With XBMC on the CubieBoard a bust. It’s time to go back to my original thought, which is to set it up as a web server.
While I will generally run this without a monitor connected, I have decided to restore from the backup that already has LXDE installed.
Yes, I could set it up without X, and just install it in the event that I actually come around to needing it, but I figured I might as well just have it installed now. It’s not like there’s a lack of space on an 8GB MicroSD card.
The very first result that Google gave me when trying to find information on running XBMC on the CubieBoard (which is powered by the Allwinner A10), was this link.
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Android_hardware
This, in clear letters states…
“Avoid hardware that uses the Allwinner series of chips (such as the Allwinner A10). Development is not going well for these devices.”
Yes, “Avoid” really is written in bold. This does not bode well.
I shall try, none-the-less. After all, I have my backup img files for when things go horribly wrong.
This is one of those posts that’s purely here for my own reference documenting what I need to do in the event that I need to start all this over from scratch.
This isn’t necessarily the exact order in which I’ve done things this time, as it’s taking me longer to resolve some issues over others, and I’ve reordered things into the process I plan to use in the event that I do need to start over.
Today I went out and picked up a MicroSD card. After all of yesterday’s frustrations, I wanted to have more options, and I figured an 8GB card would be more than plenty to store an OS with both XBMC and a web development server.
Chances are, it’ll never actually be getting used as both at the same time. If I’m watching TV, I’m probably not working on PHP code, and if I’m working on PHP code, I’m probably not interested in watching TV.
I’ve restored the NAND flash back to the latest Android (it’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever really want to play with Android, but it’s not doing any harm, and it’ll give me something to do on those rare days when I just get curious), and I’ve installed Cubian (I’m using R7 for the A10) onto an 8GB MicroSD card.
Continue reading CubieBoard WiFi Made Simple (TP-Link TL-WN725N)
So, I’m going to identify a couple of initial issues I’ve discovered with the default Linaro/Lubuntu Server image on the CubieBoard, and document how I’m getting around them, mostly for my own personal future reference, just so that if I have to start from scratch again, I have a frame of reference.
So, problems?
Oh boy, what a day. Where to begin? Well, how’s about the beginning? I suppose that’s the usual order of things.
I’d been looking at the various CubieBoards that are available for a little while now, and have had my heart set on a CubieTruck (it satisfies a few hardware needs for something I want to do that I don’t think the Pi will be able to handle without a USB hub, a few extra gadgets & gizmos, a handful of extra USB batteries and a lot of faffing around).
Other than the one specific example mentioned above, the Pi can handle pretty much everything I would need such a device for, but there I was on Boxing Day, minding my own business, when I see an original CubieBoard (the CubieTruck is version 3 of the CubieBoard) for sale on eBay at an absolute steal of a price (even less than the cost of a Raspberry Pi, so how could I not?).