Yesterday I installed the debian lenny on yeeloong 8101, the 10.1 inch notebook based on loongson 2F CPU for a friend. Then I find there is less English document describing how to do this. So I write the process down to anyone who is interested in installing debian on yeloong. There are many ways to do it I choose the way of using a debian network installer. Please make sure you have a internet connection first.

1. First download the kernel and initrd to your PC.

wget http://dev.lemote.com/drupal/sites/default/files/kernel-2.6.27-LM8089.tar.gz
wget http://dev.lemote.com/drupal/sites/default/files/initrd_yl_netboot.gz

2. Decompress kernel on your PC.

tar zxvf kernel-2.6.27-LM8089.tar.gz

You will get the kernel vmlinux and the directory named lib. The lib directory contains all the kernel modules.

3. Format your USB disk with ext2 partition and copy vmlinux, directory lib and initrd_yl_netboot.gz to the usb disk.

4. Insert the usb disk to your netbook and boot it

5. Enter the PMON command line.

There are two ways to enter the PMON(the bootloader of yeeloong) command line. One is press DEL when booting. The other way is click C when you see the boot menu.

Use the following commands to load the kernel and initrd, which contains the debian network installer.

load /dev/fs/ext2@usb0/vmlinux
initrd /dev/fs/ext2@usb0/initrd_yl_netboot.gz

Please be patient. The initrd command may need more than 5 miniutes to be finished.

Sometimes the PMON bootloader may hang when you boot with a usb disk inserted. I do not know why. The workaround is booting into the default linux system and inserting the usb disk and then rebooting. Or you can use a tftp method to load the kernel and initrd.

At last use the following command to launch the debian network installer.

g console=tty no_auto_cmd

Then just install the debian as normal.

6. Install debian lenny

After debian configurating the DHCP, it will complain about "no kernel modules were found" and will let you choose "continue the install without loading kernel modules?", just choose Yes(the default answer is No) to continue.

When in the part of Partition disks, it will complain about "The current kernel doesn't support the Logical Volume Manager. You may need to load the lvm-mod modules" and the background becomes red. Do not be scared. Just click continue.

Then everything goes as it should be. But at last, debian installer will say "no installable kernel was found in the defined APT sources.... Continue without installing a kernel". Do not click Yes too quickly. We need to copy the kernel and all the modules into new system first. Please make sure that the USB disk is still inserting on the notebook. Use ALT+F2 to active a console. Mount the use disk and copy kernel and libs.

mount /dev/sda1 /target/mnt
cp /mnt/vmlinux /target/boot
cp -rf /mnt/lib/modules /target/lib/

Then click ALT+F1 return to the debian installer. Click Yes to continue installing.

7. Install Desktop environment

You can install LXDE or gnome as your desktop. I prefer LXDE because it is light.

apt-get install lxde

Install the X server driver.

wget http://www.anheng.com.cn/loongson2f/lenny/xorg-server/xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion_2.2.8-lemote.r04_mipsel.deb
dpkg -i xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion_2.2.8-lemote.r04_mipsel.deb

Change the xorg.conf according to this link.

8. Trouble shooting

(1) My wifi does not work

You can see "rtl8187: rtl8187_open process failed because radio off" if you use dmesg to see the message. Use FN+F5 to turn on the wifi first. You will see such message "rtl8187: SCI interrupt Methord Will Turn Radio On" on your console.

(2) My sound does not work

Use alsamixer to adjust the volume. But install alsa-utils first.

(3) OOPS, I forget to copy kernel to my new installed system. I can not boot it now. What should I do?

You can load the kernel using tftp method.

Today I try to compile the kernel by myself and the new kernel works well except for network card. I can not see eth0 using ifconfig command. Then I check the pci list of my gdium PCB and find the RTL8139D is on the list.

kill-bill:~# ifconfig eth0
eth0: error fetching interface information: Device not found

kill-bill:~# lspci
00:00.0 MIPS: STMicroelectronics STLS2F Host Bridge (rev 01)
00:0d.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI
00:0e.0 Display controller: Silicon Motion, Inc. SM501 VoyagerGX Rev. AA (rev c0
)
00:0f.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 44)
00:0f.1 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB 2.0 (rev 05)
00:10.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139
C+ (rev 10)
00:11.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 44)
00:11.1 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB 2.0 (rev 05)

That shows rtl8139 is successfully initialized by the kernel. But why there is no eth0 device?

Then I grep eth0 in dmesg and find that something is wrong with udev.

kill-bill:~# dmesg | grep eth0
eth0: RealTek RTL8139 at 0x9000000051a2a100, 00:d0:35:10:00:20, IRQ 39
eth0:  Identified 8139 chip type 'RTL-8100B/8139D'
udev: renamed network interface eth0 to eth1

I cat the udev net rule and find that it sets 8139d with MAC address 00:d0:35:10:00:20 to eth1. That's exactly the network card on my gdium PCB.

kill-bill:~# cat /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
# This file was automatically generated by the /lib/udev/write_net_rules
# program run by the persistent-net-generator.rules rules file.
#
# You can modify it, as long as you keep each rule on a single line.

