Talk:Wii-Linux

Keyboard problems

At first the keyboard works fine but after 5mins the system doesn't recognize keyboard inputs anymore. Someone who has the same problem? --Pizza 23:59, 14 April 2008 (PDT)

i have the same problem. after a few minutes the system doesn't respond to keyboard inpute. maybe it hangs? --robertle 00:25, 15 April 2008 (PDT)

hmn i don't think that it hangs at that point cause the input cursor is still blinking :S

--Pizza 09:32, 15 April 2008 (PDT)

I have the same problem, sort of. First time i started the dist, i left it several minutes and i couldn't login, so i assumed it was a problem with my usb keyboard.. After reading this, i tried again and logged in immediately, and after a few mins the keyboard input stopped listening. I was actually typing 'ls' at the time so s's started creeping across the screen. Unplugging the keyboard and plugging it back in again, + waiting a few seconds made it stop typing 's's, but i couldn't get keyboard focus back... 172.143.166.93 01:04, 26 April 2008 (PDT)

Guys, I think the problem is that the Wiimote turns off because it's not being used, and for some reason the keyboard stops working... I'm guessing that's what happened, anyway. Once, I was using the IC, and it stopped making those clicky noises. I noticed the Wiimote was off, turned it back on, and the noises were back. I wonder if Wiinux somehow makes the keyboard actually not work if the Wiimote "times out." -Shado 00:37, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if you know this but what they are talking about if from the Proof Of Concept version of WiiLinux. Your idea is still valid though if you are having issues. Pinball wizard 01:42, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I haven't actually used Wiinux yet. I'm just giving a possible explanation. -Shado 23:38, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Media Possibilities?

Just wondering, but is it possible that Linux on Wii would support a Hard Drive, from which music and videos could be played? Or, would it be possible to make a MythTV Frontend to run on the Wii? Or perhaps an equivalent to XBOX Media Center? --Quadomatic 18:12, 28 April 2008 (CDT)

It's definitely possible, but it'd be a lot of work. As a start, check out Wii MFE Port. -- Karaken12 02:37, 9 May 2008 (PDT)

Perhaps I should elaborate. The Wii MFE port shows that it's possible to play video through the Wii. It is also possible to use an external hard-drive with the Wii (see News), and get network support working (see PCtoWii). Playing DVDs on it seems further off -- as far as I know no-one has yet accessed the DVD drive without a mod-chip (but I might well be wrong about that). So a MythTV Frontend (or something like it) seems possible. What the Wii lacks, however, is a video-in port, so without additional hardware you won't be able to record TV on it. That said, there are USB tuners out there, so if the Wii has sufficient power (i.e. RAM and processing capacity) even this is possible. The downside is all of these idea require significant programing. Perhaps when Wii Linux is more that just a proof-of-concept this will become easier, but for now the Wii Homebrew scene is just getting going. -- Karaken12 06:33, 9 May 2008 (PDT)

"Geexbox for Wii" (and maybe MPlayer CE) are good options for basic video playback. They have decent interfaces and plays heaps of formats. For a network video playback (via SMB, Windows Share) through wifi Mplayer Wii is probably best. Also with MIKEp5, DVD is supported —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sge (talk • contribs) 07:01, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Status

Does this have things like BusyBox in it and such? Or is it just completely just strictly to make proof? This should be something easy to port stuff to since PPClinux for macs is full of software. Pinball wizard 12:17, 28 May 2008 (PDT)

Answered my own question...It has busybox and all. It is more than a complete nothingness of linux. Pinball wizard 10:33, 1 June 2008 (PDT)

Just so I know what I could do some work on (still learning C++inching farther on though ;) ) what would be the next step into this port? Full SD card reading, Simple GUI, stuff like that. I could direct some of my programming learning towards this. Pinball wizard 17:14, 12 June 2008 (CEST)

I think that we should work on adding in sd card and usb support. Also adding the ability to run .dol and .elf files. We should use code from sd explorer for the simple GUI. Porting alot of compilers is also going to help. I am still in the process of learning C/C++. Can you tell me what you are using to learn C++? Vader347

