This is a base install of Ubuntu 10.10 meant to run headless on the Efika MX smarttop. 

This distribution contains the following files:
c4128a5dcc0df2d93ff75c80c7f5cd60  boot.tar.xz (sd card boot filesystem)
17650ff1570ee33a4ac61ad0c18ba2a6  installeroot.tar.xz (sd card root filesystem)
c419d41d826135a93bb848b987278705  maverickheadless.img.xz (4GB bootable SSD image)
bba53761ff9e01e72bb5445751253909  root.tar.xz (root filesystem for internal SSD)

In most cases all you need is the bootable SSD image but if the image does not fit on your SD card or you want to use a larger SD card you will need to build your own SD card using the tar files.

In order ot build your own SD card just use disk utility or fdisk to create a 128MB ext3 partition as the first partition. and an ext4 partition that takes up the rest of the SD card (you could also make it a bit smaller and add a 3rd partition for swap if you like)

once the partitions are created extract boot.tar.xz to the 1st partition and installerroot.tar.xz to the second partition. once thats done copy root.tar.xz to /home/oem inside of the second partition on the SD card. (you can leave this step out if you only want to give the option of runnng from SD card) 

I use:
xzcat boot.tar.xz | (cd /media/boot; tar xvpf -)
xzcat installeroot.tar.xz | (cd /media/root; tar xvpf -)
cp root.tar.xz /media/root/home/oem

to create an sd card from scratch after partitioning and making the filesystems.
(and giving them the labels boot and root in disk utility)

to dd the image to an sd card I use xzcat headless.img.xz | dd bs=1M of=/dev/mmcblk0

*NOTE* be sure you get your device names and mount points correct before you run any of these commands!

Once you have an SD card ready just unmount it and put it into your Efika MX smarttop what follows are my instructions that I put up on powerdeveloper.org:

I am pleased to announce that I have finished creating a minimal headless Ubuntu 10.10 SD card image for the Efika MX smarttop.

This SD card contains a base install of Ubuntu 10.10 with the text version of update manager and aptitude. it requires no screen or keyboard to get running.

You simply put the image onto an SD card, place it into the smarttop, plug in an ethernet cable and power on.

After a while the LED will blink red indicating that it is ready to install. find the IP your DHCP server gave out (the hostname should start with efikamx-installer) failing that the IP of 192.168.93.42 is always present when the system has not been set up yet.  ssh into that IP using the account and password of oem and you will get a menu with 3 options:

i -- install to internal SSD
r -- discard installer and run from SD card
s -- drop to a shell.
if you choose to install to SSD it will do so and shut down.
just remove the card and power on and the light will be flashing yellow. connect to the same account/ip and choose the r option and you will be asked a few questions about your network setup, timezone and the initial user account.

at the end of this the machine will reboot and will no longer have any flashing on the LED. log into the IP/account you set up and you are good to go with no traces of the installer left on the system.

The same setup process will happen if you choose r while booted from the SD card. this process will cause the installer system and archives to be deleted from the SD card and ask the same questions about network and initial user. at the end you will have a bootable SD card that looks the same as the install to SSD would (except its kernel and fstab are set up to run from sd card)

I will likely have this uploaded later today or early tomorrow. I'm waiting to see if a new kernel comes out publicly today.

This is my own personal project and not supported directly by Genesi.

You will be able to find the image when it is ready at http://steubentech.com/~talon/Efika-MX I will reply to this post when I have the upload finished.


It is now available for download at http://steubentech.com/~talon/Efika-MX/headless/

I don't have any instructions other than what was posted in this thread. you can simply uncompress and dd the image to a 4GB SD card.

I will post some tar files and extra instructions later.

audio should work out of the box. I have pulse aduio installed and set up to run as a system wide server. aumix is also installed.

when testing it here all I needed to install after setup was mplayer and sshfs to be able to play my mp3s on my headless Efika.

Enjoy.

Extra note (if you dont have DHCP on your network or you cant find the DHCP leased IP)
unlike setting up a linksys router or something like that
this machine will not give out addresses over dhcp. you will have to add a static IP in the 192.168.93.x range to one of your ethernet interfaces so you can connect to it at 192.168.93.42 for the initial setup.