Installing with the Debian Installer
It's now possible to install armel directly with d-i, using one of [http://people.debian.org/~joeyh/d-i/armel/images/daily/ the daily snaphots]. Oystein Viggen describes his success and what he had to do differently in [http://lists.debian.org/debian-arm/2008/02/msg00041.html a message to the debian-arm list].
nslu2 users should instead get an image from http://slug-firmware.net/ , if you need to use the onboard ethernet. See http://www.cyrius.com/debian/nslu2/ for instructions on using d-i with a slug.
Thecus N2100/Allnet ALL6500 and IO-Data Glantank users should follow the installation guides under http://www.cyrius.com/debian/iop/ using the installer images from the top-most link above.
The options below are for installing without d-i.
Debian repositories
armel port is available directly from normal Debian mirror network. Check from [http://www.debian.org/mirror/list-full mirrorlist] a mirror near you that carries armel.
In /etc/apt/sources.list put something like:
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian lenny main deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian unstable main
Historic repositories available at:
deb http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian unstable main deb http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian unreleased main
The ftp.debian-ports.org archive key can be downloaded from [http://archive.debian-ports.org/archive_2008.key] (to be fed into apt-key add.)
Installing armel to qemu with d-i
Generally, you need to follow Aurelian Jarno's instructions http://www.aurel32.net/info/debian_arm_qemu.php with some small changes we'll document here.
You need a recent (sid?) qemu for this to work. Download kernel and d-i initrd:
wget http://people.debian.org/~joeyh/d-i/armel/images/daily/iop32x/netboot/initrd.gz wget http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian/pool-armel/main/l/linux-2.6/linux-image-2.6.22-3-versatile_2.6.22-6_armel.deb dpkg-deb -x linux-image-2.6*_armel.deb . cp boot/vmlinuz-*-versatile vmlinuz-versatile
Create a hard disk image and boot d-i;
qemu-img create -f qcow2 hda.img 10G qemu-system-arm -M versatilepb -redir tcp:2222::22 -kernel vmlinuz-versatile -initrd initrd.gz -m 256 -hda hda.img -append 'root=/dev/ram mem=256M'
Install as usual. After install boot with the following command line:
qemu-system-arm -M versatilepb -kernel vmlinuz-versatile -hda hda.img -append "root=/dev/sda1"
Building EABI ready Kernel
You need to enable the following options to enable both EABI and OLDABI
CONFIG_ARM_THUMB=y CONFIG_AEABI=y CONFIG_OABI_COMPAT=y
To simplify things, make sure you have all essential kernel modules built-in, since oldabi modprobe can't load EABI modules nor the other way around.
Creating a EABI chroot using debootstrap
If you have a machine running oldabi arm port, you can ?CrossDebootstrap to create a armel chroot:
# debootstrap --verbose --arch armel --foreign sid /armel-chroot http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian # chroot /armel-chroot /debootstrap/debootstrap --second-stage
to put an armel chroot into the directory /armel-chroot. For the "--second-stage" part one needs a kernel compiled with options listed in previous section.
There is also a [http://people.debian.org/~riku/armel/armel-rootfs.tar.bz2 prebuilt rootfs (currently unavailable)]. [http://armel.applieddata.net/developers/linux/eabi/ Or this older alternative prebuilt rootfs.]
Migrating arm installation to arm EABI installation
There is no proper way yet. The following instructions worked for me, but no guarantees at all.
- Create a chroot like above.
store your current package selections with "dpkg --get-selections > file"
enter your chroot and set the selections to match: "dpkg --set-selections < file"
- test install all the same applications to your chroot: "apt-get --no-act dselect-upgrade"
- backup
- boot into single user mode and make sure there is no processess running
- bind-mount / somewhere under the armel chroot, and move the directories (this is the scary part)
# mount -o bind / /chroot/armel/mnt/ # chroot /chroot/armel/ # cd /mnt # mkdir old # mv bin sbin lib usr var old # relocate the old binary directores # cp -a /bin /sbin /lib /usr /var . # copy the armel binaryes and library directories to root # mv /sbin/start-stop-daemon.REAL /sbin/start-stop-daemon
At this point, make *sure* you have everything you need to boot and access your system under /mnt.
Exit the armel chroot and *REBOOT*. If it breaks, you get to keep the pieces.
If you are lucky, you have now a armel system. Finish the installation by pulling in the rest of packages you had installed:
apt-get -dselect-upgrade
TODO: recover old /var selectively.