Linaro

The Gumstix Overo COM is supported by the Linaro Project. Linaro is not a distribution but really an effort to make a common framework for unleashing open-source software on embedded systems. The Linaro project is backed by Canonical (the people behind Ubuntu) among others which means this is a great place to start if you want to run Ubuntu on your Overo COM.

Getting the Images

Gumstix is scheduled for inclusion in the next Linaro release due in May 2011. As of Mar 2011, an Alpha 3 release is available although you will want to use the daily snapshots for the most up-to-date fixes. You'll need two components:

• an Overo-specific hardware pack (look for hwpack_linaro-overo_20XXXXXX-1_armel_supported.tar.gz)
• an image. There are developer (console-only), ALIP (internet platform), or Ubuntu-desktop versions. For beginners, the ALIP package is recommended. Look for the linaro-o-alip-tar-20XXXXXX-0.tar.gz tarball.

Download these two components and while you are waiting, grab a few important tools...

Getting the Tools

linaro-media-create is a tool to automatically create a bootable microSD for your Overo. For those running Ubuntu Natty, apparently this will do the trick:

sudo apt-get install linaro-image-tools

For those sporting Maverick (10.10), Lucid (10.04) and maybe older versions :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linaro-maintainers/tools
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install linaro-image-tools
sudo apt-get install qemu-user-static

More details are available here

Making a Card

The final step is actually creating the microSD card. Navigate to the directory where you downloaded the image and the hardware pack, slip a microSD card into your machine. The general format of the command you have to enter is the following:

sudo linaro-media-create --rootfs ext3 --mmc [microSD_path] --binary [image_file] --hwpack [hwpack_file] --dev overo

An example of a command would be (your microSD_path, image_file and hwpack_file may be different):

sudo linaro-media-create --rootfs ext3 --mmc /dev/mmcblk0 --binary linaro-n-ubuntu-desktop-tar-20110314-0.tar.gz --hwpack hwpack_linaro-overo_20110314-0_armel_supported.tar.gz --dev overo

Notes:

• use dmesg to check that your SD card is actually /dev/mmcblk0 before doing this

This command will take a little while to download any extra bits it needs and format your card. For me, this was about 20 minutes total and I waited a long time on the 'Populating rootfs partition' step. Once it is done, unmount the card and slide it into your Overo COM and power on as normal.

Related Links

• improve Linaro by giving testing feedback
• check out Michael Hope's Stagecoach build server setup (which, I understand is used for the Linaro toolchain builds).
• another way of getting Ubuntu on an Overo.