Xubuntu Feisty Wii (fast!)

I'm currently recommending that you use the "Whiite Linux Installer" to install Ubuntu Wii. I've put the new instructions at the beginning of the original "Ubuntu Wii" message. The filesystem I included there is roughly the same as this one but modified to work with either kernel and containing a few bug fixes. The only difference between the filesystems for Isobel and Farter is that the Isobel filesystem contains an "/etc/X11/xorg.conf". I've taken down the old image so that people will use the new one.

Thanks to Amy of 3dsbuzz for bringing this to my attention.

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The original message follows for archival purposes:

Xubuntu Feisty on the Nintendo Wii

Watch the Youtube video for a short demonstration.

You will need:
* A Wii with Homebrew Channel and BootMii installed: See http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Homebrew_setup for instructions.
* An SDHC memory card (>=4GB and <=32GB) that doesn't contain any data that you want to keep.
* A computer running Linux. You don't need to install Linux; you can boot from what's called a LiveCD. Get Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid or later. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD for instructions.

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For a computer already running Linux (instructions for Windows with LiveCD can be made available upon request):

1. Make 2 partitions on the SD card. Partition 1 must be FAT16 or FAT32. Partition 2 must be ext2 and must be at least 2.5GB. I recommend that you make it at least 3.0GB so you have some space to work with.

To do this:

Open a terminal by pressing <CTRL>+<ALT>+T.

Install GParted, if you haven't already done so, by copying or typing the following into the terminal. Use <SHIFT>+<CTRL>+V to paste into terminal:

sudo apt-get install gparted

Plug the memory card into your computer if you haven't already done so.

Run GParted by typing or copying the following into the terminal:

gksu gparted

In the upper-right of the window that comes up, there is a dropdown. The text on it probably says "/dev/sda" followed by a size. Click on it and choose the option whose size matches the size of your memory card. Be careful to select the correct device so that you don't reformat your hard drive.

Unmount all the partitions if any are mounted: In the body of the window, right-click on each partition that has a picture of a key and select "Unmount".

Delete all partitions (not "unallocated") by right-clicking on them and selecting "Delete".

Add a FAT partition:
Right-click on "unallocated" and select "New".

If you are using this memory card only for Ubuntu: Click on "New size" and enter "16". Press <TAB>. Check that the value in "Free space following" is at least 2500. If it isn't, your memory card is too small to run Xubuntu Feisty Wii.

If you are also using this card for Wii savegames, Homebrew Channel apps, pictures, etc.: Choose a size that's appropriate to your needs. Enter the size into the "New Size" field. Press <TAB>. Check that "Free space following" is at least 2500 (3000 is better). If it is less, enter a smaller value into "New Size". Press <TAB> and check again if the value in "Free space following" is large enough. Repeat as necessary.

If the size of the partition (value in "New Size" field) is larger than 4088 (MB), set "Filesystem" to "fat32". Otherwise, set "Filesystem" to "fat16".
Set "Label" to "HBC" for Homebrew Channel.
Click the "Add" button in the lower-right.

Add an ext2 partition:
Right-click on "unallocated" and select "New".
Set "Filesystem" to "ext2".
Set "Label" to "ubuntu-wii".
Click "Add".

Click "Edit"->"Apply...". When it asks if you are sure, click "Apply".

When the window that pops up says "All operations successfully completed", close it by clicking on "Close". Close GParted by clicking on the "X" in the upper-left or upper-right corner.


2. Mount partitions:
First, check to see if your new partitions are mounted:
Type "ls /media" <ENTER> into your terminal.

If you don't see "HBC" and "ubuntu-wii" (or your names for the partitions), safely remove the memory card and plug it back in by doing the following:
From terminal, type "nautilus &" <ENTER>. A window will come up.
On the menu bar, click "Go"->"Computer".
Right-click on one of the icons for your memory card. Select "Safely Remove...".
Once the icons for your memory card have disappeared, you can physically remove the memory card.
Then plug it back in.

