolv
$ cd ../../
$ make

USB WiFi Stick on Beagleboard xM Using wpa_supplicant

Arif — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 04:28:48 +0000

One of the most popular USB WiFi sticks in Indonesian market is TP Link which is actually a Ralink wireless adapter (looking at its vendor ID code). Attaching it using wpa_supplicant without explicit driver assignment will return the following error lines

ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument

TP Link TL-WN321G USB WiFi Stick

Within minutes it will also crash the system with messages similar to:

kernel: [ 5645.279693] SysRq : HELP : loglevel(0-9) reBoot Crash terminate-all-tasks(E) memory-full-oom-kill(F) kill-all-tasks(I) thaw-filesystems(J) saK show-backtrace-all-active-cpus(L) show-memory-usage(M) nice-all-RT-tasks(N) powerOff show-registers(P) show-all-timers(Q) unRaw Sync show-task-states(T) Unmount ETM buffer dump show-blocked- tasks(W) dump-ftrace-buffer(Z)

The correct way to attach is

wpa_supplicant -B -Dnl80211 -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

The config file content is just like what the community help suggested. The stick with vendor & product ID of 148f:2573 has been part of the nl80211 development at Linux Wireless.

wpa_supplicant version is v0.7.3. Ubuntu version is 11.10 as described further in previous post.

Compile USB Serial Modem Using option.c (Ubuntu on Beagleboard xM)

Arif — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:54:18 +0000

Despite possibility to use (1)

$ modprobe -v usbserial vendor=0x05c6 product=0x0015

or (2) usb-modeswitch, (3) Matthias Urlichs initially wrote option.c driver as a way to insert USB modem as kernel module.

This driver exists because the “normal” serial driver doesn’t work too well
with GSM modems. Issues:
- data loss — one single Receive URB is not nearly enough
- nonstandard flow (Option devices) control
- controlling the baud rate doesn’t make sense

Most modems will be successfully attached with this driver, appearing in one of the typical /dev/ttyUSB0 to /dev/ttyUSB2. The product ID 0x0015 for GSM modem compiled here is a Qualcomm (vendor ID 0x05c6) OEM modem I received from Embest DevKit8500D order. There are more than one form factor when searching for its images on Google. Closest one we have in Indonesia is ADVAN DT8-HT bundled in Telkomsel Flash.

Qualcomm 05c6:0015 from Indonesian operator

I’m compiling it for the Beagleboard xM Rev C running Ubuntu Oneiric (installed in this post). A quick look gives:

$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9514 Standard Microsystems Corp.
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Standard Microsystems Corp.
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 05c6:0015 Qualcomm, Inc.

The above 0x0015 product ID doesn’t exist inside option.c of linux kernel 3.0.0-12 source. Adding this to series of existing Qualcomm modems gives:

635
636
637

	{ USB_DEVICE(QUALCOMM_VENDOR_ID, 0x6000)}, /* ZTE AC8700 */
	{ USB_DEVICE(QUALCOMM_VENDOR_ID, 0x6613)}, /* Onda H600/ZTE MF330 */
	{ USB_DEVICE(QUALCOMM_VENDOR_ID, 0x0015)}, /* Qualcomm no brand */

The include also needs usb-wwan.h from that kernel source. Copy them both under /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/usb/serial/. For other include files, install:

and create this link as root

1 2	$ cd /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/include/ $ ln -s /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.0-12/arch/arm/mach-versatile/include/mach mach

After removing the old one (pointed to build -> /build/buildd/linux-3.0), create a link inside /lib/modules/3.0.6-x3 named build pointing to:

build -> /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3

Modify the original Makefile to contain only rule for option.o

obj-m			+= option.o

and then build the driver

$ make -C /lib/modules/3.0.6-x3/build/ M=/usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/usb/serial/
make: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3'
  LD      /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/usb/serial/built-in.o
  CC [M]  /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/usb/serial/option.o
  Building modules, stage 2.
  MODPOST 1 modules
  CC      /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/usb/serial/option.mod.o
  LD [M]  /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/usb/serial/option.ko
make: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3`

