Tuxy distro

Tuxy distro is a minimalist embedded distribution based on OpenEmbedded and linux-sunxi for Olimex OLinuXino Allwinner SoCs boards.

Tuxy distro provides basis to make customized distribution depending on specific needs in a controlled manner (example: robotic systems). And by adding only what is needed, the bonus is a reasonably small image.

Hardware

For Olimex Olinuxino boards based on Allwinner SoCs with SD card connector. It at been tested on:

• A20-OLinuXino-LIME https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-LIME/
• A20-OLinuXino-MICRO https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-MICRO

Note: It should work on most embedded board based on SoC of the AllWinner family without too much work.

Software

Tuxy distro is based on OpenEmbedded http://www.openembedded.org/ , sunxi layer https://github.com/linux-sunxi/meta-sunxi and external prebuild Linaro toolchain http://releases.linaro.org/15.02/components/toolchain/binaries/ (GCC 4.9).

Tuxy distro is a minimalist distribution:

• Linux kernel 4.1.15
• Small image (~core-image-minimal)
• Boot speed slightly optimized to boot in 6 seconds (mostly u-boot tuning)

2 images are available:

• tuxy-image: minimal distro with openssh server, 20 MB used on 128 MB rootfs.
• tuxy-image-dev: minimal distro with openssh server and development tools (gdb, gdbserver, cpp, gcc, make, vim), 90 MB used on 256 MB rootfs.

Build

Tested host Linux distribution:

• Ubuntu 15.10 x86_64

Available build flavour:

• flavour=tuxy => tuxy-image-dev build for A20-OLinuXino-MICRO), eth0 IP address 192.168.0.99
• flavour=minituxy => tuxy-image-dev build for A20-OLinuXino-LIME), eth0 IP address 192.168.0.98

Build instruction:

    $ sudo apt-get install gawk wget git-core diffstat unzip texinfo gcc-multilib build-essential chrpath socat
    $ git clone git://github.com/linuxteam-robotique/tuxy-distro.git
    $ cd tuxy-distro
    $ export flavour=minituxy
    $ ./do.sh init
    $ ./do.sh build
    insert a SD card in MMC card reader (/dev/mmcblk0), do NOT mount it
    # ./do.sh flash
    insert SD card into SD card connector of the board and power it up... wait 6 seconds... booted!

Prebuild SD card images

Decompress image and flash it to SD card located in SD card reader:

    $ xz -d minituxy-olinuxinoa20lime-20151101.img.xz
    $ dd bs=4M oflag=sync if=minituxy-olinuxinoa20lime-20151101.img.xz of=/dev/mmcblk0

Development

Based on jethro branch (related to Yocto project jethro 2.0 core release):

• Bitbake: branch 1.28, repo git://git.openembedded.org/bitbake
• Linaro toolchain: branch jethro, repo git://git.linaro.org/openembedded/meta-linaro.git
• OpenEmbedded: branch jethro, repos git://github.com/openembedded/meta-openembedded.git git://github.com/openembedded/openembedded-core.git
• linux-sunxi: branch master, repo git://github.com/linux-sunxi/meta-sunxi.git

TODO

• wireless