Enter "ls /media" again. You should see "HBC" and "ubuntu-wii" or your names for them. If you have different names, replace "/media/HBC" and "/media/ubuntu-wii" below.


3. Using the following steps, install the files onto the memory card:

Copy and paste each of the following commands into your terminal. Replace "HBC" in each line if necessary and press <ENTER>:

sudo mkdir /media/HBC/bootmii
sudo wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gc-linux/mikep1-armboot.bin -O /media/HBC/bootmii/armboot.bin

Now, figure out which version of the kernel you need based on your video mode. The choices are "480i\(PAL60\)", "576i\(PAL\)", "480p\(PAL\)", "480i\(NTSC\)", and "480p\(NTSC\)". If you're in the U.S. and you use a regular connection (red white yellow), you want "480i\(NTSC\)". If you're in the U.S. and you use a component video cable or the Wii VGA Adapter, you want "480p\(NTSC\)". I don't know how the rest of the world works.

Find your video mode shortly before "-O" on one of the following five lines. Copy that one line and paste into your terminal:

sudo wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gc-linux/mikep5-zImage-2.6.32.mini.480i\(PAL60\).elf -O /media/HBC/bootmii/ppcboot.elf
sudo wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gc-linux/mikep5-zImage-2.6.32.mini.576i\(PAL\).elf -O /media/HBC/bootmii/ppcboot.elf
sudo wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gc-linux/mikep5-zImage-2.6.32.mini.480p\(PAL\).elf -O /media/HBC/bootmii/ppcboot.elf
sudo wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gc-linux/mikep5-zImage-2.6.32.mini.480i\(NTSC\).elf -O /media/HBC/bootmii/ppcboot.elf
sudo wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gc-linux/mikep5-zImage-2.6.32.mini.480p\(NTSC\).elf -O /media/HBC/bootmii/ppcboot.elf

Change "HBC" if you need to, then press <ENTER>.

The boot partition is now all set up.

Next, download the Ubuntu Wii archive. Copy the following into the terminal (it may take a little while for the download to complete):

wget http://ubuntuone.com/0gUW38U8eztBES1ZZDWIXr -O xubuntu-feisty-wii.tar.bz2

Now, extract "xubuntu-feisty-wii.tar.bz2" into the root of your ext2 partition by copying or typing the following into the terminal (replace "ubuntu-wii" if you've chosen a different name):

sudo tar xjf xubuntu-feisty-wii.tar.bz2 -C /media/ubuntu-wii

This should take about half an hour or less, an hour if you're using usb 1.1.
You can check the progress by opening another terminal and typing "df -h". Find the line that ends with "/media/ubuntu-wii". Look in the third column, "Used". Shortly after that number reaches 2.4G, it will be done.
Once it's done, your memory card will be all set up for Ubuntu Wii.


4. Optional: configure the network before you boot Ubuntu Wii.
Copy or type the following into the terminal:

gksu gedit /media/ubuntu-wii/etc/network/interfaces &

If your network uses WEP for security, remove the leading "#"s from the four lines starting with the first "#auto wlan0". Replace "<ssid>" with your network name and replace "<password>" with your wireless password.

If your network uses WPA for security, remove the leading "#"s from the four lines starting with the second "#auto wlan0". Replace "<ssid>" with your network name and replace "<password>" with your network password.

Once you are done, click on "Save". Then close the window by clicking the "X" in the upper-left or upper-right corner.


5. Safely remove the memory card and put it in the Wii by doing the following:
If you don't already have a nautilus ("File Browser") window up (you probably have 2 or 3 open now), type "nautilus &" <ENTER> into terminal. A window will come up.
On the menu bar, click "Go"->"Computer".
Right-click on one of the icons for your memory card. Select "Safely Remove...".
Once the icons for your memory card have disappeared, you can physically remove the memory card.

Put the memory card in the front slot on the Wii.


6. Boot your Wii and go into Homebrew Channel. Press <HOME> on the Wiimote and select "Launch BootMii". It will automatically log in user "ubuntu". The password is "ubuntu".

