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Installing Ubuntu on Developerbox - 96Boards

Table of Contents

downloading install media

The following installer images are suitable for use on your Developerbox:

After downloading an installer image, please carefully study the list of platform quirks and workarounds below. If you need further information to complete the install process then there is a Developerbox specific guide to Booting an operating system installer which should be read together with the Ubuntu Installation Guide for arm64

Quirks and workarounds

These quirks and workarounds assume the O/S Hardware Description firmware option is set to its default setting (<Device Tree>).

[Hardware] Enable PCIe transaction size workaround

The current revision of SC2A11 contains PCIe bus integration logic that does not correctly split certain types of bus transaction. These transactions are commonly initiated to PCIe devices with on board RAM, such as graphics cards. The Developerbox firmware is able to partially workaround this issue by using the virtualization hardware to prohibit certain types of memory mapping.

See the Known Issues for more details.

The firmware workaround is controlled by DSW3-2. Ensure this DIP switch is in the on position before starting the installer.

[Install] USB/PCIe networking (18.04 only)

The kernel used by the 18.04 installer shipped before a last minute issue with the on board networking was discovered and fixed. This can be worked around by using an external network device during the install process.

Both PCIe or USB network devices are suitable for this, although it is important to select a device that is already supported by the Ubuntu kernel.

[First boot] Disable splash screen

The current revision of SC2A11 contains PCIe bus integration logic that does not correctly split certain types of bus transaction. These transactions are commonly initiated to PCIe devices with on board RAM, such as graphics cards. The Developerbox firmware is able to partially workaround this issue but it is still necessary to disable the Ubuntu splash screen.

On first boot:

  • Press Shift once the Press ESCAPE for boot options message appears, this will bring up the grub menu
  • Press e to edit the commands before booting
  • Use the editor to remove splash from the kernel command line (this is the line commencing linux /boot/vmlinuz...)
  • Check this document for any other [First boot] workarounds. Once all kernel arguments are updated, boot the kernel by pressing F10.

To make the change permanent:

  • Wait for Ubuntu to boot, then login and start a Terminal application
  • Edit /etc/default/grub as root, for example: sudo nano /etc/default/grub
  • Remove splash from GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
  • Save the file and close the editor
  • Run sudo update-grub to regenerate the grub config files

[First boot] Enable GT-710 clock mode workaround

The GT-710 graphics card provided in the kit may occasionally freeze. This is a generic nouveau driver issue that affects many different kernel versions across both x86 and Arm platforms. It can be worked around by passing a config option to the nouveau driver.

On first boot:

  • Press Shift once the Press ESCAPE for boot options message appears, this will bring up the grub menu
  • Press e to edit the commands before booting
  • Use the editor to add nouveau.config=NvClkMode=auto to the kernel command line (this is the line commencing linux /boot/vmlinuz...)
  • Check this document for any other [First boot] workarounds. Once all kernel arguments are updated, boot the kernel by pressing F10.

To make the change permanent:

  • Wait for Ubuntu to boot, then login and start a Terminal application
  • Edit /etc/default/grub as root, for example: sudo nano /etc/default/grub
  • Add nouveau.config=NvClkMode=auto from GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
  • Save the file and close the editor

  • Run sudo update-grub to regenerate the grub config files

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