I'm at a loss running Debian
Hi,
I want to run Debian r4 on my NSLU2, but it seems like a nightmare to me ?
I?ve spent about a whole week on it, trying to get it to run like it should,
and somehow everything comes to an end before all things are finished ! I
will explain all and hope someone can shed a light on it, cause i?m about
giving it up ?
Story :
1) I Flashed the di-nslu2.bin file to the slug, and after that i?ve attached
my 1 Gb usb-stick to the upper usb port (disk2)
2) The whole installation process was a pain in the ass too, it regularly
gave up announcing an error with the initramfs-tools, after formatting the
whole usb-stick all over again, it sometimes goes through
3) After everything is set-up, i want to change the default behaviour of
mounting the disks by its sdx number, so i put labels on the 2 partitions
(1st partition is the root partition which is about 750 Mb, and 2nd
partition is the swap partition of about 256 Mb)
4) I added the noatime etc ? Look at my fstab here >
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type>
<options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc
defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-label/root / ext3
defaults,errors=remount-ro,noatime 0 1
/dev/disk/by-label/swapstick none swap
sw 0 0
/dev/disk/by-label/swapstick /media/usb0 auto
rw,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/disk/by-label/root /media/usb1 auto
rw,user,noauto,noatime 0 0
I added labels with the tune2fs command ? So far everything?s working
allright
5) After changing my fstab, i give the following commands : update-initramfs
?u and after that a flash-kernel command, all this to make these changes
permanent in the flash (these advice comes from various sources, so I guess
it?s right)
6) Everything?s still booting fine, now?s the time to attach my 320 GB
mybook external harddrive to port1, again, everythings allright, and after
adding labels to this disk and making changes permanent to the flash, it?s
still alright ? But my swappartition on the usb-stick needs to be excluded
from the fstab, because i made a swap partition on my external harddrive, so
what I did was putting a remark ?#? character before these two lines :
#/dev/disk/by-label/swapstick none swap
sw 0 0
#/dev/disk/by-label/swapstick /media/usb0 auto
rw,user,noauto 0 0
7) I?ll post my new fstab with the entries after making these changes and
after my hardddrive is attached :
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type>
<options> <dump> <pass>
#
# Disk 1 USB Stick 1 Gb
proc /proc proc
defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-label/root / ext3
defaults,errors=remount-ro,noatime 0 1
#/dev/disk/by-label/swapstick none swap
sw 0 0
#/dev/disk/by-label/swapstick /media/usb0 auto
rw,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/disk/by-label/root /media/usb1 auto
rw,user,noauto,noatime 0 0
#
# Disk 2 WD Mybook 320GB
/dev/disk/by-label/mybookdata /data ext3
defaults,noatime 1 2
/dev/disk/by-label/swapmybook none swap
sw 0 0
/dev/disk/by-label/swapmybook /media/usb2 auto
rw,user,noauto,noatime 0 0
/dev/disk/by-label/mybookdata /media/usb3 auto
rw,user,noauto,noatime 0 0
8) After making these changes and reboot the slug, it just won?t boot
anymore ? So, I thought, I change the entries of the fstab back to like it
was when still booting fine (with LTOOLS tool under windows), and boot the
slug again, guess what ? Still doing nothing ? After that - I?ve learned
from the past ? I installed everything again and made images with
ghost32.exe (v8 i guess) of my whole usb-stick (not just the partitions) and
made a copy of my flash by means of the following command : /dev/mtdblock* >
backup.bin So I thought i?m safe if something happens again ? And off
course it had happen again, so I flashed my backup.bin file to the slug, and
put the ghost image back on my usb-stick ? Great was my dissapointment that
the slug still refused to boot ?
9) I?m at a loss now, last time i put my stick back in after the slug was
started without usb-stick attached, the slug was working on the stick for
hoooouuuursss, so I thought, maybe a checkdisk is going on, and maybe it?ll
be allright after that ? nope, still nothing ? After that, there seems to
be error on my ext3 file system too
10) So, my questions, what is the problem that my slug won?t boot after
remarking the swap partition on my usb-stick, should i make the changes of
the fstab permanent to the flash immediately before a reboot ? And why
can?t i get it to work again after flashing the fully working config (ghost
file and bin file) back to my slug ?
I?m hoping for many answers, cause i?m getting so tired of spending so much
wasted time on this project ? And before I forget to mention, I used
unslung 6.8beta before, but all of a sudden after doing something with php,
my external harddrive got fully corrupted, this could have been caused by
not using a swap file at that time ? But is a filesystem under linux that
easily corrupted if the slug gets out of memory ???? And the stock firmware
is no option, as I wanted to run a lot of things on my slug !
Thanks for reading this long story, and i?ll be waiting now for answers
before i get to work again, otherwise it?ll be wasted time again and again ?
Kind regards,
Bart
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