CubieTruck Cubieez Customization

Download and install Cubieez

Download Cubieez from here (links and mirrors are at the end of the opening post)
Install the image to an SD card or to NAND
Restart the machine

Setting up the network

Setting up DHCP

nano /etc/network/interfaces

Edit the content of the file to look like the following:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto eth0
allow-hotplug-eth0

# configuring dynamic IP address for eth0 via DHCP
iface eth0 inet dhcp

After saving the file restart the network, so we get a new IP address via DHCP

/etc/init.d/networking restart

Removing NetworkManager

It only caused me trouble, and since the network is not that hard to configure without it, i find that it's better to remove completely

apt-get purge network-manager network-manager-gnome

Updating the system

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Change the mirror to something close to us, maybe us a sources.list generator

deb http://ftp.hu.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free

Update the list of packages

apt-get update

Perform the upgrade (downloading and installing might take a while)

apt-get upgrade

Turning off the LEDs

Temporary solution

The following will turn off all the LEDs (except for the red power LED) until the next reboot

for i in /sys/class/leds/* ; do echo 0 > "$i"/brightness ; done

Permanent solution

Mount the boot partition, copy and edit script.fex, converted from the script.bin file found on the boot partition

mkdir -p /mnt/boot
mount /dev/nanda /mnt/boot
cp /mnt/boot/script.bin /tmp/script.bin
bin2fex /tmp/script.bin /tmp/script.fex
nano /tmp/script.fex

Find the line leds_used = 1 in the [leds_para] section and change its value to 0

Convert and copy the modified script.bin to the boot partition, unmount and reboot

fex2bin /tmp/script.fex /tmp/script.bin
cp /tmp/script.bin /mnt/boot/script.bin
sync
umount /mnt/boot
reboot

Turning the leds back on

Same as above but change the leds_used value to 1

Setting up the WiFi Access Point

Loading the WiFi interface module with the right options

Edit the /etc/modules file

nano /etc/modules

Add the module bcmdhd to the end of the file Add the AP mode option to the module by editing the /etc/modprobe.d/bcmdhd.conf file (might need to create one)

nano /etc/modprobe.d/bcmdhd.conf

Edit the file, so it looks like this

options bcmdhd op_mode=2

Configuring the WiFi interface

Rename the wlan interface

nano /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

Remove the unnecessary rules, and rename the bcmdhd device

SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:90:4c:11:22:33", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="wlan*", NAME="wlan0"

Set up a static address for the wlan interface

nano /etc/network/interfaces

Add the configuration to the end of the file

# interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto eth0
allow-hotplug-eth0
auto wlan0
allow-hotplug-wlan0

# configuring dynamic IP address for eth0 via DHCP
iface eth0 inet dhcp

# configure manual IP address for wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.0.200
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.1

Installing hostapd

Download and install hostapd

apt-get install hostapd

Copy the sample configuration file and uncompress it

cd /etc/hostapd/
cp /usr/share/doc/hostapd/examples/hostapd.conf.gz /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf.gz
uncompress hostapd.conf.gz

Edit the hostapd configuration file

nano /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf

Modify the following lines

logger_syslog=127
logger_stdout=127
ssid=<desired ssid>
country_code=<country code>
channel=<desired (least used) channel>
auth_algs=1
wpa=2
wpa_passphrase=<very secret passphrase>
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=TKIP
rsn_pairwise=CCMP

Edit the default configuration for the hostapd initscript

nano /etc/default/hostapd

Uncomment and modify the DAEMON_CONF line

DAEMON_CONF="/etc/hostapd/hostapd.con"

Set hostapd to start automatically when the system boots

update-rc.d hostapd defaults

Just to be sure, check if everything is working

hostapd /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf

Rebooting

Reboot your system

Install various useful tools

apt-get install mc screen wireless-tools