Re: Update APEX for fatted nslu2 (FatSlug)

[Asier <katximan@gmx.net>]

El Lunes 19 Enero 2009, Marc Singer escribió:

> I'm not positive, but I thought that the Debian released version of
> APEX supported memory detection.

Debian shipped APEX version is:
# dpkg -l|grep apex
ii  apex-nslu2      1.4.15.2       APEX Boot Loader for Linksys NSLU2

Rod told me in a previous e-mail in this thread that I need APEX >1.5.13

> If you want to debug this, it is worthwhile installing the console
> port.  You soldered RAM down after all, so you cannot be afraid of the
> iron.

Emmm... Not me, one friend make the soldering. I suffer of "fat fingers" :D

> The crux of detecting more than 32MiB of memory are the APEX commands
> sdram-init and memscan. The APEX startup command that I'm using reads
> as follows:
>
>   sdram-init; memscan -u 0+64m; copy -s fis://kernel 0x00008000; copy -s
> fis://ramdisk 0x01000000; wait 10 Type ^C key to cancel autoboot.; boot

Ok. Then for enabling that extra RAM I must (all from the nslu2):

1. Make a backup of the nslu2 flash memory

2. Unpack the backup with slugimage

3. Replace apex (the loader) in that image with apex 1.5.14 compiled by me 
with default options, or with the one from 
http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/kernel/apex-debian-nslu2-armeb-1.5.14.bin

4. Repack the flash backup with the new image with slugimage and upload it to 
the nslu2 via upslug2 from another computer.

5. Boot the nslu2

6. Execute (one line):

# apex-env setenv startup 'sdram-init; memscan -u 0+64m; copy -s fis://kernel 
0x00008000; copy -s fis://ramdisk 0x01000000; wait 10 Type ^C key to cancel 
autoboot.; boot'

7. Reboot the nslu2 and that's all!

If this are the steps, I'll try it, and perhaps someone with write access to 
the nslu2 wiki can post this steps so others can benefit from this :)

> See the apex-env manual page for instructions for editing the APEX
> environment.  Be aware that you can make your SLUG unbootable using
> apex-env.

If apex is the 2nd bootloader in the worst scenario I can reinstall the 
debian-installer image all again via upslug2

Thanks a lot
-- 
Asier