Cubieboard with OpenWrt

Build OpenWrt

OpenWrt officially does not support the Cubieboard, however you can use this git repository with experimental support:

https://github.com/zioproto/openwrt-sunxi

Please read the instructions in this README.sunxi file:

https://github.com/zioproto/openwrt-sunxi/blob/sunxi-rebased/README.sunxi

PreBuilt Images

If you dont want to compile OpenWrt you can find some prebuilt images here:

http://stud.netgroup.uniroma2.it/~saverio/sunxi/v4/

Bootloader

You will need to compile also the bootloader. The guide to compile u-boot for cubieboard is here:

https://github.com/linux-sunxi/u-boot-sunxi/wiki

For example I compiled

make 'boardtype' CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi-

you might need to install the necessary toolchain stuff to cross compile for ARM in your system. Something like

apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi

Prepare the microSD card

use fdisk to make two partitions the first one of 16Mb, and starting at sector 2048 (it should be the default value) the second partition can take all the rest of the SD card

format msdos the first partition: mkfs.msdos /dev/sdb1 format ext4 the second partition mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb2

now you have to install the u-boot, the bootloader.

dd if=sunxi-spl.bin of=/dev/sdb bs=1024 seek=8
dd if=u-boot.bin of=/dev/sdb bs=1024 seek=32

now copy in th first partition the script.bin file and the kernel openwrt-sunxi-uImage and call the file exactly uImage

in the ext4 partition untar the tar.gz with the OpenWRT root filesystem

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/temp
cp openwrt-sunxi-uImage /mnt/temp/uImage
cp script.bin /mnt/temp/
umount /mnt/temp

Prepare files in the ext4 partition

mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt/temp
cd /mnt/temp
tar -zxvf /home/saverio/Dropbox/Firmware/sunxi/v4/openwrt-sunxi-cubie-rootfs.tar.gz
cd ~
umount /mnt/temp

First boot

the system will not boot correctly (you will not see /proc) if you dont set init=/etc/preinit in your uboot evironment

at the first boot press any key to stop at the bootloader, you will see something like this:

U-Boot SPL 2012.10-04280-g1a8ac55 (May 25 2013 - 19:42:12)
DRAM: 1024MB
SUNXI SD/MMC: 0


U-Boot 2012.10-04280-g1a8ac55 (May 25 2013 - 19:42:12) Allwinner Technology 

CPU:   SUNXI Family
Board: Cubieboard
I2C:   ready
DRAM:  1 GiB
MMC:   SUNXI SD/MMC: 0
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 
sun4i#

Use the command printenv to see your environment

sun4i#printenv
baudrate=115200
boot_mmc=fatload mmc 0 0x43000000 script.bin && fatload mmc 0 0x48000000 ${kernel} && watchdog 0 && bootm 0x48000000
bootcmd=if run loadbootenv; then echo Loaded environment from ${bootenv};env import -t ${scriptaddr} ${filesize};fi;if test -n ${uenvcmd}; then echo Running uenvcmd ...;run uenvcmd;fi;if run loadbootscr; then echo Jumping to ${bootscr};source ${scriptaddr};fi;run setargs boot_mmc;
bootdelay=3
bootenv=uEnv.txt
bootscr=boot.scr
console=ttyS0,115200
kernel=uImage
loadbootenv=fatload mmc 0 $scriptaddr ${bootenv} || ext2load mmc 0 $scriptaddr ${bootenv} || ext2load mmc 0 $scriptaddr boot/${bootenv}
loadbootscr=fatload mmc 0 $scriptaddr ${bootscr} || ext2load mmc 0 $scriptaddr ${bootscr} || ext2load mmc 0 $scriptaddr boot/${bootscr}
loglevel=8
panicarg=panic=10
root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootwait
scriptaddr=0x44000000
setargs=setenv bootargs console=${console} root=${root} loglevel=${loglevel} ${panicarg} ${extraargs}
stderr=serial
stdin=serial
stdout=serial

Environment size: 1028/131068 bytes
sun4i#

at this point use the command setenv to append the init=/etc/preinit to the kernel boot args, see this example:

sun4i#setenv setargs setenv bootargs console=${console} root=${root} loglevel=${loglevel} ${panicarg} ${extraargs} init=/etc/preinit

Check the change with printenv and if it looks ok you can save with saveenv

sun4i#saveenv
Saving Environment to MMC...
Writing to MMC(0)... done
sun4i#

now to boot just type boot. The next boots can be done automatically without these steps.