Copy the build and deploy

$ cp /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/usb/serial/option.ko /lib/modules/3.0.6-x3/kernel/drivers/usb/serial/
$ depmod -a

Now syslog will show the following lines if the modem is inserted:

kernel:[ 4790.229888] usb 1-2.5: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB0
kernel:[ 4790.237121] option 1-2.5:1.0: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
kernel:[ 4790.238250] usb 1-2.5: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB1
kernel:[ 4790.240142] option 1-2.5:1.1: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
kernel:[ 4790.241210] usb 1-2.5: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB2
mtp-probe: checking bus 1, device 9: "/sys/devices/platform/usbhs-omap.0/ehci-omap.0/usb1/1-2/1-2.5"
mtp-probe: bus: 1, device: 9 was not an MTP device
kernel:[ 4791.227294] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Qualcomm MMC Storage      2.31 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
kernel:[ 4791.232238] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
kernel:[ 4791.246887] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk

Ubuntu on Beagleboard xM with Easycap Video Capture (Compiling Driver)

Arif — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 12:25:58 +0000

Attempt to run Ubuntu in BeagleBoard xM rev C board has taken me to try various options of kernel and release. The goal was to have both Ubuntu and widely-available Easycap as video input via the USB of this compact TI OMAP board. Porting Ubuntu would spare us some flexibility to try different alternatives of video processing and networking options for the stream. The easiest way initially was to run Ubuntu preinstalled image. I had two popular options immediately: 1) Ubuntu Port CD Image release 2) Robert C. Nelson custom image (rootfs). I started with the later first to see the board running at once. The latest found in http://rcn-ee.net/deb/rootfs/ was ubuntu-11.10-r0-minimal-armel.tar.xz which gave me Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric with custom linux 3.0.3-x2 kernel.

Easycap USB Video-Audio Capture

It turned out that this custom kernel hadn’t been compiled with~~out~~ Easycap. We can compare that to my laptop running linux 2.6.38-10 where it was part of its kernel compilation:

[ubuntu-laptop]$ cat  /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.38-10/.config | grep -i easy
CONFIG_EASYCAP=m

Compiling the whole thing using make menuconfig to change .config file and so on seemed too much. A more partial approach was to touch only relevant Makefile involved in building the driver. First we needed the kernel header files provided as linux-headers-3.0.6-x3_1.0oneiric_armel.deb and then source files for Easycap. As this was custom kernel, by guessing I found that it was closest to official linux 3.0.0-12.20 at launchpad, hence easycap source files were copied from it (the custom kernel might’ve been forked from this release as some random header files comparison to linux-headers-3.0.0-12-omap_3.0.0-12.20_armel returned no difference).

FYI Easycap linux driver is no longer developed separately as a SourceForge project, it has been part of drivers/staging in recent kernel releases (where you get dmesg like “module is from the staging directory, the quality is unknown, you have been warned” when inserting it). In the source we’ll find /linux-3.0/drivers/staging/easycap/ to be copied into /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/staging/easycap/ on the board.

After removing the old one (pointed to build -> /build/buildd/linux-3.0), I created a link inside /lib/modules/3.0.6-x3 named build pointing to:

build -> /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3

then copied the Makefile from my laptop to replace original Easycap source with this content of rules:

obj-m	+= easycap.o
 
easycap-y	:= easycap_main.o easycap_low.o easycap_sound.o
easycap-y	+= easycap_ioctl.o easycap_settings.o
easycap-y	+= easycap_testcard.o
 
ccflags-y := -Wall
# Impose all or none of the following:
ccflags-y += -DEASYCAP_IS_VIDEODEV_CLIENT
ccflags-y += -DEASYCAP_NEEDS_V4L2_DEVICE_H
ccflags-y += -DEASYCAP_NEEDS_V4L2_FOPS
ccflags-y += -DEASYCAP_NEEDS_UNLOCKED_IOCTL

Compiling should work afterward:

