All directions are for use in the HPS system

Urgent: The name of the Ubuntu distribution used on the MicroSD system is quantal, version 12.10

The first order of business is to set the date and time of the system:
ntpdate ntp.ubuntu.com

Then add the above to the file /etc/rc.local so that the current date and time is set upon each boot; there is no "clock" in hardware like pcs

For reference, the proper way to determine the distribution name and other Ubuntu information is:

  • cat /proc/version
  • uname -a
  • cat /etc/issue
  • dmesg | less
  • cat /proc/version
  • lsb_release -a
  • lsb_release -sc

After signing on to the DE1-SOC HPS, type:

# cd /etc/apt

# cat sources.list

Edit the file sources.list (vi is likely your only option):

    Delete all of the entries as they are outdated and no longer exist; add these following lines
    NOTE I have added special character ℵ that represents a space. It is CRITICAL that you replace the ℵ with a normal space or your updates will fail
    Note: You must not split these lines!
  • deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ ℵ quantal ℵ main ℵ universe
  • deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/linaro-maintainers/tools/ubuntu ℵ quantal ℵ main
  • deb-src http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ ℵ quantal ℵ main ℵ universe
  • deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/linaro-maintainers/tools/ubuntu ℵ quantal ℵ main
  • deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ ℵ quantal ℵ multiverse
  • deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ ℵ quantal ℵ multiverse
  • deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ ℵ quantal-updates ℵ multiverse
  • deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ ℵ quantal-updates ℵ multiverse

Note: It appears that the gb.archive.ubuntu.com folks no longer are supporting quantal

They appear to be replaced with old-releases.ubuntu.com

Be sure to write the new contents before exiting out

Since you have changed the "mommie" directory, you need to refresh the list of packages with:
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

In general principle, here are the commands to open the typical downloads will you need. Typically they will "live" in /root/Downloads

    bz2
  • tar xjf file.tar.bz2
  • cd file
  • ./configure
  • bzip2 -dk file.bz2

Also, you can use file -s /dev/mmcblk0 to show the disk parameters, to see the specifics for the boot partition:
file -s /dev/mmcblk0p2 which reveals

  • /dev/mmcblk0p2: Linux rev 1.0 ext3 filesystem data, UUID=5f6343aa-dfd7-4a30... (needs journal recovery) (large files)

And for the case of a flash drive mounted on /dev/sda1, you can run file -s /dev/sda1
revealing: x86 boot sector, FREE-DOS Bootloader KERNEL.sys,FAT (32 bit) sectors/FAT 3815, unlabeled
Note: I had formated that flash drive as a bootable Free Dos disk

In this case, if I want to "copy" the running file system to the flash drive, I can use
dd

To check the packages installed, use dpkg --get-selections | more

apt-get install linaro-image-tools

apt-get install filezilla

apt-get install aptitude

apt-get install python_software_properties

apt-get update

apt-get install software_properties_common

apt-get install bzip2

apt-get install nslookup

apt-get --download-only --reinstall install resolvconf

apt-get install resolvconf

dpkg --purge --force-depends resolvconf

apt-get install resolvconf

apt-get install wget

apt-get install partimage

apt-get install bzr

apt-get install parted

apt-get install links

apt-get install lynx

apt-get install traceroute

apt-get install add-apt-repository

apt-get install apt-get-repository

Since the version of Firefox is quite buggy, the text browers lynx and links are very helpful

To determine the actual boot device use parted -l; the device is listed in Disk
For example, mine is /dev/mmcblk0 so typing the command
parted -s /dev/mmcblk0 reveals:
/dev/mmcblk0: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x6,starthead 121, startsector 9000000, 40960 sectors; partition 2: ID=0x83, starthead 66, startsector 4096, 8992768 sectors; partition 3: ID=0xa2, starthead 32, startsector 2048, 2048 sectors, code offset 0xb8

FYI: The technique for mounting a flash drive is
mkdir /media/USBflash
mount /dev/sda1 /media/USBflash
You only need to run "mkdir" only once
umount /media/USBflash

FYI: to manually load a Debian package, use:
dpkg -i packagename

    Since there is little software configure to run for the ARM aritchecture with the older quantal codename, here is simple example of downloading a source package, making and install a command line Jason creator:
  • wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/jpmens/jo/releases/download/v1.0/jo-1.0.tar.gz
  • tar xzf jo-1.0.tar.gz
  • cd jo-1.0
  • ./configure
  • make check
  • ./jo -a jo
  • make install

To reboot type reboot and to shutdown, type shutdown -h now

parted -l
Using the correct disk listed under "Disk", /dev/mmcblk0, and Partition, in my case, 2, use
partimage

If you wish to try to "backup" your microcard, try using:
dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=/dev/sda1 or
dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=~/File.img
Note: As of 28 March, 2016, neither method worked for my machine.

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