Subject: [E3-hacking] HOWTO: test your E3 audio

From: Janusz Krzysztofik <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:08:12 +0200

David Reynolds wrote:
 > Janusz,
 >
 > Any chance of a step by step of how you set up your E3 as a soft phone?

Things are not stable yet, but for those impatient:

1. Ensure you are able to access E3 serial console. In case of problems, 
try with different serial ports, including different usb_serial 
adapters. An FTDI based one worked for me, a Prolific one did not. For 
more info, use http://wiki.earth.li/E3 as your starting point.

2. Ensure you are able to install and run 
http://the.earth.li/pub/e3/E3_release_v2.tar.gz on your E3. There is a 
README included.

3. On your linux PC, install OpenEmbedded and bitbake 
(http://www.openembedded.org). Read OE documentation. Switch to 
2009/stable branch (I'm not sure if really necessary).

4. Configure your OE. In local.conf, set:
	MACHINE = "amsdelta"
	KERNEL_IMAGETYPE = "uImage"
	DISTRO = "amsdelta-oe"
	ANGSTROMLIBC = "uclibc"
Try building minimal-image. This should break on u-boot.

5. For better results, you'll have to modify several OE files. The best 
way is to set up local OE overlay. Get copies of required 
files/directories from OE tree and modify them.

6. Modify conf/machine/amsdelta.conf:
- change PREFERRED_PROVIDER_virtual/kernel to "linux" ("linux-omap" and 
"linux-omap-pm" worked for me too),
- comment out EXTRA_IMAGEDEPENDS,
- increase IMAGE_ROOTFS_SIZE_ext2{,.gz} to "16384",
- in IMAGE_FSTYPES replace "tar.bz2" with "tar.gz".

7. Wait for linux-2.6.32 or later integrated into OE ;), that should 
already contain official audio support for ams-delta, or if you really 
can't wait, create your own recipes/linux/linux-2.6.31[-rcx].bb recipe 
and include all ams-delta audio related patches published here lately.

8. Run "bitbake -c configure linux". Go to 
tmp/work/amsdelta-angstrom-linux-uclibcgnueabi/linux-your.package.version/linux-your.kernel.version/, 
run "ARCH=arm make defconfig_amsdelta", then "ARCH=arm make menuconfig" 
to finetune your kernel configuration. Don't forget to turn on Drivers 
-> Sound -> ALSA -> ASoC -> OMAP -> Amsdelta ;). Now you can save your 
.config as defconfig under recipes/linux/linux-your.kernel.version/ 
directory for future reuse. Finally, get back to your build/ directory 
and bitbake minimal-image.

9. Use http://the.earth.li/pub/e3/E3_release_v2.tar.gz to boot your E3 
into install mode and reinstall it with newly created images transfered 
to your usb stick. Use 
tmp/deploy/uclibc/images/amsdelta/Angstrom-minimalist-image-uclibc-ipk-your.oe.version-amsdelta.rootfs.tar.gz 
as root.tar.gz and 
tmp/work/amsdelta-angstrom-linux-uclibcgnueabi/linux-your.package.version/linux-your.kernel.version/arch/arm/boot/uImage 
as uImage. Keep u-boot.bin and ldr.img unchanged.

10. Verify if it works. To test audio, you can install several packages 
found in tmp/deploy/uclibc/ipk/armv4t/, like alsa-utils-aplay and 
alsa-utils-alsamixer or alsa-utils-amixer. You can also try to build and 
install madplay in order to play your favourite MP3s.

After you are done:
- feel free to use this text as a base for E3 Wiki update,
- prepare and submit a patch against OE ;).

More to come.

Thanks,
Janusz

---

From: Janusz Krzysztofik <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:31:46 +0200

> - prepare and submit a patch against OE ;).

I probably forgot to mention:

If you have succeded, please share your experience here, it may be 
usefull for others and will probably make me thinking about a followup.

If you haven't succeded, please report your problems here, maybe 
somebody can help you.

If you are not satisfied with results you've got or have any suggestions 
for corrections or improvements, please share your ideas.

Thanks,
Janusz