Bodhi on MK802 and other ARM Updates

MK802:

Today I am happy to announce our first public Bodhi images for the MK802 Android stick:

This image comes with a 3.0 kernel and it has OpenGL support for MK802 GPU enabled out of the box. You can find a download link for the MK802 on the ARMHF page of the Bodhi website. The default user name is armhf and the password is bodhilinux. This default user has sudo enabled for installing software and ssh is on by default.

To use this release simply DD the provided .img file to a micro SD card, insert it into your MK802 and power it up. This image has a 1080p script.bin by default, meaning if you are trying to use this image on a screen that only supports 720p resolution you will need to replace the script.bin on the first partition of the image with the one found here.

Since this is our first image for this ARM chipset I have no doubt that it will contain some rough edges. For certain the MK802's built in wireless and OpenGL are functional on this image - I haven't had time to test the audio yet though. Alpha quality release of course.

Please, please, please do not make a comment on this post asking for support with an issue you encounter with installing/running Bodhi on your MK802! Comments asking for support will be removed from this post. Instead please open a support request thread in the A10 section of our user forums. It is much easier to manage/search/solve issues in a message board format than a comments section.

Other Updates:

This past weekend I've also published image updates for our Raspberry Pi and Genesi Smartbook images. Like this image they now both include EFL 1.7.5 and E17 stable by default.

Cheers,
~Jeff Hoogland

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Bodhi's ARM Branch Moves to ARMHF

After doing some research and testing for the last week I have arrived at the conclusion that Bodhi's ARM branch will best serve our users by moving our core from Debian Wheezy ARMEL to utilize Debian Wheezy ARMHF. I'm not going to get into the technical difference between the two platforms here - just know that in general ARMHF is faster.

With this change however, there are some slight changes to our ARM repo details. If you have Debian Wheezy ARMHF installed on a device and wish to add the Bodhi repo to your sources the line you want to add is:

deb http://packages.bodhilinux.com/bodhi/ debian stable

Then you just install our bodhi-desktop package as before.

With regards to our officially supported ARM devices, you can find download links to our brand new ARMHF images for the RaspBerry Pi and Genesi Smartbook on our ARM downloads page. Our RaspBerry Pi build is built directly on top of Raspbian and incorporates all of their changes and improvements.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Bodhi Linux ARM Release Candidate for Genesi

Edit/Update: You can find the latest release here -> http://www.bodhilinux.com/downloads_mobile.php

Early this year I posted about our beta release of Bodhi on ARM for the Genesi Smartbook. Today I would like to finally follow up that beta release with something that I consider "release candidate" quality. The hardware is 99% functional with this release including the ability to suspend the system. Other small improvements include functional "plug and play" for flash drives and a mostly functional AppCenter!

There are three different downloads provided that you can find here. It is recommended you use one of the provided .img files (and check the md5sum after such a large download!). For developers interested in seeing the raw file system you can also download it in .tar.xz form.

The default login information for this release image are:

genesi/bodhilinux

If you run into any issues please let us know in the Genesi section of our forums.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Bodhi Linux ARM Beta Release for Genesi Smartbook

Edit/Update: You can find the latest release here -> http://www.bodhilinux.com/downloads_mobile.php

Much to my fiancée's dismay my little Genesi Smartbook has been occupying much of my time of the late. In fact, just six days ago I posted about how to get an early build of a Bodhi ARM file system for the Smartbook.

Today I am happy to announce a more functional release for the Genesi. Audio now works and permissions have been sorted out so the normal user can shutdown the system. Beyond these bug fixes this release (and future releases) are coming in an easier install media. We will now be providing two different .img files for the Smartbook, you can find them for download here.

One of the images is a live image. Use this one if you want to simply run Bodhi from your SD card. The second is an installer image. Simply boot it up, follow the on screen prompts and Bodhi will be installed to the internal SSD of the Smartbook. IMG files allow for simply loading these images onto an SD card with a single command:

sudo dd if=myfile.img of=/path/to/sdcard bs=1M

You can also load the image onto your card via a GUI if you are into that sort of thing. Please note this command may take five minutes or longer to complete. Once you get the system online the user name is "bodhi" with password of "bodhi". Sudo is setup for this user by default.

