[E3-hacking] HOWTO: test your E3 audio

[Janusz Krzysztofik]

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