Re: Task list for Debian on the QNAP Turbostation
This is a status update regarding QNAP TS-109/TS-209 support:
* Martin Michlmayr <tbm@cyrius.com> [2008-03-09 23:20]:
> - I have added an "orion" flavour to the Debian kernel that will
> work on TS-109/TS-209.
I made some small improvements to the kernel in the meantime.
> - flash-kernel supports the TS-109/TS-209.
Again, I made some small improvements. I'll upload this soon, as soon
as I get some comments from joeyh regarding some NSLU2 related changes
I made.
> - oldsys-preseed mostly supports the TS-109/TS-209.
No change.
> - Most of debian-installer knows about the "orion" platform (i.e.
> partman, base-install).
I renamed this to orion5x in the meantime to follow upstream
conventions which will rename orion to orion5x in 2.6.26 to enable
support for other Orion families.
> - Package u-boot: we need the mkimage program from u-boot because
> u-boot expects the kernel and ramdisk to have a special u-boot
> header that mkimage generates. My approach was simply to package
> mkimage only (e.g. by taking https://dev.openwrt.org/browser/trunk/tools/mkimage
> and fixing the Makefile), but joeyh indicated some interest in
> packaging all of u-boot. Joey, what's the status of this?
Joey Hess has packaged uboot-mkimage in the meantime. It's currently
waiting in NEW.
> - Set the MAC address: the QNAP devices have a bogus MAC address
> in the u-boot config and the real MAC address is stored in a
Lennert Buytenhek wrote a patch to set the MAC address in the kernel
but it's not clear yet whether this will be accepted. If not, this
one will be fairly hard to resolve.
> - Set some initramfs-tools settings: I think that the default
> of MODULES=most is not appropriate for NAS devices. We should
> probably use MODULES=dep on the QNAP; we need a way to easily
> change setting based on the device you're running. Frans, can
> you look into this?
Frans found an easy way to do this - you can simply put a config file
in /etc/mkinitramfs/conf.d that will override the default value.
However, MODULES=dep is actually not needed on the QNAP since "most"
will give you a ramdisk that's about 3.3 MB which is fine since the
QNAP has 4 MB for the ramdisk. I suggest that an initramfs hook to
put SSH in the ramdisk could change this setting. At the moment,
MODULES=dep doesn't work on Orion though because it doesn't include
the SATA driver. I need to talk to maks about this.
> - Get persistent disk naming: well known issue without solution. :(
No change.
> - Package piccontrol: this is used to control the LED and fan.
> See http://qnap.nas-central.org/index.php/PIC_Control_Software
Frans has made an initial package that needs more testing.
> - Figure out a good way to install Debian without having to install
> the QNAP firmware first. I have some ideas, and Frans found that
> telnet is enabled when the firmware is not installed; so this
> would give us a way in. I will try to take a look unless someone
> else volunteers.
No change, but using telnet (as Frans suggested) should be doable.
Also, Nathaël Pajani might port QNAP's Finder but I'm not sure of the
status.
> - Add kernel udebs to the installer. This requires us to move to
> 2.6.25 first. I'll add udebs when it's time to move to 2.6.25.
I have patches now but cannot apply them before 2.6.25 is out.
> - Generate orion images in debian-installer that work on QNAP
> TS-x09. We first need to move to 2.6.25.
Same here.
> - Create a web site: I'm (slowly) working on this.
No progress, but I will concentrate on this now.
> - Possibly put SSH in the ramdisk as a rescue option. Joey?
Jon Dowland indicated some interest in this.
> - Add TS-409 kernel support.
I talked to Sylver Bruneau who registered a machine ID for the TS-409
but there has been no progress.
> - Anything else I forgot?
At least two things:
- e2fsprogs: add a config file so it won't wait for the user to press
something when an error occurs. This would be useful for other
machjnes too.
- Split netcfg so you don't have to perform all network configuration
immediately, but so that you can configure an IP address, log in
via SSH and then perform the remaining configuration. Frans, are
you interested?
--
Martin Michlmayr
http://www.cyrius.com/
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