Via EPIA 800
Overview
Got myself a Via C3 EPIA 800 board, so that I could build a tiny low power Linux server, with a LCD/kbd/mouse for surfing, listening to music and so forth.
These are my setup notes.
I powered it up connected to the drive for an existing Ubuntu server and it worked, so I put it into a PC case, attached a random hard drive I had lying around, and tried to do a network install of Trustix 3. That crashed. So...
Ubuntu install
I did a network install of Ubuntu. Worked fine. It crashes periodically.
Found some notes saying this fellow has a kernel compiled that works better with the C3 processor.
I am finding Ubuntu to be rather bulky anyway so...
Debian
The mirror is so close for Debian, seems a shame not to use it. So I will.
Here is a page about installing the old "Woody" version: http://www.debianplanet.com/node.php?id=818
I don't want Woody, I want Sarge (current stable release) so
On the boot server
Unpack the tar in /var/lib/tftpboot (This assumes the dhcp and tftpd servers are already set up.)
Reboot the C3 from network card.
It should come up in the debian installer now.
Stuff to delete
It is busy installing garbage I don't want now, even though I said 'minimal' To be deleted
mutt shareutils bison flex gcc mtools tcsh cpp g++ pidentd g++ exim4
I should probably rebuild the kernel to work with the C3 before deleting the build tools. Sarge is built on a 2.4 kernel, I wonder if that is better for the C3 than a 2.6 kernel -- I think I will leave it for now.
It installs python-2.3, outdated but probably okay here
Stuff to add
Stuff I have to have that it did not install
emacs21 -- This pulls in huge gobs of stuff since it is linked to X.
synaptic -- likewise pulls in lots more X stuff but I want most of it
bzip2 -- they left this out?
kernel-package - to build kernel, delete later
ncurses-dev -- needed for menuconfig of kernel
openntpd
acroread
dhcp3-server
apache2 and php5
esound, esound-clients, festival
firefox
realplayer 10
rsync
xfree86, wmaker
Tuned the hard drive
Hard drive performance was ABYSMAL. After tuning with "-d1 -X66 -m16" performance jumped from 2 MBps to 88.
non-686 code
From http://five.nocrew.org/via/debian.html
Dealing with non-686 software
Although VIA C3 is i686 compliant, some software packages use non-i686 compliant instructions (like cmov) in their i686 distributions. Examples for this is libcrypto and libssl.
You should compile and use a i586/MMX compliant kernel for VIA C3. When using apt-get and install on some packages like libcrypto and libssl, you can have problems running them. Just copy the libraries in /usr/lib/i586 to /usr/lib/i686.
Building a C3 compliant kernel
I compiled a 2.4.32 kernel setting it for C3 processor and the system is now very stable.
Today I broke down and installed a 2.6 series kernel. Now I have to get audio working again.
This C3 is a Samuel 2 processor and the recommended compiler flags are:
-march=c3 -m3dnow -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -mmmx
See http://www.courville.org/phpwiki/Gcc
I had to build an initramfs too, installed initramfs-tools and used the command
VERS=2.6.15 mkinitramfs -o /boot/initramfs-$VERS $VERS
Northbridge
PLE133
Audio -- trying to build Alsa support and trying to use the Via driver from http://www.viaarena.com/PageId=294#md
ALSA works fine. You get it when you build a 2.6 kernel. Run alsaconf to set up the kernel modules and set default audio levels.
It's still kind of crackley and noisy.
Southbridge
8231
LM Sensors
There don't appear to be any sensors to speak of. The CPU fan is 3 wire so in theory it has a speed sensor. Hmm... disappointing.
Services on this machine
ssh
dhcp server
privoxy (dont think i really need squid)
possibly mysql for testing
apache2
ntpd
php
nfs samba
Desktop software
X