Next on my ARM todo list is to get our App Center working and putting together a formal tutorial for getting Bodhi running on the HP Touchpad.

Finally, if you run into any issues please let us know in the Genesi section of our forums.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Genesi MX Smartbook Review

Genesi currently offers two products with the EFIKA mx51 ARM board. They are the SmartTop and the SmartBook. I own one of their SmartBook models and today I would like to do a comprehensive overview of the device.

Size/Weight: 
The size of the Smartbook is exactly what netbooks where intended to be when they where first created. It is thin and lightweight while still being a functional tiny laptop. The device weighs just under 1 kilogram and has a form factor of 160x115x20mm.

Hardware:
The Smartbook sports an 800mhz ARM processor, 512MB of RAM and 16gb of internal storage. One of the benefits of being an ARM chip is that the Smartbook is fan-less - making it silent while running. For wireless connectivity the device has b/g/n support for wireless networks, as well as 2.1 + EDR for bluetooth and optional 3g support. In terms of ports the Smartbook has two USB jacks, SD card slot, micro SD card slot and an audio out port. The screen is your typical 1024x600 resolution you get on most 10" netbooks to date.

The keyboard on the Smartbook is easily the best keyboard I have ever used on a 10" netbook. It has a full six rows of keys and takes up over 90% of the width of the device. It is a chicklet design so typing is a smooth and easy process. The track pad in contrast to the keyboard might very well be the worst track pad I've ever used on any netbook or laptop. It is tiny and the left/right click buttons are awkward to press down. Thankfully it has the saving grace of being able to left click by simply tapping on the pad. Holding a left click and moving the mouse is a painful process though.

The hardware in the Smartbook isn't going to break any land speed records, but then again if you need some serious computing power odds are a netbook isn't for you. 

Software:
The Smartbook comes with Ubuntu 10.10 as it's default operating system. Honestly the default Gnome 2 desktop is a bit sluggish on the Smartbook hardware. Thankfully the power of the Ubuntu repositories is at your finger tips and you can very easily install LXDE or some other light-weight desktop of your choice. Because the Smartbook is an ARM device, some closed source technologies (such as Adobe Flash) do not support it.

If you are not a fan of Ubuntu, fear not - because the Smartbook is easily one of the most open source friendly ARM devices currently in existence. I just recently published a guide for getting Bodhi running on the device. Beyond this I know other people have had success running Debian, Arch and Gentoo on the Smartbook. 

Battery:
One of the most important questions with any netbook - what is the battery life? Due to it's ARM processor the Smartbook sees far better battery life than any other netbook it's weight. On a full charge with average usage the Smartbook sees between 6 and 7 hours of battery. The battery itself is also easily removable/replaceable.  

Cost:
One of the most attractive things about the Smartbook is it's price tag. The Smartbook will only set you back 199 USD. Not a bad price at all for this little guy.

Wrapping Up:
I've had my Smartbook for a couple of months now and all in all I am very pleased with it. In fact the only thing that I dislike about it (and was mentioned above) is the trackpad on it. This really isn't a huge deal though as I've taken to carrying around a small USB mouse for when I need to do a good deal of mouse work - which isn't often.

Whether or not the Smartbook is right for you is something only you can decided. If you are looking for something light, portable and a very good battery life - there is no beating the Genesi Smartbook.

~Jeff Hoogland 

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HOWTO: Bodhi Linux on Genesi Smartbook

Edit/Update: You can find the latest release here -> http://www.bodhilinux.com/downloads_mobile.php

I mentioned a short while ago that Genesi had become a Bodhi affiliate. They sent me one of their Smartbooks to get hacking at and today I would like to share my first batch of public files for it. The following is a short HOWTO for getting a Debian Wheezy file system with the Bodhi Enlightenment desktop running on your Genesi Smartbook.

