[Gta04-owner] [ANN]: new Kernel 3.12-rc5 and Debian Wheezy 7.2 image (for NAND)

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Hi all,
finally we have reached one really big milestone: a new default system
that can be flashed into NAND (or installed on SD card), that uses the
latest kernel (3.12) and has better power/suspend management than the
ages old 2.6.32 based system.

The kernel is 3.12-rc5-plus and has almost all features we need to fully
support hte GTA04 hardware, so that it can be used for the ./hw-test script
to detect hardware presence and failures.

And the root file system has been upgraded to Wheezy 7.2 (armhf).
It comes with X11 configured (for the current kernel) and LXDE.

Since UBIFS is now stable enough, this system can also be flashed to
NAND so that you can always boot without SD card.

Here is the new image:

<http://download.goldelico.com/gta04/20131014-GTA04-3.12-rc5-wheezy-7.2/>

Notes:
* there is some instability in the BMP085 driver
* suspend behaviour and power demand has not yet been tested or
   analysed
* this kernel does not support PVR/SGX
* the SD images have two partitions when expanded (one FAT for
   boot loader and kernel, and an ext partition for the rootfs)
* there are different images for Letux 2804, Letux 3704 and Letux
   7004 (because they have a different U-Boot - please don't mix!)

Download for GTA04/Letux 2804:

<http://download.goldelico.com/gta04/20131014-GTA04-3.12-rc5-wheezy-7.2/sd-image.dd.bz2>

for 3704:

<http://download.goldelico.com/gta04/20131014-GTA04-3.12-rc5-wheezy-7.2/b2/sd-image.dd.bz2>

for 7004:

<http://download.goldelico.com/gta04/20131014-GTA04-3.12-rc5-wheezy-7.2/b3/sd-image.dd.bz2>

Just unpack and dd to some SD card (at least 2 GB) raw device (i.e. something
like /dev/sdc but not to a partition like /dev/sdc1) and boot.

This will flash the latest u-boot, but not yet kernel/rootfs. To do this, please
login: (through RS232 or ssh) and run the /root/flash-nand script. It should
also be possible to use the LXDE terminal + screen keyboard.

If you have trouble, please go back to the latest "good" version:

<http://download.goldelico.com/gta04/20130716-GTA04-Production-Universal/>

If you create your own image or distribution, we recommend to use
a single ext2/3/4 partition for the root file system and that you install
the uImage and bootargs.scr to /boot. And unpack the modules to
/lib/modules of your SD card image. But refrain from adding u-boot/mlo.

This allows to use the boot loader from NAND and the combination of
kernel/modules/rootfs from SD card.

And it protects users from unexpectedly re-flashing (downgrading)
u-boot and getting her into troubles. Additionally, this scheme allows
to simply swap SD cards between the different device models.

Have fun (and please report issues and submit patches),
Nikolaus