Recent Debian Squeeze on Wii

Hello Mailinglist,

I just want to let you know, that I'm experimenting with a rootfs 
builder on my amd64 host in order to build a Debian/Emdebian system for 
my Wii.

I finally managed to build a Debian 2.6.32-35 kernel with mikep5 patches 
and initrd ramdisk. The rootfs and kernel is built on an amd64 host with 
squeeze as base system. The goal is to preconfigure the system on the 
building host. Currently, this works quite well.

I applied a patch to the ramdisk, which allows to have an rootfs.ext2 
image on a vfat formatted SD Card. Now I'm not forced to partition an SD 
Card anymore and I do not need to change the cards - the HBC apps and 
Linux rootfs may reside on the same SD Card. Furthermore, I added 
farter's patch for the framebuffer (announced on the Wiki's mainpage).

The system is built with multistrap. I already used this method to 
create a rootfs for my dockstar with the same goal: create and configure 
the rootfs apart from the target hardware on a faster workstation. The 
flavor of Debian used here is Emdebian Grip, which is 100% binary 
compatible with standard Debian. A simple description might be: Emdebian 
Grip is Debian without manpages and other "useless" payload.


Now, I got stuck at the point, where I like to configure the WiFi. The 
b43 driver was compiled as a module, but after loading it, I never found 
a device named wlan*. I've built the openfw5.2 accoridng to the Wiki and 
the three firmware files are well present in the rootfs in 
/lib/firmware/b43-open - but I never noticed, that the driver module 
grabs the firmware image... What udev rules do I need to setup in 
/lib/udev/rules.d/ to let the b43-mpdule load the firmware and setup the 
wlan0 or wlan1 interface? Or maybe I understood the firmware/module 
relation completly wrong?


The work was published here:
http://gitorious.org/dockstar/emdebian-multistrap
Besides the the WiFi issue, the system is already usable. The 
zImage.initrd image needs to be renamed and put into 
hbc-sdcard/apps/mikep5sqeeze/boot.elf with the usual xml config. The 
rootfs-date.ext2 image needs to be put into the root directory of the 
vfat formatted sdcard used with the hbc.

If someone is interessted in bringing Squeeze to the Wii (with recent 
kernel patchlevel), I would be glad to receive patches and help with the 
configuration.

Kind regards,
Marcus

Caution: The scripts are highly experimental and not dedicated to use in 
productive environments. Use at your own risk!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BlackBerry® DevCon Americas, Oct. 18-20, San Francisco, CA
The must-attend event for mobile developers. Connect with experts. 
Get tools for creating Super Apps. See the latest technologies.
Sessions, hands-on labs, demos & much more. Register early & save!
http://p.sf.net/sfu/rim-blackberry-1