If you want to install Debian (not run it from the SD card) you can just setup your SD card directly from Windows.

Format it (one partition) to FAT32, from fatpart.tgz (you can use winrar to extract) copy the /script folder (renaming cmd.install and scriptcmd.install to cmd and scriptcmd accordingly), then copy extpart.tgz on the SD card.

You should also copy wi-on, wi-off, wifisetup and xorg.conf (make sure you edit xorg.conf beforehand if your keyboard layout is not US) to the SD card, as you will need them. You can get those from abrasive's website: bur.st/~abrasive/wm8505_linux

Once all that is done, you're ready to install:

1) Put in your SD card and boot

2) If install couldnt read your extpart, and you're back at console, do:

mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/sd
mount /dev/mtdblock9 /mnt/mtd
tar xzf /mnt/sd/extpart.tgz -C /mnt/mtd

It'll take awhile to extract. Once done and back to console, take out the SD card, and type: reboot

Now, once loaded it'll ask for a login, just type in: root
Once you're back at console, stick the SD card back in, and:

mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt
cd /mnt
cp wifisetup /sbin
cp wi-on /sbin
cp wi-off /sbin

then simply type: wifisetup

and follow the instructions to setup your wifi (it will auto connect after you're done).

Now you should be back at console, with internet working. Before you install anything, here are a few things you should do:

type in: passwd

and setup a password for the root account

type in: adduser YourUsername

and setup a user account you'll be using instead of root once everything is properly installed

type in: mkdir /var/apt/log

to keep a small error from popping up when you're installing packages.

apt-get update

to grab latest packages from repository

apt-get upgrade

to upgrade your distro packages to latest

Once you've done this, you have many options, depending on which WM you want to use. Here are a few i found to be working:

FLUXBOX:

apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xfonts-base xinit fluxbox

XFCE4:

apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xfonts-base xinit xfce4

LXDE:

apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xfonts-base xinit lxde

GNOME MINIMAL:

apt-get install  xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xfonts-base xinit gnome-session gnome-panel metacity gnome-terminal

------------------

If you want a graphical login manager, I recommend using 'slim' as it is lightweight and looks good. GDM is also nice looking but requires many gnome dependencies so you should avoid it, xdm is lightweight too but pretty ugly.

apt-get install slim

will do the trick.

if you've installed fluxbox, you will need to copy your xorg.conf if your keyboard layout isnt US and you've properly edited it, so stick in your SD card:

mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt
cd /mnt
cp xorg.conf /etc/X11
cd ..
umount /mnt
wi-off

take out your SD card, and 'reboot' you should now have a working Debian distro with WM and internet working properly.

To enable wifi, just type in console, from anywhere, 'wi-on'

---------------------------------

Recommended packages:

Web browser: links2, Galeon
Games: gtkboard
Notepad clones: Leafpad, Mousepad
Word clones: Abiword
Email: evolution
Terminal: xterm

which you can install using: apt-get install packagename

These are the ones I tried and know work 100% with those WMs. There are probably more out there.

Hope this helps!

Good work. Thanks.

I have installed the dillo web browser as mentioned in another thread and it works fine
and really fast under fluxbox at least. I never heard of it and really like to work with it.

I'm desparately looking for a way to boot from the SD anand use an USB stick partition as the extpart
file system. I read this somewhere but can't find it anymore. I remember only that one has to run
mkimage to make a new scriptcmd which points to /dev/sda1.

When I try to run mkimage I always get the message "cannot execute binary file"

IP Static network problem for DNS : can help me ?

I have made a "large" debian package installation (X11_LDE -openoffice-amule-xnview-filezilla-ssh-vncserver-evince-pdfviewer etc.) and make 2 script bash  for LAN-network setting (via dhcp/IP static) : In DHCP is all ok , when I setting static Ip/mask/gtw/dns1/dns2 , eth0 working in LAN (ping Gtw)  but cannot access to internet (DNS??) : in /etc/resolv.conf &  /etc/hosts I have inserted open DNS servers+ ip and installed optional debian package "resolvconf" but not working.

No network-manager or wicd package installed.

