[OS] Debian Jessie

[meveric]

Here's a very minimal Debian Jessie image for the ODROID X2 series.

It's just a headless server image only with user root at the moment. But it has all my repositories included, which allows for easy installation and updates of packages such as Kernel and Headers, or Kodi, or Chromium Browser, or whatever.

The image has my usual setup: means on first boot it's resizing the rootfs partition and configures SSH. It will automatically reboot after the initial setup after which this image is ready to use.
Kernel and headers are already installed if you need to build your own drivers.
A few basic tools such as ntp, htop, mc, vim, wireless-tools, wpasupplicant, setup-odroid and bash-completion are already installed for your convenience.

Download: http://oph.mdrjr.net/meveric/images/Jes ... -X2.img.xz
Size compressed: 103MB
Size uncompressed: 566 MB

Default Login: root
Default Password: odroid

It's ready to be used as a server image.

How to convert the image into a Desktop image:

The image can easily converted into a full Desktop image looking similar to this:

You can use the preinstalled tool "setup-odroid" to install a Desktop and setup a user for it, or if you want to do it manually you can use the following steps:

update the package lists (if you haven't done yet)

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apt-get update

run tasksel to choose your preferred Desktop environment
please note: not all Desktop Environments are working perfectly on the ODROID, best choises probably are LXDE, and MATE, but XFCE and KDE should works as well.

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tasksel

tasksel will take quite some time to download and install all the packages needed for a Desktop image and needs at least 1GB of extra disk space (better 2GB)
afterwards we need to install X11 framebuffer drivers:

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apt-get install xf86-video-armsoc-odroid

and for 3D acceleration the Mali GPU drivers

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apt-get install mali400-odroid

you also need a fitting xorg.conf for the framebuffer drivers:

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cd /etc/X11
wget http://oph.mdrjr.net/meveric/other/xorg.conf

If you are a more experienced user instead of tasksel you can always install the packages you want manually and therefore keep the image as slim as you want.

It's also recommended to create a new user account for the Desktop environment and NOT to logon as root.
For example:

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adduser odroid

After a reboot you should see a graphical login for your Debian Jessie image.

Once you have a Desktop running you can easily install all the packages available in my repository such as XBMC or Kodi

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apt-get install xbmc-odroid
# or
apt-get install kodi-odroid
# install firmware required for hardware decoding in XBMC/Kodi
apt-get install firmware-samsung
mkdir -p /lib/firmware/s5p-mfc
cp /lib/firmware/s5p-mfc.fw /lib/firmware/s5p-mfc-v6.fw  /lib/firmware/s5p-mfc/

or Chromium Browser

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apt-get install chromium-browser-odroid
# adding Flash support to Chromium Browser
apt-get install pepperflash-odroid

TVHeadend for live TV in Kodi

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apt-get install tvheadend

or arduino for development on arduino boards, ODROID SHOW, and other electronics platforms

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apt-get install arduino

I also advice you to install ffmpeg from Debian repository, it's a very good tool to watch and convert videos and well maintained from experienced Debian developers.
Checkout the HOWTO link in my signature to find more packages available in my repository

Please note:
Most of the packages available in my repository are X11 based, for example the mali400-odroid package are X11 GPU drivers, or Kodi, is only available for X11, so you need a Desktop environment to use them.
Also, I haven't installed all drivers and firmwares available. If you want to use Wifi Model 4 you might have to install the firmware-ralink package first available on standard Debian repository.

If you find any bugs please let me know.

Hints:
Changing language:
If you install a Desktop environment you should already have keybord-configuration installed, it will ask upon the first installation what keyboard layout it should use.
This configuration is for your X11 Desktop so you have your desired keyboard layout.
For console you need to install console-setup to do the same, so just in case:

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apt-get install console-setup keyboard-configuration
dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

should be all that is needed to change your keyboard layout.
You probably want to set timezone as well

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dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

CEC support:

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apt-get install libcec
# if needed you can also install the cec tools
apt-get install cec-utils

After that you need to add a new udev rule so you can access the CEC device:

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echo 'KERNEL=="CEC",SUBSYSTEM=="misc",MODE="0666"' > /etc/udev/rules.d/20-hkl_cec.rules

Hardware Acceleration for Chromium:
Make sure you add these in your Chromium configuration under /etc/chromium.d/ or /etc/chromium-browser/default

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export CHROMIUM_FLAGS="$CHROMIUM_FLAGS --use-gl=egl --ignore-gpu-blacklist --disable-accelerated-2d-canvas --num-raster-threads=4 --audio-buffer-size=4096"

[odroid]

Thank you for supporting our old X2 board.

