How would someone compile orx for the new Raspberry Pi 2b?

Othernet Hardware Outernet Receiver (ORx)
#1

Help! I bought a Raspberry Pi 2b for this project!

In the git repository there is a rpi2 folder, so I assume it can be compiled,
but every way I try to compile it…
It works, sort of…

I have a Raspberry Pi 2b
An Outernet official Geniatech receiver
2 SD cards, one is 16GB, the other is 1GB
A wifi dongle
An Ethernet connection as well as wifi
A keyboard
And, power cord or two

When it was done compiling, I wrote it to an SD card.
I popped it into the Pi2b, and…
A colourful screen pops up, along with 2 red dots in the top right of the screen.
The 2 red dots are like a superscript, but after like a millisecond, they go away.
And all I get is a coloured screen. I waited for 30 minutes the first time.
Then I deleted everything that I compiled and unzipped it again.

I have tried:

  1. make B=rpi2; make image
  2. make B=rpi2; make B=rpi2 image
  3. make; make B=rpi2 image
  4. make menuconfig #then above
  5. I copied and renamed BOTH .kernel_defconfig and .orx_defconfig, seperately
  6. I used 2 different SD cards
  7. I had everything unplugged except power and HDMI
  8. and finally, I used Raspbian and orx-install (which worked, but is slower, less convenient, and isn’t updated anymore)

Now for the questions that everyone wants answers for…
How do you compile Outernet Receiver X for the Raspberry pi2b and what am I doing wrong?
If it’s not possible, then when will it be?

P.S. I understand that the Pi2(b) is as of yet unsupported, but think of how much faster it is and how you could run librarian in the background with an operating system or a kiosk chromium in the foreground along with the Raspberry Pi touch-screen/display!

#2

Well, the rpi2 directory is not ready yet. The rpi1 build uses initramfs and builds it into the kernel image. This does not work for ARMv7 instruction set, though, so the rpi2 build doesn’t compile. In order to make rpi2 build go, we would need to convert the image to load the rootfs from a file rather than having it built into the kernel image (at least in theory).

To be honest, I think our decision to focus on Pi1 was a mistake, but we needed to support users that have already bought the hardware specifically for Outernet, so there it is. Pi2 is far superior, and there’s no question about it, but we haven’t been able to set aside enough time to get it going. If anyone feels like taking that challenge on, I would be happy to provide any info I can.

#3

I’ve heard that there is a way to have the same boot image for all of the raspberry pi’s, and I downloaded an image awhile ago with 2 kernels in it… one for armv6 (kernel.img) and one for armv7 (kernel7.img)
It was probably some sort of raspbian image, but I can’t be certain…

Anyhow, this would be a good feature to put in the next release of the orx images…
HINT HINT :wink:

P.S. there is this option in buildroot:
‘make menuconfig’ -> Filesystem Images -> ext2/3/4 root filesystem

I don’t know if it would work, BUT it would be cool to try the next build in that instead of compiling orx into the kernel, which you said is NOT compatible with the rpi2.

Finally, any info on building an rpi2 image please put in this topic, as it would be very helpful to a whole lot of people

#4

It’s possible to compile a kernel that supports both SoCs with a single kernel image, but that configuration does not support initramfs built into the kernel image. Even with two kernel images, you would need to split out the initramfs image into a separate file for the rpi2 kernel, and then it wouldn’t make sense to have it duplicated in the other kernel image, so the other kernel would need to be modified as well.

#5

Is there a time-frame for when the next orx build will be out WITH SUPPORT for the raspberry pi 2? Or should I just give up for now? I was extremely excited… I even pointed my dish at the ‘Galaxy 19’ satellite and everything!

Also, something a bit unrelated, can you somehow increase the voltage of the outernet receiver that is purchased in the store? The voltage was too low for my generic satellite tester and I had to go buy a battery powered tester… 12 volts would be nice :smile:

#6

I’m afraid there is no time frame, though we definitely acknowledge the RPi2 build would be a major win. We also have a long-term plan of supporting BBB, fwiw.

I’m not sure. I’ll ask around and post here if I find out anything.