Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] GnuRadio on PCI-104 (i.e., Fedora on USB Flash Drive)
2008/5/1 Bahn, William L Civ USAFA/DFCS [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Is there a fairly straightforward way to get Fedora to run from a USB key? Just boot the install media with the USB key plugged into the board and you should be able to select the USB key as the target for the install. An alternative would be: Does anyone know of a Linux distro that can be made to run from a USB key that we can get GnuRadio up and running on without too much heartache. We've tried installing it on DSL (Damn Small Linux) but can't get the fftw libraries to compile. GNU Radio and related tools are now available from the Fedora repository which should get you up and running in no time :-) Regard, -- Trond Danielsen ___ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] GnuRadio on PCI-104 (i.e., Fedora on USB Flash Drive)
On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 10:19 AM, Trond Danielsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/5/1 Bahn, William L Civ USAFA/DFCS [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Is there a fairly straightforward way to get Fedora to run from a USB key? Just boot the install media with the USB key plugged into the board and you should be able to select the USB key as the target for the install. An alternative would be: Does anyone know of a Linux distro that can be made to run from a USB key that we can get GnuRadio up and running on without too much heartache. We've tried installing it on DSL (Damn Small Linux) but can't get the fftw libraries to compile. GNU Radio and related tools are now available from the Fedora repository which should get you up and running in no time :-) Regard, -- Trond Danielsen Although this is not exactly what you are looking for, it may be helpful to some who want to run on compact flash or modify it to run on a USB drive. It was originally designed for Asterisk embedded systems but it is certainly not limited to that. Just throwing out an idea to see if it may be helpful to anyone. http://limeylinux.org/ Thanks, Steve Totaro ___ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] GnuRadio on PCI-104 (i.e., Fedora on USB Flash Drive)
For Fedora, you need to install the livecd-tools. Included are several kickstart files (.ks) for various configurations, and extensive instructions (README) on doing the whole process. Pretty straight forward. I have done it on a 1 GB flash drive (thumb) for a laptop and desktop. I found that for my laptop, I couldn't see a USB drive to boot from in BIOS until I first plugged in a thumb drive then went into BIOS, where it then showed up. After that it was easy to select from in the options shown for alternate boot (F12?). My KDE graphic desktop image file including Openoffice came to 811 MB. With an active Internet connection, it will download the latest files too, which is nice (the normal update process). - On Thursday 01 May 2008 03:59:57 pm Bahn, William L Civ USAFA/DFCS wrote: I have GnuRadio up and running on some Fujitsu Tablet PC under Fedora Core 6. I need to get GnuRadio up and running on some PCI-104 embedded processors, which means I need the O/S to boot from a USB key. I have a 4 GB key but am willing to purchase an 8 GB or even a 16 GB key if that's what it takes. The PCI-104 has 1 GB of DRAM. Is there a fairly straightforward way to get Fedora to run from a USB key? An alternative would be: Does anyone know of a Linux distro that can be made to run from a USB key that we can get GnuRadio up and running on without too much heartache. We've tried installing it on DSL (Damn Small Linux) but can't get the fftw libraries to compile. Thanks. ___ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio ___ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] GnuRadio on PCI-104 (i.e., Fedora on USB Flash Drive)
Hi, Is it safe to use standard distributions (Fedora, Ubuntu,Mandriva,) in embedded applications ? What about sudden system power off without proper shutdown?.I think it may lead to OS damage. Is there a procedure (tips) to modify a standard Linux distribution to work in embedded systems? Regards, Firas -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/GnuRadio-on-PCI-104-%28i.e.%2C-Fedora-on-USB-Flash-Drive%29-tp17010200p17031597.html Sent from the GnuRadio mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
[Discuss-gnuradio] GnuRadio on PCI-104 (i.e., Fedora on USB Flash Drive)
I have GnuRadio up and running on some Fujitsu Tablet PC under Fedora Core 6. I need to get GnuRadio up and running on some PCI-104 embedded processors, which means I need the O/S to boot from a USB key. I have a 4 GB key but am willing to purchase an 8 GB or even a 16 GB key if that's what it takes. The PCI-104 has 1 GB of DRAM. Is there a fairly straightforward way to get Fedora to run from a USB key? An alternative would be: Does anyone know of a Linux distro that can be made to run from a USB key that we can get GnuRadio up and running on without too much heartache. We've tried installing it on DSL (Damn Small Linux) but can't get the fftw libraries to compile. Thanks. ___ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] GnuRadio on PCI-104 (i.e., Fedora on USB Flash Drive)