[meveric]

I'm thinking about porting it to the ODROID X as well.. After all it's just exchanging Kernel/Headers and boot.scr

[odroid]

Great news for even older original ODROID-X!

[adrianer]

I'm thinking about porting it to the ODROID X as well.. After all it's just exchanging Kernel/Headers and boot.scr

I'd also be happy if you could do that, as then I could finally upgrade my X away from Wheezy

[meveric]

ok I'll do that later on. Probably tonight or at the weekend. Let's see when I have time for it.

[meveric]

well, as promised: http://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=19281

[adrianer]

Thank you very much!

[Julius]

Any chance you could provide php7 with this? I would like to run an owncloud9 server on my old x2 and php7 is probably a lot faster. Thanks for the support!

[Julius]

Have you played with the recent X2 kernel work as outlined here:
http://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?f ... 1&p=135912

Would be awesome to be able to use a newer kernel.

[meveric]

Any chance you could provide php7 with this? I would like to run an owncloud9 server on my old x2 and php7 is probably a lot faster. Thanks for the support!

I played around with it a little but couldn't get it to compile correctly yet. (At least the Debian packages) It might work using the packages directly, but I'm busy with other things at the moment so I couldn't look into it more. I'll get back to it when I have more time.

Have you played with the recent X2 kernel work as outlined here:
http://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?f ... 1&p=135912

Would be awesome to be able to use a newer kernel.

I know of this, but haven't followed it in a while. Some time ago he announced that basically only MFC was missing, so a couple months later I asked if there was any progress on the MFC topic, and got told to stop asking questions, I will get blocked (was the first time I asked a question about this). So I didn't bother much about it anymore. MFC is required for Video acceleration without Kodi won't work very well.
Also he uses tons of custom drivers which makes nearly all standard drivers obsolete you use to run default X2 images.
I don't think it's worth it at the moment. And I don't have the time to do tons of testing only to figure out in the end that some parts do no longer work which were working before.

If I have a lot of time and don't know anything better to do I might check into the project, but right now it's too much trouble for me and I don' have the time or patience to deal with it.

4.x might be interesting for a server image, but for a full desktop image I don't think it's working stable enough right now. I might at some point create a new Kernel image for this Kernel and see if it works at all without changing everything every couple weeks, but as I said, that will take some time.

[Julius]

Understandable (both topics).

I'll probably try the php7 packages sometimes soon and will report the finding back here, but it is highly appreciated if you are looking into it also!

[LiquidAcid]

Also he uses tons of custom drivers which makes nearly all standard drivers obsolete you use to run default X2 images.

Huh, which custom drivers are you referring to?

[meveric]

your exynos-drm builds for example.

[LiquidAcid]

your exynos-drm builds for example.

Can you point to what you mean by that? I don't provide any kind of builds.

The only custom driver in the tree is Mali, which makes it exactly one driver.

[Julius]

Any chance you could add some basic wifi networking things to it? I am facing the problem that I don't have a wired network in my house and even though I installed the firmwares all the other tools for connecting to a wifi-network from the terminal are missing and hard to install without network access.

[meveric]

It's on a to-do list but I haven't got around it yet. I'll see that I can update the image when I'm back from my vacation.

[Julius]

Any chance now for a small update to the image with the terminal wifi tools? Thanks a lot!

[meveric]

I'll think about it.. could fix some other things with it I guess.. let's see how much time i have tomorrow.

[meveric]

Update:

• I've updated the base image and included drivers so apt via HTTPS works out of the box.
• I also pre-installed setup-odroid which allows you to install Kodi or Desktop easily.
• I was also asked to include Wifi tools to setup wifi from command line, these are pre-installed now was well.
• SSH was changed to allow root login via password

[X2OnWater]

I did install these image for my X2. All runs fine, but my LVDS-screen leaves gray. I can logon via ssh, run install procedure in a ssh shell and was hoping after install and reboot the screen will work - it keeps gray.
How can I activate output to LVDS? I have the 14" screen set from Hardkernel.

[meveric]

I never had that screen so I can't tell what to do and can't really try it to figure out how to get it to work (although I have a X2 as well).
Maybe @odroid can help with that.

