[Freedombox-discuss] three Dreamplug issues [was: Hardware platforms?]

[Clint Adams]

On Sun, May 08, 2011 at 09:19:41AM +0800, Sandy Harris wrote:
> Our main target is plug computers and the ideal
> target something like Dreamplug:
> http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/c-5-dreamplugs.aspx

While I agree that "something like the Dreamplug" is
the right way to go, the Dreamplug itself is not quite
ideal at present.

Here's what I learned playing with one today:

The boot loader preloaded identifies itself as
U-Boot 2011.06-02334-g8f495d9-dirty (Mar 01 2011 - 06:57:05)

This is GPL'd software but I cannot find the sources.

I tried Debian's u-boot for the Guruplug.  It complained
about the lack of NAND, and was unaware of the Dreamplug's
meg of SPI flash; this was expected and should be easily
correctable.  What I didn't expect was that it wouldn't
cope with the Dreamplug's USB, and this means that I
couldn't boot off of the internal microSD card.  I did
not attempt to boot off of the network or eSATA.

Next I attempted to use the factory U-Boot to boot
the Debian squeeze kernel, assuming that this would
work as well.  It did not.  It seems to have frozen right
after

[    0.266395] Serial: 8250/16550 driver, 2 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
[    0.266845] serial8250.0: ttyS0 at MMIO 0xf1012000 (irq = 33) is a 16550A
[    0.577409] console [ttyS0] enabled

The third problem is the same as with the Guruplug;
there appears to be no free software available to control
the WiFi device in Master/AP mode.  For more information
see

http://lists.debian.org/debian-arm/2010/05/msg00064.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-arm/2010/05/msg00081.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-arm/2010/05/msg00082.html


I hope that someone in the supply chain can correct these
issues, because I consider being able to run a full Debian
stack on one to be not just a nicety but an imperative.