Cubie Board

This page needs some love
This page should be revised or reconstructed to be more helpful. Problems may include being out of step with current team or project status or process.

We need more hands on board!
We need more folks to improve the distribution process. We need YOU!

Cubieboard Fedora Remix

The Cubieboard Fedora Remix, produced and maintained by Tekkaman NinjaTekkaman Ninja, is a Fedora-based Linux distribution that runs on the low-cost ($49) system-on-a-chip (Allwinner A10 or sun4i) known as the Cubieboard (Cubie). This distribution consists of software packages from the Fedora ARM project (armv7hfp architecture) and a small number of additional packages that are modified from the Fedora versions.

This page will show you how to install Fedora Remix on the Cubieboard. Installing Fedora Remix on the Cubieboard is easier than installing Fedora on a laptop or desktop because all you have to do is copy the prepared image to a SD card and plug in the Cubie.

 The current build of Fedora 18 seems to be stable to me so far. The first core components of the Allwinner A10 landed in kernel 3.4.24, and the kernel source code come from linux-sunxi.git

Let’s get started with it!

Installing the Cubieboard Fedora Remix

You can verify the operation worked by ejecting the SD card, reinserting it, then browsing the contents using the file explorer. You should see two mounts, boot and rootfs. Once you’re done poking around, unmount boot and rootfs and eject the card. The SD card is ready. Now let’s prepare the Cubie!

Preparing the Cubie

Plug the following inputs into the Cubieboard:

   SD card
   Monitor HDMI cable
   USB keyboard
   USB mouse
   Ethernet cable

Next, turn on the monitor and, if necessary, the keyboard and mouse.

The Cubieboard only has two USB ports, which you may quickly outgrow. One solution is to expand the number of ports by adding a (preferably powered) USB hub. Before going that route, you can save one of the USB ports by getting a keyboard and mouse that can share the same port.

Power it up!

The final input is the power (otherwise known as the “on” switch).

Grab a your proper charger(5 Volt 2A) and plug it into a power outlet. You may be tempted to use the USB port of your laptop as the power source; however, the USB port may not provide the necessary power required by the Cubieboard (2A). The general recommendation is to play it safe and use a wall outlet.Also don't forget the your charger must give proper volt and amper to make it work properly for your Cubieboard.

Customizing the installation on first boot

This wouldn’t be a Fedora installation without the first boot wizard. The inclusion of first boot is one of the features that sets the Fedora Remix apart from other Raspberry Pi distributions. In addition to the simple first boot operations (review license, set language, timezone and date, root password), the Fedora Remix allows you to:

Resize the rootfs partition to use all remaining space on the SD card, optionally allocating some of that space for a swap file (I used the defaults)

Create a user account (add the user to administrators group)

Fedora Remix create user boot screen

Cubieboard XFCE desktop login

After you’ve logged in (go check your email, this may take a moment as well), you’ll see the following dialog window.

Cubieboard XFCE start panel

This is part of the XFCE desktop; You can choose the default or manual configuration.

Updating Fedora Remix on the Cubieboard

You use Fedora Remix on the Cubieboard just like any other Fedora installation. You might start by opening a terminal and updating the packages (internet connection required):

 sudo yum -y update

Installing updates via yum

You can browse the hardware information by installing and running hardinfo:

 sudo yum -y install hardinfo

After you type the above command, you will be asked for your password. Next, the system will resolve dependencies, download new packages, run transaction check and test, run transaction, and install packages.

Installing hardinfo via yum

Cubieboard Photobooth

Check what are we doing with Cubieboard !!! ;)

Cubieboard photobooth

[[Category:CUBIEBOARD CUBIE]