[odroid]

I think he has this LCD panel.
http://com.odroid.com/sigong/blog/blog_list.php?bid=127

But it is really hard to find any Kernel config documentation at this moment since it was discontinued around 6 years ago.
As far as I remember, the panel driver board was compatible with Kernel 3.6 only probably.

[X2OnWater]

Yes, this is my LCD panel.
And you mean I have to hold my running system. And to do every software update by compiling self, starting with compiling recently gcc/g++?

[meveric]

And you mean I have to hold my running system. And to do every software update by compiling self, starting with compiling recently gcc/g++?

Who said that? O_o

[X2OnWater]

Who said that? O_o

Do not see it personally! It is the consequence which I see for me.

I have to compile apps with a recently Qt on my X2. A prerequisite is a more recently compiler
I was trying a update to Jessie by changing repositories, but it leads to a broken system.

My actual system is Wheezy, an image for LVDS.

OR --- which recently, update able image can I use for X2 with LVDS?

[odroid]

Check "lsusb /dev/fb*" output and configure xorg.conf file.

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Section "Device"
        identifier "FBDEV"
        Driver "fbdev"
        Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb0" #For LVDS LCD 
        Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb6" #For HDMI
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        identifier "Default Screen"
        Device "FBDEV"
        DefaultDepth 24
EndSection

[X2OnWater]

These solution does not work for me. I have /dev/fb0 only, no /dev/fb6.

So I did order a new monitor with HDMI input, 16 inch with a native resolution of 1360x768. It works 59.50 Hz.
Connected to my C2 or notebook, all works fine.
Connected to X2, after the booting text, I see bars how it's good known from old tube monitors.
It's not a problem specifically to Jessie, Ubuntu 14 does the same.

Can I configure a mode line to set correct monitor params? Where, how?

[meveric]

The X2 officially only supports 1280x720 and 1920x1080.
Although other resolutions "might" work, there is no guarantee all resolution "will" work.
It could be that your 1360x768 is simply not supported.

The image should boot in 1280x720 if that is not supported by your monitor, then it might not work at all.

[X2OnWater]

Thank your for this info!

The image boots in 1280x720 and shows many lines of text. Once X does start, the screen becomes unreadable.
No 1360x768 supported? Really? The LVDS-kit is 1360x768 and did run from Wheezy image perfectly.

[meveric]

Thank your for this info!

The image boots in 1280x720 and shows many lines of text. Once X does start, the screen becomes unreadable.

Well if that's the case it's probably rather easy to fix.
If you can log into the ODROID via SSH do so as your desktop user (probably odroid) and run the following command:

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DISPLAY=:0 xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode 1280x720

No 1360x768 supported? Really? The LVDS-kit is 1360x768 and did run from Wheezy image perfectly.

The LVCD-Kit run on a different framebuffer, it uses different framebuffer drivers to make the display work.
The HDMI output is different from the LVCD therefore it has different limitations but also benefits.

[seph976]

Hey, i know this is a bit of an old thread, but i just dusted off my old X2 today and figured id look for something fun to install to it, i downloaded this and flashed the image to my emmc, booted it up and waited for a bit for it to restart as stated in the original post, it then eventually got to a login screen, i logged in, used setup-odroid and hit install desktop or whatever the option said, it then took a while and came back with "Your board is not yet supported"

So my question is, am i doing something wrong? this is for the X2 isnt it? im not really that used to linux, i used to have android running on my X2 before so this is relatively new to me.

Anyway i realize this is an old post but im hoping someone will see this and can help me out.

[meveric]

the main problem is that the image itself is very outdated and doesn't do everything it's suppose to be doing out of the box anymore.
Debian Jessie only has LTS support and you need to adjust some settings in order to make it work.

The setup-odroid tool if updated should be able to take care most of the stuff, problem is, in order to update it you have to do a few steps upfront as well, like installing apt-transport-https and things like that.
Is it possible to get it to work? Yes.
But it may not be easy and you have to change a few things before you will be able to use it.

[seph976]

Actually my ethernet cable was lose and it couldnt connect online which was the reason it didnt want to install desktop (lol), after i plugged it in properly it did install, still gave the error but after a reboot it went right to desktop mode, like i said this is all relatively new to me so im just experimenting and trying a few different images and trying to learn the ins and out of using linux.

Anyway, thanks for the reply, and to anyone else trying this out, make sure your ethernet cable is plugged in properly.

[meveric]

let me know if you encounter more issues