C++ For Dummies, and common knowledge and snese. I'll look into combining those things, but there is already SD card support apparently. Pinball wizard 17:58, 18 June 2008 (CEST)

I just found a new file on the wii-linux download page. download Here --vader347 00:32, 21 June 2008 (CEST)

USB Ethernet Adapter

Would other usb adapters work instead of the official wii one? just curious to see if I could get my wii with GeexBox working with streaming. Pinball wizard 04:14, 17 July 2008 (CEST)

Theoretically yes, but you have to test to figure it out. --vader347 04:10, 17 July 2008 (CEST)

How should I go about this to make it the easiest? Pinball wizard 04:14, 17 July 2008 (CEST)

I have added a table for compatible and incompatible usb network adapters. --Skibur 23:44, 23 July 2008 (CEST)

Wi-fi

Is the Wii's Wi-fi module handled by the Starlet or would the kernel handle it itself? Because if it is the second, Wi-Fi support is going to always be patchy because:

• The Wii's Wi-Fi Module is the Broadcom 4318 AirForce One Chipset, which is trouble because

• ndiswrapper will not work for architectures that Windows drivers aren't written for (i.e. PowerPC, as used by Broadway)

• b43 or bcm43xx would possibly have to be modified to work with the Wii's non-standard mainboard layout

• b43 or bcm43xx require firmware to be cut out of drivers, and this firmware is illegal to distribute, meaning the user would have to take additional steps to get Wi-Fi working

• I've used the b43 and bcm43xx drivers, and their support is patchy, at best

- Michaelh 21:44, 1 August 2008 (CEST)

Perhaps make a special program that uses one of the homebrew libraries to get internet? Just a theory... --Initrd.gz 6:55 August 8 2008 (CST)

The drivers for this wifi module (4318) is built into the Linux kernel. Why don't we just use that?

Mini kernel preview 3 provides wifi support for wii-linux. More informations about mike p3 can be found here: KernelPreviewThree --Screemer 10:24, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Anyone working on XOrg?

Just wondering if anyone is working on a gui, and if there is, what they have gotten done. --Initrd.gz 6:50 August 8 (CST)

Given that the Wii's memory is not particularly large, it's most likely that Graphical apps under Wii Linux will use directfb instead of any X11 Server. - Michaelh 18:44, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe XFast could be used? --ToniCE 08:11, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

i believe muzer was doing something in this regard. ask him. yossi 00:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Check out XWhiite, it has XOrg successfully implemented. --11rcombs 22:04, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Failed to unpack

Whenever I try to unpack the .TAR.BZ2 file, it always goes wrong somewhere along the way, (I tried under Mac, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Ubuntu.).

Unpack as root on Linux. Muzer 11:14, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

feature request: smbfs kerner driver

Hi there, I think adding the smbfs driver into the kernel would be a nice thing. Just imagine: setting up some console player with playlist support like mp3blaster, mounting your windows shared mp3 collection and running the m3us. smb-common already fully works on the whiite 0.1, so it only lags the smbfs. I did not test any other distribution, maybe some already have that. Another alternative would be davfs2 and fuse but I think that's way more effort. -s33k

I agree with this, but for the reason that storage on the Wii is incredibly limited without an external hard drive. We can already run an FTP or Samba server on the Wii, and these servers are much more configurable for security and ease of access than most commercial NAS boxes. So we hook up a few existing NAS boxses with Samba shares to the Wii over a network, then connect to all of them through the Wii. Also, the source for the 2.6.xx-isobel-wii kernel should be available so we can compile modules like this on our own. Would make things so much easier. ~pneumono —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pneumono (talk • contribs) 03:40, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Rarely Asked Questions

Why is Iceweasel/Firefox not running?

