Cubieboard2 – Lubuntu installation

I wanted to install Lubuntu on my new Cubieboard2 so I decided to go for this v1.06 Lubuntu 12.10 image. You have option to have NAND or SD card and I’ve decided to go for NAND because the system performance should be faster than SD.
UPDATE: Download the Lubuntu 14.04 image for Cubieboard2. I found this image on Marcos Costales blog

I followed this video www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeULfhdX1CY and installed PhonexSuite, downloaded image and upgraded cubieboard2. Thanks for it, it saved a lot of time..

Actually I had problems with my Win7 64. The driver (while upgrading) was acting as the cubieboard device was detached and attached twice with the USB driver failure (Device Manager error Code 10). I tried also to install it manually, I spent like hours to upgrade it, no success. Finally I used my old notebook with Vista and it works just like shown in the video. I recommend also to check the MD5 – my first download of the image generated wrong check sum so I was lucky to check MD5 before the image upgrade to Cubieboard2.

And be patient after the first run.. It takes much longer to boot for the first time.

The version that was installed:

linaro@cubieboard2:~$ uname -a
Linux cubieboard2 3.4.61+ #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Oct 26 18:10:18 CST 2013 armv7l armv7l armv7l GNU/Linux
linaro@cubieboard2:~$ cat /etc/*-release
DISTRIB_ID=Linaro
DISTRIB_RELEASE=13.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=quantal
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Linaro 13.04"
NAME="Linaro"
VERSION="13.04"
ID=linaro
ID_LIKE=ubuntu
PRETTY_NAME="Linaro 13.04"
VERSION_ID="13.04"

linaro@cubieboard2:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Linaro
Description:    Linaro 13.04
Release:        13.04
Codename:       quantal

linaro@cubieboard2:~$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 3.4.61+ (matson@ubt) (gcc version 4.6.3 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.3-1ubuntu5) ) #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Oct 26 18:10:18 CST 2013
linaro@cubieboard2:~$

Update repositories:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get clean

I would even recommend to install the package “build-essential” which contains some basic compilers and development tools (52MB) that are needed for almost all development and programming activities. Installing build-essential also cares for installing the make command.

sudo apt-get install build-essential

Install git (10MB) to have access to git libraries:

sudo apt-get install git

My favorite cross platform UNIX file manager is Midnight Commander.

sudo apt-get install mc

You can start midnight commander from terminal with mc command. Also use mcedit (from terminal or F4 from mc) instead of vi.

Other useful tools:

• sudo apt-get install htop
• sudo apt-get install ncdu

To turn cubieboard off:

sudo poweroff

To enable autologin with user linaro configure file sudo mcedit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf:

[SeatDefaults]
autologin-user=linaro
autologin-user-timeout=0
greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter
user-session=Lubuntu

I have some more guides to make lubuntu more convenient for me (so might also be for you).

• installing VNC
• seeting timezone and NTP
• solved SSH connection problem
• Turn off/on blue/green LED
• extendind NAND partition from 2GB to 4GB
• enabling print screen
• enable UART to connect with my arduino
• Apache and PHP as a web server
• mount sata HDD to cubieboard
• install and configure minidlna – dlna server on ubuntu

 

Update

Check the post describing how to upgrade Linaro/Ubuntu/Lubuntu version to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.