$ make -C /lib/modules/3.0.6-x3/build/ M=/usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/staging/easycap/
  LD      /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/staging/easycap/built-in.o
  CC [M]  /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/staging/easycap/easycap_main.o
  CC [M]  /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/staging/easycap/easycap_low.o
  CC [M]  /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/staging/easycap/easycap_sound.o
  CC [M]  /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/staging/easycap/easycap_ioctl.o
  CC [M]  /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/staging/easycap/easycap_settings.o
  CC [M]  /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/staging/easycap/easycap_testcard.o
  LD [M]  /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/staging/easycap/easycap.o
  Building modules, stage 2.
  MODPOST 1 modules
  CC      /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/staging/easycap/easycap.mod.o
  LD [M]  /usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3/drivers/staging/easycap/easycap.ko
make: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.0.6-x3'

I tried to insmod the easycap.ko built, but dmesg showed some error and no /dev/video0 created. There must be some other drivers that must be loaded first which I didn’t know in what sequence (i.e. v4l2-common etc.), hence I decided to just copy that under the /lib/modules/3.0.6-x3/kernel/drivers/staging/easycap, depmod -a, ~~and reboot~~.

If you plug the Easycap while inspecting the syslog tail, there won’t be similar message as found in kernel 2.6.38-10. Instead, you’ll see:

kernel: [ 1377.696838] usb 1-2.3: new high speed USB device number 6 using ehci-omap
mtp-probe: checking bus 1, device 6: "/sys/devices/platform/usbhs-omap.0/ehci-omap.0/usb1/1-2/1-2.3"
mtp-probe: bus: 1, device: 6 was not an MTP device
kernel: [ 1378.052459] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
kernel: [ 1378.169006] Easycap version: 0.9.01
kernel: [ 1378.198944] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio
kernel: [ 1381.043853] easycap::0adjust_standard: selected standard: PAL_BGHIN
kernel: [ 1381.151245] easycap::0adjust_format: sought:    640x480,UYVY(0x59565955),1=field,0x00=std mask
kernel: [ 1381.151306] easycap::0adjust_format: sought:    V4L2_FIELD_NONE
kernel: [ 1381.151336] easycap::0adjust_format: actioning: 640x480 PAL_BGHIN_AT_640x480_FMT_UYVY-n
kernel: [ 1381.181488] easycap::0adjust_brightness: adjusting brightness to  0x7F
kernel: [ 1381.184478] easycap::0adjust_contrast: adjusting contrast to  0x3F
kernel: [ 1381.212768] easycap::0adjust_saturation: adjusting saturation to  0x2F
kernel: [ 1381.214599] easycap::0adjust_hue: adjusting hue to  0x00
kernel: [ 1381.219207] easycap::0easycap_usb_probe: registered with videodev: 0=minor
kernel: [ 1381.219238] easycap::0easycap_usb_probe: ends successfully for interface 0
kernel: [ 1381.219543] usbcore: registered new interface driver easycap
kernel: [ 1381.314453] easycap:: easycap_open: ==========OPEN=========
kernel: [ 1384.031188] easycap::0adjust_standard: selected standard: PAL_BGHIN
kernel: [ 1384.228759] easycap::0adjust_format: sought:    640x480,UYVY(0x59565955),1=field,0x00=std mask
kernel: [ 1384.228790] easycap::0adjust_format: sought:    V4L2_FIELD_NONE
kernel: [ 1384.228851] easycap::0adjust_format: actioning: 640x480 PAL_BGHIN_AT_640x480_FMT_UYVY-n
kernel: [ 1384.233489] easycap::0adjust_brightness: adjusting brightness to  0x7F
kernel: [ 1384.235198] easycap::0adjust_contrast: adjusting contrast to  0x3F
kernel: [ 1384.237884] easycap::0adjust_saturation: adjusting saturation to  0x2F
kernel: [ 1384.239501] easycap::0adjust_hue: adjusting hue to  0x00