# PCI device 0x10ec:0x8139 (8139too)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:d0:35:10:04:a9", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0"

# PCI device 0x1814:0x0301 (rt61pci)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:0e:8e:19:3d:68", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="wlan*", NAME="wlan0"

# PCI device 0x10ec:0x8139 (8139too)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:d0:35:10:00:20", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth1"

# PCI device 0x1814:0x0301 (rt61pci)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:0e:8e:19:3b:18", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="wlan*", NAME="wlan1"

I know why dev does that now. The debian system is installed on my gdium, not on the PCB and then I just use it on the PCB board. When udev finds there is another 8139d network card with different MAC address it adds another entry in rules to rename it to eth1. After changing the eth1 to eth0 in 70-persistent-net.rules, the network works now.

Following is the kernel information of my new kernel.:)

kill-bill:~# dmesg | grep 2.6.24
Linux version 2.6.24.5-gdiumv3-2.2mnb (root@debian) (gcc version 4.3.3 (GCC) ) #
2 Sat Mar 28 16:00:59 CST 2009

(1) Prepare the new USB disk

Format the new USB disk with at least tow partitions, one is ext2 partition for the root file system and the other is swap space. You can use fdisk to do this.

(2) Install the debian base system using debootstrap

You need to install the debootstrap in gdium first.

urpmi debootstrap

Mount the new USB disk to your gdium, /mnt for example. Replace /dev/sdc1 to the name of your USB device.

mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt

Install the debian base system using debootstrap. You can change lenny to sid if you want to use the debian testing system. To me, I prefer lenny.

debootstrap --arch=mipsel lenny /mnt

It will download the packages and install to system. So please be patient if your network speed is slow.

Copy /etc/resolv.conf  to your new system and set the hostname of the new system.

copy /etc/resolv.conf  /mnt/etc/resolv.conf

echo YOUHOSTNAME > /mnt/etc/hostname

Chroot to your new system.

chroot /mnt /bin/bash

(3) Install the kernel image

wget http://lebesgue.cowpig.ca/~philippe/gdium/linux-2.6.24-gdium-1_2.6.24-gdium-1_mipsel.deb

dpkg -i linux-2.6.24-gdium-1_2.6.24-gdium-1_mipsel.deb

Change /etc/modules to the following:

gdium_laptop
ipv6
i2c_gpio
sm501_gpio
lm75
hwmon_vid
hwmon
eeprom
i2c_dev

Install udev in debian. Otherwise the debian will complain about rtc after rebooting.


apt-get install udev

(4) Reboot your gdium and set the env parameters pf PMON

Reboot the gdium and press DEL on the keyboard when gdium powers up to enter the PMON console. Set the env parameters of PMON to let it loads the correct kernel image and find the correct root file system.

set al /dev/fs/ext2@usbg0/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-gdium-1

set karg console=tty0 root=/dev/sda1 rootwait video=sm501fb:1024x600 init=/sbin/init

reboot

Please change root=/dev/sda1 according to your USB disk's partition setting.

(5) Install software in debian

apt-get install lm-sensors

Change the /etc/sensors3.conf to the following:

chip "lm75-*"
set temp1_max      40
set temp1_max_hyst 35

Install the video card driver.

apt-get install xorg

wget http://lebesgue.cowpig.ca/~philippe/gdium/xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion_1.7.0-0_mipsel.deb

dpkg -i xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion_1.7.0-0_mipsel.deb

Install lxde desktop. Of course you can install xfce4 or gnome.

apt-get install lxde

Install the wireless card driver and wicd. Change the /etc/apt/sources.list to the following.

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian lenny main non-free
deb http://apt.wicd.net lenny extras

apt-get update

apt-get install firmware-ralink wicd wireless-tools

modprobe rt61pci

Ok. Now you have a working debian lenny system with lxde desktop.

Issues & solutions:

(1) portmap hangs and you can't turn off gdium

Add the following lines to /etc/network/interfaces.

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

(2)cannot access mtab: Input/output error

That's because /etc/fstab is not configured. Add the follow lines into your /etc/fstab. You can add or delete the partitions if you want.

/dev/sda1 / ext3 noatime 1 1
/dev/sda4 swap swap defaults 0 0
none /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0
none /var/log tmpfs defaults 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /sys/kernel/debug debugfs defaults 0 0

(3) Sound does not work on my system!!

Add you the the audio group.

usermod -a - G audio yajin

(4) The system can not display Chinese characters.

apt-get install locales

dpkg-reconfigure locales

Please make sure zh_CN locale is selected. You can install wqy fonts if you want.

apt-get install xfonts-wqy ttf-wqy-zenhei

(5) How to display the flash player in youtube

apt-get install swfdec-mozilla

The feedbacks are welcome.