Wii can't handle it at decent speeds. Use a text-based webbrowser such as "links". (apt-get install links) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sge (talk • contribs) 07:01, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Is there a version of the "Adobe Flash Player" for xwhiite? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sge (talk • contribs) 07:01, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Flash is a resource-hog and slow - running it through wii linux is a bad idea. Use the Opera Browser for flash. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sge (talk • contribs) 07:01, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible to add the sudo command?

You are logged in as a root user already —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sge (talk • contribs) 07:01, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Sry for spelling errors, but i'm not good in english. --Plinfa 17:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Your spelling is fine, Plinfa. Sorry for the delay answering your questions - one whole year :P —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sge (talk • contribs) 07:01, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Console goes off screen

The subject kind of wraps it all up... Whenever I load any console homebrew (or XWhiite), the console always goes off the screen. it seems to do so up and down vertically, but not horizontally.

That's called Overscan. I had the same problem with CRTs and composite cables. I have had no problems after getting a new TV (for other reasons) and using component cables. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sge (talk • contribs) 07:01, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

TV Overscan?

Does anyone know how to account for TV overscan when using whiite linux for the wii? I can't see the bottom command line on my screen! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bmax (talk • contribs) 16:32, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Try all the ELF files for every TV spec until it works. Or just pick the correct one straight up :P —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sge (talk • contribs) 07:01, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Mounting USB Drives: Stale NFS file handle error

Has anyone encountered the the following error when mounting usb drives:

1. mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

mount: Stale NFS file handle

Whiite linux will not let me mount any usb drives on my system. I get this error everytime I try to mount a usb drive. I have tried about 5 different types and sizes of memory sticks and have tried formatting them as FAT, FAT32, ntfs, ext2....—Preceding unsigned comment added by Bmax (talk • contribs) 16:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

BootMii

Is it possible to load Linux instead of MINI while using BootMii ? --Sca.nab 12:11, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I answer myself : MIni(-based) KErnel Preview One (aka MIKE p1). It can be found on gc-linux. --Sca.nab 16:51, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

And now, MIni(-based) KErnel Preview Two (aka MIKE p2). It can be found on gc-linux. --Sca.nab 20:50, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

When BootMii is installed in boot2 it loads a file called ppcboot.elf from your /bootmii on your SD card. Backup the original ppcboot.elf somewhere and place your linux binary in that folder and rename it ppcboot.elf. Whenever you turn on your Wii it will automatically boot into linux (or whatever ELF file you wish) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sge (talk • contribs) 07:01, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Loading entirely from USB?

I am wondering if it is possible to load entirely from a (homebrew channel compatable) USB hard drive. By this I mean load linux from the HBC (or even wiiload) and then detect the linux boot partition and use that with absolutly no files needed on the SD card(my sd card died (as in I cannot write to it regardless of the write protection tab location or formatting) and I am unwilling/unable to buy a new one every 6 months)

Toagac 22:56, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Toagac.

It is possible and I've done it using the Mike p4 kernel and bootmii. I don't have USB hard drive, but i succeeded using USB memory stick instead. You have to hexedit the kernel of your choice f.e this (mike p4 mini kernel, only working with bootmii.) find the line "root=" and change the /dev/mmcblk0p2 to /dev/sda1 - of course, you have to copy the existing filesystem to the USB hard drive first, a task easily done by running rsync on the current sd-card installation (as user root) with the following command:

rsync -avHx --delete / /the/mountpoint/ofyour/usbharddrives/root/

The hexedit part might be tricky but I'll write a better tutorial for it somewhere in the near future.

--Wiibrewfan4 07:01, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Hello Wiibrewfan4,

Have you tried making the whole formatting and extracting process of the filesystem on a USB memory stick instead of rsync? I always seem to get the black screen issue which I had solved when I used my SD card to boot. It's a 1GB memory stick, running via bootmii. --MadCatMk2 15:36, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

what does it do?

im thinking about downloading it, and before i do, i wonder what it does? , it doesn't really say... Calthephenom 20:44, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Its a wii port of the linux operating system. Link33 21:09, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Memory tester?