Later I find out that newer image is available on the Robert’s site, but not sure which linux source I should use for the Easycap if I were to to use it. Anyway, before deciding to just go with this one I’ve tried various kernels. Here are list of images and their kernel versions (I wasn’t quite sure which one was running smoothly and which wasn’t):

linux-2.6.35.9-l9 Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid: ubuntu-10.04.1-r4-minimal-armel.tar
linux-3.1.4-x6 Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric: ubuntu-11.10-r2-minimal-armel.tar.xz
linux-3.1.4-x6 Ubuntu 11.04 Natty: ubuntu-11.04-r7-minimal-armel.tar.xz
linux-2.6.38.2-d9 Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick: ubuntu-10.10-r6-minimal-armel.tar.xz

Hello World with JamVM Embedded JVM on Ubuntu ARM

Arif — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 09:53:19 +0000

While waiting for my BeagleBoard xM shipment, I was considering Java as one of the possible application platforms. Anyhow, the keyword “embedded Java ARM” landed me to the tiny JamVm. This JVM is said to be working with ARM Cortex A8 which can be emulated under QEMU running Ubuntu ARM. The fact that there had been already a Karmic image that work with QEMU would shorten the time.

A “Hello World” class to test the JVM will be:

class HelloWorldJamVM {
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		System.out.println("hello world");
	}
}

saved as HelloWorldJamVM.java. However, executing a “Hello World” requires longer steps than writing that class.

In order for the JamVM 1.5.4 to run on Ubuntu, we need (1) build-essential (certainly so) and (2) GCJ with dependency of (3) zlib1g-dev. It’s all available in the Karmic ARM repo. Another thing that we need is GNU Classpath 0.98.

Following the instruction, as root we can then configure, make, make install, make install-strip sources under jamvm-1.5.4 directory. Continue them with the classpath-0.98 sources by configuring as follow

./configure --disable-gtk-peer --disable-gconf-peer --disable-plugin --disable-Werror

and then make install as usual. The whole compiling will run slow for sure as QEMU emulates ARM far from nearing native processor performance in my case.

We can compile the above “Hello World” using GCJ with the command javac, which is actually linked to /usr/bin/gcj-wrapper-4.4.

javac HelloWorldJamVM.java

A HelloWorldJamVM.class bytecode file will appear and we can run this with JamVM

PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/jamvm/bin 
export PATH
jamvm HelloWorldJamVM

QEMU with Ubuntu ARM Cortex A8 running JamVM embedded JVM

Ubuntu ARM on QEMU Processor Emulator

Arif — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 04:14:55 +0000

There are times when you need to try things on virtualized environment before hand e.g. 1) checking application functionality or 2) actual device shipment is still on its long way. Those were also my cases with ARM Linux. Unlike virtualization in production environment however, putting software to emulate CPU architecture will slow down the guest machine a lot.

Ready-to-use image for from the old Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic is avalaible as suggested in RootStock Wiki .

To run Ubuntu 10,04 Lucid you can create similar .img filled by RootStock generated root file system as described in this post generating lucid-arm.img. Boot image is obtained from Lucid port page, of which I saved with the name vmlinuz-lucid-current-ports which is actually linux kernel 2.6.32-21. Running QEMU is then:

qemu-system-arm -M versatilepb -cpu cortex-a8 \
  -kernel vmlinuz-lucid-current-ports \
  -hda lucid-arm.img -m 256 -append "root=/dev/sda mem=256M devtmpfs.mount=0 rw"

However, adding -redir tcp:3232::22 isn’t directly working (although telnet is showing both directions are functional). This redirection is working with the Karmic image which gives instant ssh on my host laptop as in:

ssh localhost -oPort=3232 -l ubuntu

Note: successful QEMU machine image probably won’t boot successfully with the real board. I can’t use kernel 2.6.38-10 for Lucid rootfs on QEMU, but successfully boot that on DevKit8500D board.

QEMU console of Ubuntu 10.04 VM

Running Ubuntu on DevKit8500D (Natty Kernel and Lucid RootFS)

Arif — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:50:31 +0000

BeagleBoard xM that comes with Texas Instruments’ DM3730 DaVinci™ processor has its Chinese sister from Embest, the DevKit8500D evaluation kit. This similarity and eLinux wiki (showing working previous DevKit8000) have made me confident that Ubuntu would also port to this board with no hassle. As always, that wasn’t the story. I tried preinstalled images available on Ubuntu CD Image and final combination that worked out of a series of trial-and-error was Natty kernel with Lucid rootfs.

