Cubox? Linux 3.7 released, bringing generic ARM support

[William Weaver]

With that in mind it looks like SolidRun has a few prebuilts with XBMC that
you can give a shot.

http://www.solid-run.com/mw/index.php/XBMC_on_CuBox

It may be a good place to get started. You can flash this get it up and
running and see if it meets your needs, if not can it and reflash.

If flashing is an issue I'm certain someone will be willing to flash the
card for you. I live in the down town core and if you took the drive/subway
to grab it I would, though you may be able to find someone closer.

Will


On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:35 PM, Thomas Milne <thomas.bruce.milne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
> wrote:

>
> On 2012-12-14 11:56 AM, "D. Hugh Redelmeier" <hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> >
> > | From: Thomas Milne <thomas.bruce.milne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>
> >
> > | I am currently without a computer since they all died at once and I am
> > | jobless.
> > |
> > | So I am using my Cubox to do basic stuff, but running Ubuntu 10 it is
> very
> > | slow.
> >
> > If I remember correctly, Lennart is a local expert on the Cubox.
> >
> >
> > There is no "Ubuntu 10".  There is 10.04 LTS and 10.10, but those are
> > distinct.
>
> Sorry, you're right. Just being lazy since I have to type e-mails on my
> cell phone telephone :-)
>
> > What is it slow doing?  Why?
>
> The worst part is web browsing. It is unbearable. Now that is likely in
> large part because of limited memory, but surely it would at least be more
> useable if I could get better use of the ARM processor with newer Linux
> version. My understanding is that the Ubuntu on there now does slow
> software  emulation of hardware operations.
>
> > As far as I know, the major thing that *might* get sped up in another
> > distro is floating point.  Most programs don't care about FP
> > performance, but a few care a lot -- do you run any of those?
>
> Basically I was hoping for a couple of basic functions: web browsing and
> media player, primarily with XBMC. As it is, the Cubox works very well just
> moving files around on network and running Transmission.
>
> > My perception is that these little devices are sometimes slow because:
> >
> > - the memory interface is narrower than a PC's so memory bandwidth is
> >   bad
>
> Ya, not expecting to run Firefox with like 50 tabs open.
>
> > - 1 ARM MIP < 1 x86 MIP for modern x86 implementations
> >
> > - most I/O is funneled through USB 2.x (example: ethernet on
> >   RaspberryPI) (example: all disk I/O)
> >
> > - I think that SD cards (except perhaps the fastest) are slower than
> >   hard drives even if USB isn't the bottleneck
> >
> > - video drivers are crap since there are no high-performance open source
> >   video drivers for any ARM display subsystem yet
> >
> > - not enough RAM (new desktops start at 4G; most ARM systems stop at
> >   1G)
> >
> > | Will this 3.7 kernel mean that Linux will now run on Cubox with normal
> > | install? I know Debian won't have the 3.7 kernel for a while.
> >
> > Who knows.  It is a future direction so it may not be embraced by old
> > products.  Too many embedded systems are "fire and forget" by their
> > producers.  I don't have any knowledge of the Cubox folks intention.
> > You could ask them.
> >
> > | And since I do not have a Linux desktop I can't do any of the tricks
> > | to get a newer Linux on Cubox.
> >
> > Surely we can help there.
> >
> > Where are you?  What does it involve/require (time, equipment,
> > expertise, risks)?
>
> Well I'm fairly experienced with Linux in general but not a professional.
> I can install it myself, but I'm not sure how to go about that as all
> instructions I read say I need another Linux computer besides Cubox :-/
>
> I suppose ideally I would buy a good SD card and some kind soul would help
> me load some bootable install routine on it.
>
> I am in south etobicoke but I have a vehicle.
>
> Apologies for terrible line wrap/quoting on my phone.
>
> > --
> > The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
> > TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
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>
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