First - Preparing the SD Card:

You will need an SD card that is at least 4GB. We need two partitions on this card, the first is a small EXT3 partition (at least 64MB) and then a second EXT4 partition that takes up the remainder of the card. Use your tool of choice to prepare the SD card, personally I prefer "GParted":

Second - Getting the Files:

Two archives contain everything you need to get Bodhi rolling on your Smartbook. Grab the latest rootfs and boot partitions from here.

Third - Extracting the Files:

Place the boot archive in the ext3 partition of your SD card and extract the files there. Place the rootfs archive in the ext4 partition of your SD card and extract the files there.

Thats it - you are all set! Simply place the SD card in your Smartbook and boot it up. In a few moments you should be greeted with an Enlightenment desktop. The default user information is:

Username: bodhi
Password: bodhi 

The bodhi account is configured to be able to use "sudo", but a root account is also in existence with a password of "bodhi".

Known Issues:

This is a early release for others wanting to help me test and debug things. It is fairly functional in it's current state, but please be aware of two issues with the first release I am aware of -

• Audio is non-functional
• Shutdown/Restart/Suspend cannot be done via Enlightenment Menu

If you figure out a fix for either of these please pass it along!

Installing to Internal Memory:

If you like the Bodhi image and want to install it to your internal system memory (typically much faster than an SC card) it is fairly easy to do so. By default the internal drive has two paritions, one located at /dev/sda1 and a second at /dev/sda2. Mount these while booted from the SD card and remove their current contents. Then simply extract the boot archive to /dev/sda1 and the rootfs to /dev/sda2. Finally, you will need to remove the default boot.scr the boot archive provides and rename the boot.scr.sda to simply boot.scr

Trouble Shooting:

If you encounter an issue getting Bodhi setup on your Smartbook please do not leave a comment here about it. Instead open a thread in the Genesi Section of our user forums.

Photos:

Finally here are a couple of slightly terrible photos of Bodhi booted on my Genesi.
 

Cheers,
~Jeff Hoogland

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One Year with Bodhi Linux

Today marks the one year point from our first Bodhi Linux "0.1.0" release. I feel we have come a long way in such a short time and I am happy with everything the team has accomplished thus far. Would you believe that I first started Bodhi simply because I was tired of having to recompile E on each of my half dozen systems every week?

What has been done in the last year? Well we racked up over 150,000 ISO downloads between source forge and our torrent tracker alone (and over two-thirds of these downloads have been since our 1.0.0 release in March). In addition to disc downloads it would appear more people are actually using Bodhi due to the increase of server traffic (on our main mirror) we have experienced over the last year:

Our forums have also become fairly active. We total almost 30,000 posts now from our 1,600 users.

I would also like to take a moment to thank our community for all the contributions people have made. Our document wiki has been gaining more and more valuable content. It has become a truly great resource.

Beyond this I would like to thank everyone that has contributed a monetary donation. When the Bodhi project first started Ken and I paid out of pocket for all the server costs. Since we opened the door for donations in February we have more than covered our server costs each month. The 150$ our main mirror has cost the last couple months may not seem like much, but it is costly for two students to maintain on their own.

Looking to the future I'd just like to clear up a few release dates and plans our team currently has. First off our next update release (1.3.0) will be out towards the end of December. This will again be something current Bodhi users can easily update their systems to obtain - it's main goal is to keep the LiveCD current. We will continue to have these update releases for our 1.x.y versions until the release of Bodhi 2.0.0

Speaking of Bodhi 2.0.0 - this will be our next "major" release, meaning a full reinstall will be recommended for those wanting to move from the 1.x.y version of Bodhi. 2.0.0 will be re-based on the new Ubuntu LTS 12.04 version. With this version we also plan to add a 64bit version of Bodhi that will have workstations and multimedia production systems in mind. Since Ubuntu 12.04 releases in April expect to see Bodhi 2.0.0 sometime after that, most likely May or June.

While I'm on the topic of new architectures I'd like to also say we will be moving forward with our Debian based ARM build. I'm also excited to announce that Genesi has become a Bodhi Affiliate - meaning we plan to support our ARM build on their hardware once we get a bit further along. We also hope to extend our support to the Raspberry Pi devices as well once they are released.

Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoy using Bodhi!

~Jeff Hoogland

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