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Thank you to Whowne, gralco, isobel, nuvalo, the creators of whiite and xwhiite, whoever made the wireless firmware available, elmurato, the creators of cwiid, my family, the Ubuntu community and everyone else who made this possible.

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If you have successfully followed these instructions and ran Ubuntu Wii, please post a message here saying so.
If you have tried to follow these directions and were unsuccessful, please post a message here and I'll try to fix the guide or figure out what went wrong for you.
Thanks!



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2014 01:10AM by q885.

I'm just not sure how you managed to get Firefox to run with such a heavy desktop enviroment, I didn't even thing the source code supported PowerPC. I guess all that's left now for the series is a Kubuntu attempt. I was a bit doubtful of this when I first seen something similar to this on Youtube back about a year ago, but I can definitly confirm now that an XFCE desktop environment is possible; espicially after seeing a heavier desktop like Gnome 2 running as good as it did. I've managed to do something similar to this with rasor-qt in Debian Wheezy using Sid packages, but it was quite slow as I had to heavily rely on swap and zRam. After seeing this, I think I'll make another attempt once rasor-qt stabalizes a bit more as I like the looks of qt better than gtk. Thanks for sharing this!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2013 02:27AM by DeltaResero.

Yes I know the last post is two months ago. I still feel like this post is contributing. If its not feel free to delete it.

I don't see how you say this is fast as Easy Wii Linux. The desktop took 24 seconds from the start of X to fully init. To truely get to a state of speed where EWL is, you'd have to trim out a lot of the fat:
There are XOrg drivers for ATI, S3, Glint, etc ... the only one we need is fbdev to access farter's framebuffer.
Xfwm isn't the lightest window manager and atleast on my first boot it was taking up more ram than XOrg was.

However put aside the speed issues and bloat, I really do like this distro and I'm going to see what I can get done with it.

EDIT: I've having an issue of TV Overscan that doesn't exist in EWL, Its making using X a pain. The consoles themselves don't get chopped off and infact have a small black line at the bottom.

EDIT2: It seems that console-setup isn't listed in rcconf, where it was in EWL. So now I cannot disable the font change during bootup which makes the consoles completly unreadable in their state of white fg - black bg. Regarding the font, EWL switches to the same one and yet I can semi read the one from EWL.

EDIT3: Pressing backspace on the consoles with content after the delete point causes color corruption, also didn't happen in EWL.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2013 10:10PM by gamax92.

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gamax92
I don't see how you say this is fast as Easy Wii Linux. The desktop took 24 seconds from the start of X to fully init. To truely get to a state of speed where EWL is, you'd have to trim out a lot of the fat:
There are XOrg drivers for ATI, S3, Glint, etc ... the only one we need is fbdev to access farter's framebuffer.
Xfwm isn't the lightest window manager and atleast on my first boot it was taking up more ram than XOrg was.

Haha. Yes, you caught me exaggerating a little bit. It's not quite "about as fast" as EWL, but it's really not that far behind either. I've changed the text of the original message.

As for the XOrg drivers: I didn't delete any files manually. (You may notice the kernel files are there too.) I didn't want to mess anything up. The earlier (Gnome) versions I released have all the packages contained in "ubuntu-desktop", "ubuntu-standard" and "ubuntu-minimal". This version contains all the packages from "xubuntu-desktop", "ubuntu-standard" and "ubuntu-minimal". If you know what you're doing, feel free to remove packages and files.

As for only needing fbdev to access farter's framebuffer, this uses the nuvalo cube driver (cube_drv.so) rather than farter's. Farter's is probably better, but I never looked into using it. Feel free to change it over. It would be much appreciated.

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However put aside the speed issues and bloat, I really do like this distro and I'm going to see what I can get done with it.

I really appreciate that. Of course, I'll appreciate it more if you release a filesystem tar with your improvements!

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EDIT: I've having an issue of TV Overscan that doesn't exist in EWL, Its making using X a pain. The consoles themselves don't get chopped off and infact have a small black line at the bottom.