I bricked one of these DevKit8500D by overvoltaged it to 12V DC. Yes, It has no regulator.

Various howto made net-boot or preinstalled images seem feasible, but trying them is another thing. The first attempt was to boot Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 LTS to have similar distribution as my laptop, but it would stop at boot with the message

Error: unrecognized/unsupported machine ID (r1 = 0x00000ae9).

The above ID (2793 in decimal) isn’t found in Lucid released with linux 2.6.32-21. Ubuntu Natty 11.04 boot image didn’t complain because the ID already listed in /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.38/arch/arm/tools/mach-types

...
 nemini                  MACH_NEMINI             NEMINI                  2793
...

However, ubuntu-11.04-preinstalled-headless-armel+omap.img.gz wouldn’t finish loading the linux kernel 2.6.38 somehow. Hence, I replaced the root file system using rootfs created using RootStock method. After successful boot, I installed linux-image-2.6.38-8-omap_2.6.38-8.42_armel.deb to have the rootfs kernel lib files updated (this would require wireless-crda dependency to be installed).

Creating Lucid RootStock & Replacing Natty’s

Using RootStock relies much on the host environment, in my case (version 0.1.99.3) the laptop has Lucid with 2.6.38 kernel (Natty), and it failed to create rootfs with option --dist natty by stopping at this QEMU error:

qemu: fatal: cp15 insn ee1d6f70
 
R00=4009f960 R01=420822e8 R02=0d696914 R03=000086a8
R04=00008ef0 R05=00000000 R06=000097c9 R07=42082308
R08=00020040 R09=00000000 R10=4009f000 R11=00000000
R12=00008b88 R13=4007f7f8 R14=4008f450 R15=4008aea0
PSR=20000030 --C- T usr32

DevKit8500D also freezed on boot when too many seeds used in the rootfs. A minimal seeds of Lucid rootfs used is

[ubuntu-laptop]$ sudo rootstock --fqdn omap --login ubuntu --password temppwd --imagesize 2G --seed wget,nano,linux-firmware,wireless-tools,usbutils --dist lucid --serial ttyO2 --components "main universe multiverse"

It will retrieve many packages from http://ports.ubuntu.com which takes long and produces i.e. armel-rootfs-201110261541.tgz.

A card at /dev/sdb with Natty boot images are obtained by

gunzip -c ubuntu-11.10-preinstalled-server-armel+omap.img.gz | sudo dd bs=4M of=/dev/sdb

The root file system will reside at /dev/sdb2 while boot images are in /dev/sdb1. To replace this with Lucid rootfs, run following steps

dd if=/dev/zero of=lucid-arm.img bs=1MB count=0 seek=1024
sudo mkfs.ext3 -F lucid-arm.img
sudo mount -o loop lucid-arm.img /mnt
sudo tar -C /mnt -zxf armel-rootfs-<some rootstock generated date>.tgz
sudo umount /mnt
sudo dd if=lucid-arm.img of=/dev/sdb2 bs=1MB count=0 seek=1024

There are reasons for why-not-using the included Ångström Linux (forked to linux-2.6.32-devkit8500) but this method of booting Ubuntu wasn’t straightforward after all. The on-board LAN (using Davicom DM9000AEP chip) doesn’t work and I need to use USB ethernet detected as Davicom DM9601 (a bit ridiculous?). Easycap USB video capture also works with this kernel as it has been part of 2.6.38 drivers/staging compilation.

DM9601 USB LAN

Before coming up with this combo, I’ve tried:

Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 CD Image: ubuntu-10.04-server-armel+omap.img
Ubuntu Oneiric 11.10 CD Image: ubuntu-11.10-preinstalled-server-armel+omap.img.gz
Robert C. Nelson’ Oneiric: ubuntu-11.10-r0-minimal-armel.tar.xz (as pointed out by the above eLinux page which has changed quite regularly since October 2011)

But nothing seemed to work.