Bahn, William L Civ USAFA/DFCS wrote: I have GnuRadio up and running on some Fujitsu Tablet PC under Fedora Core 6. I need to get GnuRadio up and running on some PCI-104 embedded processors, which means I need the O/S to boot from a USB key. I have a 4 GB key but am willing to purchase an 8 GB or even a 16 GB key if that's what it takes. What embedded processor? If it's x86, it won't be a problem. Otherwise, you could be in for a world of fun. ;-) The PCI-104 has 1 GB of DRAM. ummm, do you mean PC/104, like here [1]? Is there a fairly straightforward way to get Fedora to run from a USB key? Never tried it, sorry. An alternative would be: Does anyone know of a Linux distro that can be made to run from a USB key that we can get GnuRadio up and running on without too much heartache. We've tried installing it on DSL (Damn Small Linux) but can't get the fftw libraries to compile. I've installed both Gentoo and Ubuntu to thumbdrives. Both fit on a 4GB. Gentoo will have a _lot_ more room left afterwards. If you're comfortable at the command line, try Gentoo. Otherwise, use Ubuntu. I personally run gnuradio on Gentoo, and it works well. Folks on this list seem to have good results with Ubuntu, although I have never tried gnuradio on it myself. The easiest way to do it would be to pull the hard drive from a laptop, boot from the Ubuntu CD, and plug in the thumb drive (should be the only disk in the laptop in order to avoid accidentally overwriting the boot sector of other drives). Then proceed with install. Once the usb drive is done, if you have boot issues, it's most likely because USB isn't initialized yet when the kernel looks for the rootfs. I've added a script to the Ubuntu initramfs to fix this. Once added, Ubuntu automagically keeps the change through kernel updates. Let me know if you need it. hth, Jason. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC/104 ___ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] GnuRadio on PCI-104 (i.e., Fedora on USB Flash Drive)
Jason wrote: Bahn, William L Civ USAFA/DFCS wrote: The PCI-104 has 1 GB of DRAM. ummm, do you mean PC/104, like here [1]? crap. Just read my own link. :-/ Apparently PCI-104 is similar to PC/104, see here [2]. It includes a PCI connector, but gives up other stuff... neat. Shows what I know. :-) Jason. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC/104 [2] - http://www.interfacebus.com/Design_Connector_PCI104_Bus.html ___ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
RE: [Discuss-gnuradio] GnuRadio on PCI-104 (i.e., Fedora on USB Flash Drive)
Thanks for the response. More questions below. Bahn, William L Civ USAFA/DFCS wrote: I need to get GnuRadio up and running on some PCI-104 embedded processors, which means I need the O/S to boot from a USB key. I have a 4 GB key but am willing to purchase an 8 GB or even a 16 GB key if that's what it takes. What embedded processor? If it's x86, it won't be a problem. Otherwise, you could be in for a world of fun. ;-) The PCI-104 has 1 GB of DRAM. ummm, do you mean PC/104, like here [1]? No. The PCI-104 is a modified form factor that has a PCI connector instead of the ISA connector. We are using Lippert's Cool RoadRunner 4 which uses a Pentium M Processor. An alternative would be: Does anyone know of a Linux distro that can be made to run from a USB key that we can get GnuRadio up and running on without too much heartache. We've tried installing it on DSL (Damn Small Linux) but can't get the fftw libraries to compile. I've installed both Gentoo and Ubuntu to thumbdrives. I see install directions for GnuRadio for Ubuntu, but don't see anything for Gentoo. As I look over the instructions for the various distros, they seem quite different, so I wouldn't know how to even start trying to install it on Gentoo. So I'll try Ubuntu first. The easiest way to do it would be to pull the hard drive from a laptop, boot from the Ubuntu CD, and plug in the thumb drive (should be the only disk in the laptop in order to avoid accidentally overwriting the boot sector of other drives). Then proceed with install. Is accidentally overwriting the boot sector on the hard drive something that is super easy to do? I would rather not get into tearing someone else's laptop apart if I can avoid it. So what is the sequence I am looking at doing here? Is it something like: 1) Use a laptop that has a CD drive and install Ubuntu onto a thumb drive on that machine. 2) Boot the PCI-104 machine using the thumb drive. 3) Install GnuRadio onto the thumbdrive on the PCI-104 machine. How do I handle the various drivers that are needed for the PCI-104 machine? Can I create a boot thumbdrive on one machine and use it to boot a very different machine? ___ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] GnuRadio on PCI-104 (i.e., Fedora on USB Flash Drive)
