February 15, 2010, 10:44 am
Installing Gentoo Linux on the Genesi EfikaMX (unboxing) is fairly simple. I have completed documentation for this process here. I have enjoyed working on this platform and will highly suggest it for applications that need low power and non-extreme hardware specs. Anyway, I’m not the first to have Gentoo Linux running on EfikaMX, but the first to document the process. Thanks go to Raúl (armin76) for working on the Gentoo stages, Genesi for the support, et al.
I would have a screenshot to show here, but it is hard to take a decent picture on my 40″ “monitor” 
January 18, 2010, 9:23 am
It is no surprise that Gentoo Prefix works fine on arm-linux given the great work being done in Gentoo Linux by the ARM team (armin76, maekke, et al).
For the Genesi Efika MX (unboxing), I now have a binpkg repo setup (for Gentoo Prefix only). This was mainly a fun proof-of-concept that I did. I went from installing 70 packages in about 18 hours, to about 30 minutes using binpkgs.
What does this mean:
Given the relatively small set of arm users and the highly specific use cases for arm hardware, well, there isn’t a very big percentage of users that will keep Ubuntu on their Efika MX when they get it. But, if they do, that means that they can get a complete toolchain and Gentoo Linux userland (including portage package manager) on the host in less than an hour. Of course, they could also get the same packages from the Ubuntu package manager but that isn’t as cool 
How to install/get working:
Follow this easy guide that I wrote, here. All 70 packages will occupy about 580MB of space. Then you will have the toolchain and portage (emerge) at your disposal to use on your Ubuntu ARM (cortex-a8, armv7) system.
Have fun.
December 3, 2009, 9:31 pm
In the mail today, I got the Efika MX Open Client. My first impressions are pretty good. No noise and no moving parts, it should last for a long time. It comes with Ubuntu 9.10 minimal on it out of the box.
That HDMI output makes it the best text console I have ever seen on my 40″ 1080p LCD TV! Seriously though, on my TODO:
- Analyze the possibilities for a HTPC. This will be just something fun to do.
- Gentoo Prefix on ARM. This will be the first time, that we know of, that it has been attempted. It shouldn’t be that hard because Gentoo already has ARM support which means that most apps already work.
- Install Gentoo Linux on it and help armin76 document the installation process.
- Assisting the Gentoo ARM team with providing binary packages and weekly stages for Gentoo Linux users.
- And more…
Size comparision of Efika MX vs Aspire1
Back of the Efika MX. Power, HDMI, Ethernet, headphone, mic
Front of Efika MX. USB, USB, SD Card Slot