Is it possible to get a copy of Memtest+ running on the wii? I think my wii may be failing and want to test it out before I mess around with the chips --The Moogle —Preceding undated comment added 20:26, 5 October 2009 (UTC).

GC Memorycard Unsupported

It's my understanding that SD cards via a GC Memory card adapter are accessible on Wii Linux. Therefore we must have access to the hardware (and since SD cards/gc memcards are pretty much the same anyway) Why are GC memory cards unsupported? ('scuse my ignorance) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Someguy 12345 (talk • contribs) 22:42, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Needs some work

This article needs some serious work. I'd do it, but I don't even know where to begin.

• There are over >9000 distributions here, most of which have been abandoned. Those that have should be removed or at least moved to the bottom of the page.
• It's probably easier for most people to install the root FS on a USB thumb drive than to repartition their SD card.
• WiFi is now supported by the kernel, as long as you have the right files in the root FS (specifically, the openfwwf firmware and the wifi management tools) -- I don't know which of the distributions support this, but we should highlight this fact. It makes this useful for a considerably larger audience.

-- Bushing 12:29, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the article sucks. Splitting the article is a good first step I think. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sge (talk • contribs) 07:01, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

OK. I'm doing a complete overhall of this article. Huge amounts of information is repeated, irrelavent (ie. needs separate article) or just needs to be moved. Sge 04:58, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I split it up, wrote a proper intro etc. Sge 06:24, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and I added a bit on MINI vs IOS at the start. Very useful info IMO. I'm no expert in that, so if anything is completely wrong please fix it... Sge 07:13, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Did some more work on the article. It's pretty much the best it can be with the current state of things. Sge 07:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Kernel panic when booting

Using Linux I managed to unpack/untar all the appropriate files to their respective partitions, and load through HBC. However, when I go to boot, it crashes saying it was unable to mount anything on root, and gives me the good ol' kernel panic message. What is causing this? Stewie 17:51, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Did you install it to the correct partition (by default, primary partition 2 of the SD card)?

Did you extract directly into the partition via tar, rather than unpacking and then cp'ing? (If you did the latter, you should have used cp -a) Muzer 19:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I did yes to both of these. I used tar -C /media/boot -xvjf (long tarball filename) to extract the kernel image to the FAT16 partition, and likewise used tar -C /media/whiite -xvjf to extract the Debian Lenny bundle to the Ext3 partition.

I used df -T before umounting the SD card to make sure that the partitioning / filesystem creation had been successful and it seemed so, seeing as how the kernel would at least boot before giving me the panic error I figured something was going right.

However, after doing a more thorough sweep of the sd card using df -T and fdisk -L I noticed that, don't ask how, an 'other' type partition (unused) had mysteriously superimposed itself over the Linux one! It had the same start and end blocks, size, et cetera. And of course trying to use Wiiload to install from a USB medium always ended in nothing but a lost+found folder being placed on the ext3 partition, so, I think the SD card is probably just toast. I have always had this problem trying to boot Wii-Linux and it has always been that same card. Can I just do the same partitioning / filesystem processes on a USB hard drive and boot it that way? Stewie 16:58, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Support for Google Chrome OS?

I was just browsing the interwebs, and I noticed that Google Chrome OS is a linux-based distro which has support for ARM architectures. Would it be a stretch to say that ChromeOS could be ported to the Wii? Cheers!Kevinevans 02:02, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Archii presumably dead

Hi, I am dropping a note, that the tarballs have been removed from the location it is linked to in the article. The server is up though. Unlike the repos, which according to forum are down for some time. If somewone can confirm, that the project is dead, not just moved without a proper notice, than please remove it! Thanks. DAud

Yeah I'll investigate. Randomdude 14:58, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah for now its dead until they fix their servers. Randomdude 15:04, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Miight presumably dead

Links broken; had to use Wayback machine to find out last word from Muzer was over two years ago. Any reason why we should keep it listed and with inaccurate statements like "seems likely Miight will be released early 2010"? Sshock 08:21, 4 June 2011 (CEST)

