I can't make my NSLU2 boot with Debian squeeze (nor any other release for that matter) :(
Dear all,
I am new to this list - sorry I tried not to bother anyone in setting up
an (old) NSLU2 with Debian but I've failed all attempts and I do not
know what to try any longer. I have looked at all possible sources of
info but they did not help me making any progress. Sorry that this seems
to be an old problem, but I can't find the solution.
First, I tried to install Debian proper following Martin Michlmayr
instruction here[0]. It wouldn't go past the "all four leds on" stage
(top led yellow). So I followed a hint and opened the case and removed
the RTC battery. And voilà, the di-nslu2.bin (taken from here[1])
suddendly booted and started the installer. So I logged in and started
the installation process. Unfortunately, it won't complete. I tried many
times but I couldn't go past the "Install the base system" stage. The
(direct, wired) ssh connection would drop and when reconnecting, I would
have to start the "Install the base system" stage again and so I went
nowhere with that method. One good thing was that the machine was
immediately (so to speak) available on the network at the canonical
address 192.168.1.77.
So I switched to another page from Martin's, the one that suggests to
install a Debian 6.0 tarball on an external disk, then upslug this
squeeze image[2] and boot from there. This time, the leds do the usual
boot routine, then only the network led remains lit and the machine goes
into meditation mode and is hardly accessible from outside (yes, I also
checked with nast -m to make sure that it did not get an IP address).
The attached disk doesn't show any activity, so it looks like the boot
doesn't even get to fsck it or whatever. I waited also for entire nights
for the device to boot, but to no avail. I set up the bootlogd default
to yes, but of course since it doesn't get to the disk nothing gets
written on it. Nor read, for that matter. I tried with and without the
RTC battery, no show.
Just for the record, here's how the external disk is partitioned
(following Martin's instructions):
Disk /dev/sdd: 203.9 GB, 203927060480 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24792 cylinders, total 398295040 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe3b593ff
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 * 2048 10506509 5252231 83 Linux
/dev/sdd2 10506510 73449179 31471335 83 Linux
/dev/sdd3 73449180 398283479 162417150 5 Extended
/dev/sdd5 73451228 73818674 183723+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdd6 73820723 398283479 162231378+ 83 Linux
(this is from reading on my laptop: I have another external disk, so
this ends up being /dev/sdd).
At the end of loading the base system tarball[3] (yes I have checked that the
signature is correct) here is what a df looks like:
Filesystem 1M-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdd1 5049M 15M 4778M 1% /home/nicb/mnt/boot
/dev/sdd2 30251M 673M 28042M 3% /home/nicb/mnt/mnt
/dev/sdd6 155943M 188M 147834M 1% /home/nicb/mnt/home
/boot is an ext2 filesystem, all others are ext3 (as per Martin's
instructions). By looking at the mailing-list I also tried other things,
like setting up volume labels and exchanging the boot flag from
/dev/sdd1 to /dev/sdd2. Everything without success, unfortunately.
What am I doing wrong? I don't have a serial port and am not that good
at hacking hardware... what can I do to get this going?
Thanks to all for your excellent work (I wish I could use it!)
nicb
[0] http://www.cyrius.com/debian/nslu2/install.html
[1] http://www.slug-firmware.net/d-dls.php
[2] http://www.cyrius.com/debian/nslu2/files/armel/sda2-2.6.32-5
[3] http://people.debian.org/~tbm/nslu2/squeeze/base.tar.bz2
--
Nicola Bernardini
Scuola di Musica Elettronica
Conservatorio C.Pollini Padova
e-mail: nicb@sme-ccppd.org
http://www.conservatoriopollini.it
http://www.sme-ccppd.org
http://www.nicolabernardini.info
GPG fingerprint = 6AE6 AF21 E160 D9B3 396E EBAC 906C CFAE 4D65 D910
Neither MS-Word nor MS-PowerPoint attachments please.
Reply to: