Mini Xplus as a Server

Random, incomplete notes on using a Miniand Tech Mini Xplus H24 as a server machine.

v2

I’ve soldered up a serial port so doing things from scratch is much easier.

$ sudo cp -a hwpack/rootfs/* /media/removable/rootfs/

sun4i# set extraargs init=/bin/sh
sun4i# run bootcmd

# rm -rf /var/run
# ./debootstrap/debootstrap --second-stage
# passwd

v1

Start with the Lubuntu image: https://www.miniand.com/forums/forums/2/topics/1

I used http://dl.miniand.com/allwinnera10/ubuntu/lubuntu-desktop-12.04-4-720p-512MB-miniand.com.img.7z

Turns out my board has 1 GB and the board probed for it just fine.

Writing the image to an SD card gives a boot and rootfs partition similar to the OMAP series. The bootfs has a binary file and kernel image.

I don’t have a keyboard. Fix the wifi interface by editing /etc/network/interfaces:

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
        wpa-ssid "your network name"
        wpa-psk your-network-key

The board doesn’t seem to register the hostname with the DHCP server. mDNS works though.

The Lubuntu image is armel based. The hard float armhf Precise image should be much faster for floating point workloads as the A8 takes some time to shift values back and forth between the core and VFP unit.

Grab the modules from /lib/modules. kpartx is your friend.

Grab the most recent Precise release. I used http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/precise/release/ubuntu-12.04-preinstalled-server-armhf+omap4.img.gz

gunzip, mkfs.ext4 -L rootfs -m 0.5 /dev/sdc2, and tar across to the SD card.

Set a password for root by editing /etc/shadow.

Use QEMU to boot and apt-get install wireless-tools wpasupplicant openssh-server. adduser your-name. adduser your-name sudo.

You can now boot and login.

Set the default locale in /etc/default/locale

LANG=C
LANGUAGE=C

Add universe to /etc/apt/sources.list. Toast /var/lib/preinstalled-pool/.