Installing Wii-Linux

Can someone help me installing it? I have a 2GB SD card (FAT) with homebrew and the wii-linux boot.dol on it and a 8GB USB-drive. The USB-drive has an ext3 filesystem and I extracted the whiite-files on it. But when I try to start wii-linux through the HBC it says that it can't mount the root filesystem and when I load it through bannerbomb I only get a black screen. What can I do to get it running? --Jannis234 15:10, 9 July 2011 (CEST)

I found the problem: Wii-Linux is searching for the root filesystem on sda2 (sd-card) but I installed it on the usb drive (sdb2?). How can I get Wii-Linux to mount the root filesystem form the usb drive and not from the sd-card? --Jannis234 23:01, 9 July 2011 (CEST)

Debian 6 (squeeze) on the Wii?

Is it possible to upgrade whiite to debian 6? I tried updating with apt-get but it showed me a lot of errors while booting and most of the wii's hardware didn't work. --Jannis234 16:43, 13 September 2011 (CEST)

I had a look at this, but to be honest it doesn't seem quite feasible. My guess would be that components of whiite are replaced upon update. Guess we have to wait for the team to release a new version of whiite, but they'll probably wait for the next kernel update if they do decide to. Whats wrong with lenny? Everything seems fine to me, although the default repositories in sources.list don't have all packages so I end up using ftp.au.debian.org/debian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rothux (talk • contribs) 19:42, 6 November 2011 (CEST)

I did try upgrading to Squeeze, and it worked. Tux 10:29, 2 January 2012 (CET)

Direct Boot on Bootmii IOS

In case anyone hasn't figured this out, you can usually install priiloader on a bootmii ios wii. In priiloader, you select to boot to bootmii, and then put the mike kernel on your SD card in the bootmii directory, replacing the ppcboot.elf. This allows for direct booting. Using the new kernel through bootmii ios, you can have wifi and dvd support too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rothux (talk • contribs) 15:55, 5 November 2011 (CEST)

BootMii

Everything says "Boot with bootmii" but I can't figure out how. There is only one wii linux app on my SD card and it boots fine. I'm not using mini or anything. But when I try to boot the wii-linux elf file with bootmii, it fails to boot the file. Then, I downloaded mini and tried booting it with bootmii and my TV went crazy for a bit, then displayed a nice console and I saw that it couldn't find the WiFi card. I really want the Wi-Fi thing. DOes anyone know whats wrong with this? Misson20000 16:14, 14 December 2011 (CET)

The answer above mine doesn't make sense to me —Preceding unsigned comment added by Misson20000 (talk • contribs) 16:17, 14 December 2011 (CET)

The answer is reddit and you can boot Mini only from boot2,and if you BootMii(latest version) IOS user then you can use wifi and DVD without boot2 or mini preload proof is Libiso9660 also Hextwelve. You problem is you tried boot mini kernel from boot1(BootMii IOS) loader without "old" IOS(and you can not install them because BootMii is IOS and on boot1,you can try downgrade System menu version with DVDx patches etc but I sure it will break your Wii) with hardware support. --DanilS (talk) 14:55, 6 March 2015 (CET)

Port Request

I know this may seem like a lot to ask but if it's possible would someone please port an ubuntu version over to the wii.

I have all these links which should help you know more about ubuntu

on this page[1] it says that ubuntu's desktop os used to use GNOME Panel [2] as a gui in their previous releases and that after a few different releases went on to use unity [3] as it's new gui,it also states that in order to run unity the system needs a more capable graphics adapter [4] it also needs more ram but you could leave that out since i'm not asking to port the desktop version but the powerpc version [5] which i'm guessing uses some of the same stuff as the desktop version but with less hardware requirements and less ram usage, like i said though all i'm asking is for ubuntu to be ported over and i'm sure everyone else would like that ported over as well because of all the stuff you could do with it. thanks in advance to someone who ports ubuntu over.--Umashi 14:38, 20 March 2012 (CET)