debian (not easy) on N900
 

I've been trying for 2 days now to boot debian (not easy-debian) but a full debian http://elektranox.org/n900/index.html on the N900, using maemo kernel and a memory card, but I always get failed to mount device guru meditation error. My debian.item looks like this

ITEM_NAME="Debian"
ITEM_ID="debian"
ITEM_DEVICE="${EXT_CARD}p3" (I also have NITdroid on the sd)
ITEM_MODULES="mbcache jbd ext3"
ITEM_FSTYPE="ext3"
ITEM_FSOPTIONS="noatime,rw"

I have tried without quotes, adding errors=remount-ro
I have also tried copying the kernel from maemo to the memory card again but I see nothing different

Has anyone done this before? Do you see any obvious mistake?

Re: debian (not easy) on N900
 

first ,
why are you doing this the old way ?
use u-boot , and use the debian kernel the dev. is providing , I think he put the link to this kernel on his blog .

anyway , if you insist on using maemo's kernel..
make sure it is NOT power kernel , debian won't boot using power kernel
make sure you copy modules and firmware to the debian partition
are you sure you installed debian to partition 3 on sdcard ?
also , have you used the tarball , or built debian using deboot strap ?

please describe what you have done already in great detail, and where you get stuck..

Re: debian (not easy) on N900
 

ok thank you very much for starts.

1. I didn't know there was old and new way, I saw that website, and went with the instructions, because I thought it would be faster to have debian boot by itself than chrooted. Also I thought using maemo's kernel would provide basic hardware functionality (I need wlan and 3g basicly - and of course touchscreen and keyboard)

2. I didn't use uboot because I have multiboot installed and I was afraid to mess them up.

3. I have used the tarball method, but after some failed attempts, I re-did some of the steps of the manual install. Copied kernel and modules again, replaced watchdog configuration (even after I saw that the uncommented part was actually the same, but I tried anyway)

4. Gparted shows 3 partitions, 1 FAT (empty, boot flag), 2 ext3 (NITdroid - booting fine with ${EXT_CARD}p2), 3 ext3 debian
also I can mount it fine using /dev/mmcblk1p3 and chroot into it so yes I am pretty sure it is debian on partition 3

5. I have powerkernel installed but it;s 2.6.28-omap1 that I moved into /mnt/debian/lib/modules. I also tried specifying the kernel in the .item file but no joy

6. When I reboot and select debian at the multiboot screen it returns

Re: debian (not easy) on N900
 

sorry for late reply ,
If you have multiboot , you have to specify which kernel to be used in the item file

Re: debian (not easy) on N900
 

no problem!
I tried that but I still cannot boot. It stays on the multiboot "wait for boot" screen and eventually it turns off.

I also tried the u-boot solution, but the links for the kernel and initrd are broken, and also touchscreen is not working so there is really no point. I don't know if there is a way of using the meego kernel for debian.

Re: debian (not easy) on N900
 

After reading about 70 pages of the ubuntu thread I have concluded that the guide here http://elektranox.org/n900/index.html does not work with multiboot and pr1.3.

If anybody made it work with this configuration please come forward.

Re: debian (not easy) on N900
 

After skimming through 70 pages of the ubuntu on n900 thread I reached the conclusion that the guide here http://elektranox.org/n900/index.html does not work with pr1.3 and multiboot.

If anyone has managed to make it work with this configuration please state it.

Re: debian (not easy) on N900
 

this isn't related to pr1.3 , also you should be using the kernel from the dev page in the future, for now the links seem broken as you already noticed , but I think that would be fixed soon .

anyway I will try and install it again using maemo's kernel , as I am more than 99% sure this can work quite fine with pr1.3 kernel .

[Edit]
sorry for late reply , it does boot fine with maemo kernel ,
also check the debian kernel at :
http://pkg-n900.alioth.debian.org/
it works fine with u-boot , and the following page would be populated in the future
http://wiki.debian.org/pkg-n900
just don't expect much running this right now ..

Re: debian (not easy) on N900
 

I am probably wrong about the impossibility, maybe I had an old version of multiboot or something else. Now I messed up (I tried to boot maemo from sd and the rootfs got f**d up) and I had to reflash. I'm going with the uboot way now, but I still can't make it work with the power46wl kernel

Re: debian (not easy) on N900
 

Is it possible to install it on eMMC? I have only class 2 card and a lot of free space on eMMC.