Yes. I looked into this a little and the best option I could come up with was to place empty panels above the top panel and below the bottom. I never followed through on this. My apologies.
Perhaps the farter driver solves this problem?

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EDIT2: It seems that console-setup isn't listed in rcconf, where it was in EWL. So now I cannot disable the font change during bootup which makes the consoles completly unreadable in their state of white fg - black bg. Regarding the font, EWL switches to the same one and yet I can semi read the one from EWL.

Can't help you there. It would be great for it not to change the font. I don't like those thin letters. I never looked into changing that. Have you looked in "/etc/rc?.d"? Wish I could help you more.

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EDIT3: Pressing backspace on the consoles with content after the delete point causes color corruption, also didn't happen in EWL.

Yes, I believe this is a bug in the isobel kernel. I don't know for sure. However, Whiite, which uses the same kernel, also displays this problem. EWL uses a different kernel and doesn't have this problem, so I think that would be the place to look.

As for a new kernel, I'm very encouraged by the work DeltaResero has been doing. Hopefully he'll make it available soon!

Thanks for all your hard work.

hi i need help... i tried doing this over and over but whenever i boot bootmii it runs the command and at the end it says permission denied.... it asks for a tty1 username i put in ubuntu but it didnt work could you please help me out?

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coolesst1
hi i need help... i tried doing this over and over but whenever i boot bootmii it runs the command and at the end it says permission denied.... it asks for a tty1 username i put in ubuntu but it didnt work could you please help me out?

Okay. Can you post the login prompt that comes up and the error it gives? For example, does it say:
Ubuntu login tty:ubuntu
Unable to determine your tty name



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/2013 03:14AM by q885.

Is this possible to to with a Windows? At the start you said:

Quote
q885
A computer running Linux.

Or can you use a Mac instead?

EDIT: Quote gliched



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2013 04:20AM by JjStAr.

@JjStAr:
Can you do this with Windows? No. At least I don't know of any programs that would let you do it.
As for Mac...maybe? I don't know enough about Macs to tell you.

Basically, all you need is a way to format and write to an "ext2" partition. Especially, you have to be able to write special files like devices. In Linux, this is very simple to do because most, if not all, flavors of Linux support ext2 partitions natively.

Alright then... This may seem a bit far out, but what about setting it up with EWL?

I don't know of any reason why you wouldn't be able to install Ubuntu Wii onto a second memory card (attached through usb, I assume) using EWL. I haven't tried it with EWL, but I have installed Ubuntu Wii from Ubuntu Wii, so I don't expect any problems.

Ok.

If I used a 4gb SD Card for only BootMii and EWL, will there be enough space for a Ubuntu partition on the same card?

EDIT: Bump



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2013 10:06AM by JjStAr.

Quote
JjStAr
Ok.

If I used a 4gb SD Card for only BootMii and EWL, will there be enough space for a Ubuntu partition on the same card?

EDIT: Bump

I know this post is pretty old but somehow I missed it, so I figured I'd answer it now. There will most likely be enough space. EWL uses 1GB and Ubuntu Wii uses 2.6GB (but that doesn't leave much space for data or new programs). You will also need about 10 more MB on the boot/EWL partition. SD cards always have a slightly smaller capacity than their advertised amount, so yours must have at least 3.6GB usable space. Then comes the tricky part. Since you want to be able to switch between the kernels, you will need to run actual BootMii. So you will need the original contents of the "bootmii" folder from when you installed the Homebrew Channel. You may also need the "mikep1-armboot.bin" in place of the "armboot.bin" that BootMii comes with (I'm not sure). Then you can put the kernel binaries wherever you want and select them from within BootMii. I haven't used this method since I was first experimenting with whiite, so I don't know what challenges you may face.
If I were you, I'd save up the $20 for another SD card. Then, if you want to access the files of each from the other, you can connect the one you haven't booted through the USB.

Sorry I didn't notice and reply to this post sooner.