I have not idea .... , I am  fedora Core users not debian .... 

thank a lot

I have a problem with the installation.

When I insert the sd card the installation run and erase the NAND and write the kernel on the NAND but when it's booting linux on my 7"laptop with wm8505 gets freezed

Erasing NAND....
Done!
Writing kernel to NAND...
Done!
Booting linux, will built root fs
      (on /dev/mtdblock09)
and the computer gets freezed.

thanks a lot.

Ok I resolve the problem, but I have another, when I reboot and I login as a root I type:" mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt" and it says is not a valid bolck device.
I need help!!!
thanks for all

Quote: GZicchinolfi at Oct 12, 2010 11:16:48 am

---

IP Static network problem for DNS : can help me ?

I have made a "large" debian package installation (X11_LDE -openoffice-amule-xnview-filezilla-ssh-vncserver-evince-pdfviewer etc.) and make 2 script bash  for LAN-network setting (via dhcp/IP static) : In DHCP is all ok , when I setting static Ip/mask/gtw/dns1/dns2 , eth0 working in LAN (ping Gtw)  but cannot access to internet (DNS??) : in /etc/resolv.conf &  /etc/hosts I have inserted open DNS servers+ ip and installed optional debian package "resolvconf" but not working.

No network-manager or wicd package installed.

I have not idea .... , I am  fedora Core users not debian .... 

thank a lot

---

-----------------------------------------------------------------

RESOLVED :


the problem was that in /etc/resolv.conf file : 

nameserver    IP   

"nameserver"  is a Fixed variable and do not change with it resolved address (es: open.dns.org) , it's not intuitive...

   

So... Do I just extract the directory /script or do I extract the contents of the directory to the card?

And why do we have to change the extensions to cmd and scriptcmd if there are files with those names already? It would be helpful with a more thorough explanation.

Thanks. 

Edit: Nevermind the last question. Alright, so I've arrived at the console and have been greeted by the part where it won't mount extpart. I'm not sure I understand exactly how to type that? Spaces and all? Do I actually type mount? I've tried it several different ways to no avail. Can someone help me out with this one. I really want to test out Debian on my netbook.

Edit: Well... I guess you can forget that question, too. lol. I re-formated my 2 gig stick and got extpart un-tarred into nand. Where can I get wifisetup, though? I can't find it on Abrasive's website.

Edit: Nevermind... So far I've done all this on my own. Running wifisetup as we speak. I guess these forums are a bit dated. Well, I must admit, though, that most of the information on here is useful and I have learned from reading the many threads and searching for answers. Thanks.

Hi Hello friends, I'm having the same problem

Erasing NAND....
Done!
Writing kernel to NAND...
Done!
Booting linux, will built root fs
      (on /dev/mtdblock09)
and the computer gets freezed.

Tell me how you solved, please.Thanks

Quote: calcoite at Nov 30, 2010 5:20:12 am

---

Hi Hello friends, I'm having the same problem

Erasing NAND....
Done!
Writing kernel to NAND...
Done!
Booting linux, will built root fs
      (on /dev/mtdblock09)
and the computer gets freezed.

Tell me how you solved, please.Thanks

---

Same problem here. I tried like four different cards, format/untar in both windows and linux. Single partition setup, two partition direct boot, etc.. nothing works. All freeze at the same part. Android and WinCE work fine.

I've got hal still unconfigured and lxde/xfce4 still unconfigured too. What can I do with it?

Quote: leondark at Oct 17, 2010 9:11:02 pm

---

Ok I resolve the problem, but I have another, when I reboot and I login as a root I type:" mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt" and it says is not a valid bolck device.
I need help!!!
thanks for all

---

I've same problem.
Please tell me. How did you solve this ?

