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GNU/Linux on Aakash Sachin Patil* and Srikant Patnaik** Article *Linux System Administrator in Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay **Research Assistant, FOSSEE, IIT Bombay GNU/Linux on Aakash Introduction suited for those who just want their work community, provided they acknowledge In the January 2013 issue of to be done without knowing what goes the original authors and attach the same Communications of CSI, the article within. In contrast, Aakash is specially GNU license with the code. This is where "Genesis of Aakash" had explained the meant for education: we don't want our Android lags behind Aakash: most of events leading to the creation of Aakash student to stop with playing games; the popular free apps are closed source this has been explained by Moudgalya, nor do we want to restrict them to the in nature. Phatak, Sinha, and Varma. In this development of another `Angry Birds' Moreover, because of the licensing article, we will explain the work that we kind of game. We want them to learn, restrictions, it is not possible for us to undertook to port GNU/Linux in native read, write, and carry experiments on their distribute useful Android Apps with mode on Aakash. device. This device should be considered Aakash, since we have to get permission Android is a great platform, it’s equivalent to any desktop we use today. from the creator of each App individually. free, and easy to learn. Most of us will We aimed to give them a full fl edged Each one may want di erent agreement acknowledge the use of Google’s Android device to help, play, and experiment forms to be signed. A bigger problem is on Aakash, but not everyone. The reason without any limitations. that most creators of popular Apps are is that Android is not designed to run di cult to locate and hence, the mails to GNU apps, although it is based on Linux Why GNU/Linux (where them will go unanswered. GNU/Linux, on Kernel. This means that one has to rewrite Android lags) the other hand, is especially designed for all useful apps on a new platform, using Android uses the same Linux kernel such campaigns. only Java programming language. Beside optimized for embedded devices and Porting these restrictions, Android also tracks excellent memory management. Though On exploring the hardware of Aakash user activity, and apps may contain ads it has an easy to use GUI, it is generally tablets: we realized that this relatively which are di cult to manage. not suited for everyone, especially new SoC from All-winner has support The fi rst version of Aakash that we students, as explained above. This serves for GNU/Linux, which although limited, worked on came with the Android Ice- strong motive to port GNU/Linux on was su cient enough to start our work. cream sandwich version. It looked nice Aakash. Although GNU/Linux uses the In pursuit of a development board needed with a visually pleasing user interface. It same Linux kernel, its fi le system di ers to start our work, we looked around and had multiple desktop support, e cient completely. It gives us complete freedom fi nally decided to open the device itself. menu applications, perfectly suited for any to explore every part of software as well We asked the vendor for pin numbers touch based device. On scanning through, as hardware. The best part is, the GNU that were needed to obtain the transmit we came across the picture gallery, applications allow the curious learner to data(Tx) and receive data(Rx) pins out calendar, messaging, contacts, clock, etc. read the code and fi nd out the way the applications work. If one is dissatisfi ed from CPU. This information is required These applications come by default with with the application, one is free to for debugging. With the help of a USB to any Android device. The fi rst question download the source code and modify serial converter, we connected the pins that came to our mind was, 'Is this what it accordingly. He or she can even go on to a computer using an USB port. Our will go to our students? What will they do and share their modifi ed code with the hardware team managed to get those with it?’ Most school going children would be unaware of how to use these apps, and instead would play around with drawing tools, games, and other items, which they are familiar with. Sadly no Android device comes with preinstalled educational applications by default. Furthermore, Android was not intended to serve educational purposes. It was created to serve as a mobile operating system. An operating system with GUI specially designed for calling and messaging, which improved as it evolved. Several applications in Android were written by developers across the world. With time, its user interface was optimized, making it easier to use. Until now, Android was largely used as an entertainment operating system. It is well CSI Communications | July 2013 | 28 www.csi-india.org touch screen drivers, of which two work. For an application like ExpEYES (explained below) and Arduino, which uses an USB-to-serial interface for interacting with the hardware, we had to enable kernel support for Communication Device Class(CDC) ExpEYES as ACM device. On the device level, it is detected as Abstract Control Model(ACM) drivers. The Linux kernel detects /dev/ttyACM0. Also for ACM to work, generic USB support should be enabled in the kernel. On the desktop, we can pass arguments to the kernel, ask kernel to load some modules, disable misbehaving modules and so on. Similarly we can pass arguments to kernel on an embedded device using script.bin fi le. On Aakash, pre-customization, module loading for wireless networks, setting display pins out, after which and our development we decided to use the Codesourcery's resolution, loading touch drivers, etc., can device was ready. Without the serial out, cross-compiler tool-chain. We have used be done using script.bin. Although script. it is di cult to track the booting process. these tool-chains in the past. To set up bin is a binary fi le, actual editing can be We had two choices, either to let Codesourcery's tool-chain, one has to done by converting it to fex format. the GNU/Linux boot from its internal register before downloading its binary. memory(NAND fl ash) itself or to let the After downloading, it has to be installed Ubuntu as GNU/Linux Distribution complete OS boot from an external SD- and a custom path to the tool chain has With the Linux kernel in place, now was the card. Fortunately the All-winner chip has to be set in order to compile the kernel. right time to decide upon fi le system . We a facility to boot the OS from the SD-card. We fi rst used the Debian root fi le-system, tried Debian fi rst, but due to lack of hard- Interested learners can boot GNU/Linux which we got online. The script.bin fi le was fl oat support in Debian Squeeze release, from SD-card without touching any part not fully compatible with Aakash. It took we dropped it. We also tried Debian of Android. us some time to extract Aakash's own Wheezy but we were uncertain about of We started compiling the boot loader. script.bin fi le and to change its default pre-release versions. The best choice left The boot-loaders on embedded system parameters to make a running kernel and to us was Ubuntu, which is known for are di erent, and in Aakash the complete root fi le-system. Merely modifying script. being easy to use amongst newcomers OS has to boot from the SD-card. Then bin fi le was not enough, some kernel and advanced developers alike. It has we went on to compile U-boot. It is the modules like WiFi and touch have to be a great package-manager, using which uboot binary fi le on SD-card, which makes auto-loaded while booting. These changes one can install required packages both the SD-card bootable. After successfully have to be made in the fi le-system path / from command line and using graphical loading, the uboot fi nally calls on the kernel etc/modules to make them work. With interface. Hence we agreed to use Ubuntu. to initialize hardware. We used minicom to all those changes, we had basic version We started with Ubuntu-12.10 view all booting processes. The next major running in a week. core arm hard-fl oat distribution. When challenge was the Linux kernel. It is the On Aakash, GNU/Linux boots uncompressed, it consumes around most important part, as all the hardware from micro SD-card and the fi le-system 100MB only. We used the ch-root and applications ultimately depend on it. reside within the SD-card. Both Android environment to confi gure package- If the kernel successfully detects all the and GNU/Linux operating systems are manager, basic network tools, user hardware, then we can proceed further to completely isolated from other. The good applications and a desktop environment. test the fi le system. If not, we need to fi x it part is that we can access all the Android's Before putting the fi le-system to by analyzing Android kernel logs, keeping content from GNU/Linux. actual use, the compiled kernel and its in mind all the hardware and confi guring Enabling touch was a major modules were placed in /lib/modules the same in our present kernel.
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