Bahn, William L Civ USAFA/DFCS wrote: Thanks for the response. More questions below. The easiest way to do it would be to pull the hard drive from a laptop, boot from the Ubuntu CD, and plug in the thumb drive (should be the only disk in the laptop in order to avoid accidentally overwriting the boot sector of other drives). Then proceed with install. Is accidentally overwriting the boot sector on the hard drive something that is super easy to do? I would rather not get into tearing someone else's laptop apart if I can avoid it. To avoid this risk, you can do then is go into the bios, and turn off everything except USB (and the CD) for the boot devices (and also for other hard drives, not just the bootable ones, so you can guarantee that your USB stick is found first). Record all the bios settings first, so you can restore the laptop to it's original configuration. Another approach is to actually use your PCI-104 platform and try to do a network install rather than a CD based install. Some distros allow this (at least they used to). Of course, the PCI-104 must be able to give a network boot as an option (in the bios). In this case, the kernel is actually being installed on the platform you want it to be on, so it is more likely to get the right things configured correctly from the start (drivers, etc.). So what is the sequence I am looking at doing here? Is it something like: 1) Use a laptop that has a CD drive and install Ubuntu onto a thumb drive on that machine. 2) Boot the PCI-104 machine using the thumb drive. 3) Install GnuRadio onto the thumbdrive on the PCI-104 machine. If using Ubuntu, their package manager will install python and gnuradio if you tell it to do so. How do I handle the various drivers that are needed for the PCI-104 machine? Can I create a boot thumbdrive on one machine and use it to boot a very different machine? This is why I suggested doing a network install. Maybe a non-network install is doable if you use a USB cdrom drive, and hook it and the thumb drive to the PC-104 directly, and do everything there. ___ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] GnuRadio on PCI-104 (i.e., Fedora on USB Flash Drive)
William: How do I handle the various drivers that are needed for the PCI-104 machine? From my experience with embedded boards, typically the OS drivers are provided either with the board or at least on the web page for the manufacturer. Looks like yours have the audio/ethernet/video all provided here from the lippert site: http://www.lippert-at.com/index.php?id=395L=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vacacionalhouse.com%2Fen%2Fimg%2Fvohe%2Fseyon%2F Can I create a boot thumbdrive on one machine and use it to boot a very different machine? Depends on how different I guess, but typically yes. Tim Newman ___ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] GnuRadio on PCI-104 (i.e., Fedora on USB Flash Drive)
On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 03:59:57PM -0600, Bahn, William L Civ USAFA/DFCS wrote: I have GnuRadio up and running on some Fujitsu Tablet PC under Fedora Core 6. I need to get GnuRadio up and running on some PCI-104 embedded processors, which means I need the O/S to boot from a USB key. I have a 4 GB key but am willing to purchase an 8 GB or even a 16 GB key if that's what it takes. The PCI-104 has 1 GB of DRAM. Is there a fairly straightforward way to get Fedora to run from a USB key? An alternative would be: Does anyone know of a Linux distro that can be made to run from a USB key that we can get GnuRadio up and running on without too much heartache. We've tried installing it on DSL (Damn Small Linux) but can't get the fftw libraries to compile. Mandriva is promoting a version that boots off a USB drive http://www.mandriva.com. I would expect that almost all distributions would work, assuming that the BIOS will load the bootloader off the USB drive. FWIW, a few years ago I used to run Mandriva, and had no problems running GNU Radio on it. Eric ___ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
RE: [Discuss-gnuradio] GnuRadio on PCI-104 (i.e., Fedora on USB Flash Drive)
Mandriva is promoting a version that boots off a USB drive http://www.mandriva.com. That sounds promising. But when I went out there it looks like you can't download it - you have to buy their USB key. I have no problem with that, except that I need this computer up and running by tomorrow night. I would expect that almost all distributions would work, assuming that the BIOS will load the bootloader off the USB drive. The BIOS is definitely set up to boot from a USB device - that is the preferred boot device. But I have no idea how to take a distro, such as Fedora Core 6, and get it installed onto a USB device so that the BIOS even has an opportunity to boot from it. ___ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] GnuRadio on PCI-104 (i.e., Fedora on USB Flash Drive)
On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 07:43:56PM -0600, Bahn, William L Civ USAFA/DFCS wrote: Mandriva is promoting a version that boots off a USB drive http://www.mandriva.com. That sounds promising. But when I went out there it looks like you can't download it - you have to buy their USB key. I have no problem with that, except that I need this computer up and running by tomorrow night. I would expect that almost all distributions would work, assuming that the BIOS will load the bootloader off the USB drive. The BIOS is definitely set up to boot from a USB device - that is the preferred boot device. But I have no idea how to take a distro, such as Fedora Core 6, and get it installed onto a USB device so that the BIOS even has an opportunity to boot from it. If you've got a CD attached to the PCI-104 (possibly via USB) you should be able to get the installer to boot from the Fedora install CD then install to the USB drive. Or try the netboot as suggested by the other person. I think booting from a CD is going to be easier. I suggest you find a local expert system administrator if you're serious about getting this done by tomorrow. Eric ___ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