   

There is a good explanation on this at bento-linux.com. http://bento-linux.org/faq/during-debian-installation-it-hangs-after-building-fs

I tried to restore uboot successfully with this slatedroid WinCE. http://www.slatedroid.com/index.php?topic=2763.0

Thanks, I'm trying

İt works.
Thanks

But I have another problem in other thread.
Here is the link.

devio.us/~nextvolume/via_arm/viewtopic.php?id=4&t_id=12&page=6#738

Dear all friends,

I have a problem with that

mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/sd        -----> It's OK
mount /dev/mtdblock9 /mnt/mtd      -----> can't mount /dev/mtdblock9 on /mnt/mtd, no such file (ERROR)
tar xzf /mnt/sd/extpart.tgz -C /mnt/mtd

When I try to look "mtdblock9" file @ /dev/.... I just find mtdblock1~5, No 9 file

Thanks to all

This article looks like it gives a good explaination on how to install Debian,

but I cant seem to find any links or any instructions on where to download the fatpart.tgz and extpart.tgz files this article talks about.

And I cant find any good instructions on how to create them.

Can anyone shed any light on where i can download from or how i can create them?

Hi all. I've  been reading the various posts here (and here ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1349626&page=44)  with great interest. I have a friends WM8505 to update as his daughter needs flash on it. I can see that Windows CE has flashlite support but even getting that working is not going to help with most sites going flash 10..... I've nothing against Windows per se but CE version is just awful so I was intrigued to see if I could get a linux variant on it and came across these excellent posts.

I've got Debian base installed to NAND ok using the instructions here but like others after the initial install, SD card reboot and then reinsert and mount SD card once more I get the error:

Quote:

---

mount: /dev/mmcblk0p1 is not a valid block device

---

I've seen various suggestions above that others have also experienced same issue but then seemingly have resolved but no-one appears to have posted the "how". So if you've figured this out already would you mind throwing me a bone and add the fix here? It would no doubt help others in the same boat.

I had previously managed to get Debian basically working via ethernet cable and manually editing /etc/network/interfaces but I ran into other difficulties and opted to try reinstalling but was hoping to do this the easy way this time round.

I also tried installing the slim login manager but it did not appear to work. Came up ok but logging in as root no password did not work at all..... ideas? I'm guessing the blank password may be the problem but can't see why as you can login from terminal with blank password ok....

Lastly I was also being plagued by the kernel panic error on restarting the machine - did anyone get to the bottom of that?

Sorry for so many questions in one post - hope all the kind people here can shed some light for my benefit (and others of course!    ).

Many thanks, Tom

Managed to sort out some of my own questions with more in depth reading particularly of page 74 of this post:

ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1349626&page=74

And specifically with user abrasives info.

Once base install of Debian to NAND is done you can configure wireless manually as follows:

Run command below to enable wireless card:

$ modprobe rt3070sta

Create a wpa_supplicant.conf file and edit with basic SSID/passphrase info.

$ touch /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
$ vi /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

Add basic information like below and save

network={
    ssid="home"
    key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
    psk="very secret passphrase"
}

You may also want to check /etc/resolv.conf to check the nameserver ip addresses are correct.

Run manual commands below to configure wireless card

$ wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -ira0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -P /var/run/wpa_supplicant.pid
$ dhclient -pf /var/run/dhclient-ra0.pid ra0

I needed to restart network interfaces to get wireless to "kick in"

$ /etc/network/interfaces restart

I can at least now ping www.google.com and get response. apt-get command is giving me errors still as below:

ERROR!!! CntlEnqueueForRecv: Block Ack Request frame length size = 44 Incorrect

But looks like at least wireless is "working" albeit flaky. Hopefully the above might help someone in similar situation to myself....

Kernel panic is still happening but only after using apt-get to install fluxbox via this command:

$ apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xfonts-base xinit fluxbox

Can hard shutdown and restart ok

I have created a non-root user and when attempting to login as that user I get error:

$ Unable to cd to ' /home/user'
$ Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 William tty1
$ william login:

I've checked perms on that users folder using:

$ ls -la

shows as:

drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Jan 2 23:05 .
drw-rw-rw- 1 root root 4096 Jan 2 23:01 ..
drwxr-xr-x 1 user user 4096 Jan 2 23:05 user

Anything obvious I've missed? I've not altered anything so permissions have not been changed, just added user using useradd and passwd to add a password and that's it.

I'm trying to install this Linux on a WM8505. It has installed with no network interface drivers - in fact, no networking at all, not even an "ifconfig" program. Where can I dfind your script "wifisetup"?