Re: Debian kernel package for linkstation pro
Martin Michlmayr wrote:
Oh, I thought you said the current firmware version had the "press
reset, do TFTP" feature. Bugger.
I was told it did by people on #linkstationwiki - I thought I had broken
this feature on my box by changing the default nvram settings, but after
further investigation, it appears that at least the current shipping
lspro-v2s, this feature no longer works.
So for the first installation of Debian the instructions would be:
- Run a script supplied by Debian that will use nvram to change
bootargs_root=root=/dev/sda2 rw initrd=0x00800040,15M panic=5
to
bootargs_root=root=/dev/sda2 rw initrd=0x00800040 panic=5
Pretty much, but I think the best approach is to supply an initrd which
does this automatically (for those who are operating without a serial
console, you could use the built-in speaker or front-panel LEDs to
signal success). For the record, the change would be:
bootargs_root=root=/dev/sda2 rw initrd=0x00800040,15M panic=5
to
bootargs_root=root=/dev/sda2 rw panic=5
the kernel then falls-back to using the (correct position and size)
initrd info which uboot passes in via an in-memory information table.
This in-memory initrd information only created by newer firmwares, so
there needs to be a firmware rev check in there (can by done by taking a
checksum of a region of the flash memory...
And then we tell users to install Debian by removing the disk and
installing some files on a TFTP server.
What we will need:
1) debian-installer images for TFTP. We need an uImage.buffalo and
initrd.buffalo file of debian-installer. This is easy.
BTW, just as a test, I tried the installer images from:
http://people.debian.org/~kmuto/d-i/images/daily/orion5x/netboot/buffalo/kuroboxpro/
If I force tftpboot via serial console, they work (however the Ethernet
module loading fails with:
[ 3.830000] rtc-rs5c372 0-0032: setting system clock to 2008-08-08
07:51:09 UTC (1218181869)
[ 3.840000] Freeing init memory: 108K
[ 5.680000] mv643xx_eth: Unknown symbol mii_ethtool_sset
[ 5.690000] mv643xx_eth: Unknown symbol mii_link_ok
[ 5.700000] mv643xx_eth: Unknown symbol mii_check_gmii_support
[ 5.710000] mv643xx_eth: Unknown symbol mii_nway_restart
[ 5.720000] mv643xx_eth: Unknown symbol generic_mii_ioctl
[ 5.720000] mv643xx_eth: Unknown symbol mii_ethtool_gset
but I'm guessing that this is a problem with this particular build....
2) flash-kernel support: flash-kernel (despite the name) now supports
both flash and disk based devices. It has to make a bootable image on
disk. I think the support we have for Kurobox should work out of the
box. We just need to recognize the LS Pro. I'll send a patch soon.
OK. I also did this:
http://buttersideup.com/files/lspro/kernel-img.conf
http://buttersideup.com/files/lspro/install-linkstation-kernel.stock
which is probably a duplication of the same thing, but might be a useful
cross reference.
3) oldsys-preseed support: this script looks at flash or the disk for
an existing network configuration which will then be used in
debian-installer. I don't know what the firmware looks like. Where
is the network config stored?
I don't know, I've not done much with the stock Buffalo user-space or
Windows configuration tools - and I've just used DHCP for all my boxes.
I just mounted the fresh-out-of-the-box lsprov2's /dev/sda2 on another
box (BTW, the rootfs is xfs, so the installer image would need the xfs
fs module to be included). There is no netinfo file, and nothing
interesting in host.conf.
If I get time, I'll take a look at the Windows software to see if there
is any mechanism to set a non-DHCP IP address.
Cheers,
Tim.
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