Circumstances of Debian-SH in Japan
Hi all,
Because it may seldom be known, I report the circumstances of
Debian-sh in Japan.
---
In Japan, "dodes project"[1] was ported sid version at summer of 2002.
After that, there was a long blank.
Excluding the activity of commercial business, the Debian community was quiet.
It will be because the convenient hardware which carried SH has been lost.
[1] http://debian.dodes.org/index.en.html (English)
At "iohack project"[2], developer hacks little by little to use
LAN-iCN[3] and LAN-iCN2[4] which are a CF boot ROM SH3-Linux system.
However, that seldom progressed, because of ROM based system and no
kernel source. Moreover, it was not focus to Debian.
[2] http://sourceforge.jp/projects/iohack/
[3] http://www.iodata.jp/prod/storage/option/2002/lan-icn/ (Japanese)
[4] http://www.iodata.jp/prod/network/fileserver/2003/landisk/ (Japanese)
LANDISK[5] which is the NAS hardware which carried "SH4/266MHz" was
shipped in November, 2003. Reconstruction by the community progressed
little by little.
[5] http://www.iodata.jp/prod/storage/hdd/2005/hdl-u/ (Japanese)
The reconstruction which extends a serial port at LANDISK, and
reconstruction of sh-lilo which can perform kernel selection at the
boot time were exhibited by Mr. Hosobuchi in April, 2004. The ground
of kernel hack was ready.
kernel2.4 source code was distributed by the maker at October, 2004.
iohack project redistributed this kernel archives.
I wrote short report to "UNIX USER" Magazine in October, 2004[6]. The
part of contents are about Debianize of LANDISK, using the result of a
dodes project, the result of hacks in a community, and the
redistributed kernel source.
[6] http://www.unixuser.jp/magazine/2004/200411.html (Japanese)
Mr. iWA(IWAMURO Motonori) was released Sarge transport, based on
gcc-3.0.4/glibc-2.2.5 from dodes project in November, 2004. And the
repository was distributed in the iohack project[7].
[7] http://iohack.sourceforge.jp/debian/
Proprietary kernel driver for LANDISK hardware was hacked by Mr.
kogiidena, and kernel 2.6 came up by him. This kernel patch was
unified to kernel source by the linux-sh project. Now we can use
kernel 2.6.16. Moreover, added kernel selection by flashing power
switch to sh-lilo by him[8]. We can select kernel without console.
Mr. kogiidena transported Sarge based on Mr. iWA's result, and
kernel2.6. This is called "debian26" [9]. However, that is based on
gcc-4.0.2-2/glibc-2.3.5-8, somewhat newer than sarge. "debian26" is
mirrored in the iohack project [10].
[8] http://eggplant.ddo.jp/www/pukiwiki/index.php?cmd=read&page=landisk-tools
(Japanese)
[9] http://eggplant.ddo.jp/www/pukiwiki/index.php?linux%20and%20tools%20for%20LANDISK%28SH4%29
(English)
[10] http://iohack.sourceforge.jp/kogiidena/debian26/
"LAN Tank", which based on LANDISK hardware, shipped market at June,
2005. And that is one of my work. ;-)
- CPU: SH4 266MHz(7751R)
- SDRAM: 64MB
- NIC: 10/100Base-T (RTL8139CL + EEPROM 93C46)
- IDE: UDMA133 PATA (ACARD ATP865)
- USB: USB2.0 TypeA Conn x2 (NEC D720101GJ)
It's bare bone kit product. The case can embark two 3.5-inch PATA
HDDs. The OS is Debian based on iWA's version. The server
functionality allows usage of: Music server for iTunes, Video server
for Network Media Player products, WebDAV fileserver, Telnet, ftp, and
mDNS. The price will be around $120. There was already shipped over
5,000 sets to Japanese and other country market. I think LAN Tank
contributed to increasing the user and developer of debian-sh.
[11] http://supertank.iodata.jp/products/sotohdlwu/ (Japanese)
Based on Mr. kogiidena's result, many packages are made by Mr. Ebihara
[12]. Generation of a package is automated using pbuilder. there is
mainly sh3 targeted. He also designs and sells the board of SH3 [13]
and SH4 [14] in his own company.
[12] http://www.si-linux.co.jp/pub/debian-sh/dists/sarge/
[13] http://www.si-linux.co.jp/product/cat709/ (Japanese)
[14] http://www.si-linux.co.jp/product/cat760/ (Japanese)
Mr. kogiidena is also transported Etch system [15], and now he seek
for host server for his packages.
[15] http://eggplant.ddo.jp/www/pukiwiki/index.php?cmd=read&page=etch (Japanese)
Although there was posted already in this ML, the transport of sid by
Mr. Iwamatu was started using LAN Tank[16]. I heard that he carry LAN
Tank to debconf6.
[16] http://www.nigauri.org/~iwamatsu/debian/superh/packages/
Regrettably, sale of SH based LANDISK was ended in Japan. Now, it
replaced to ARM CPU. Although "LAN Tank" is still sold, it is not
known when it finishes. But in the United States, UHDL-160U and
UHDL-300U is still sold. In the Europe market, PLEXTOR to PX-EH25L[19]
and PX-EH40L[20] are sold.
[17] http://www.iodata.com/products/products.php?cat=HNP&sc=HDL&ts=2&tsc=15&sc=HDL&pId=UHDL-160U
(English)
[18] http://www.iodata.com/products/products.php?cat=HNP&sc=HDL&ts=2&tsc=15&sc=HDL&pId=UHDL-300U
(English)
[19] http://www.plextor-europe.com/products/px-eh25l.asp?choice=PX-EH25L
(English)
[20] http://www.plextor-europe.com/products/px-eh40l.asp?choice=PX-EH40L
(English)
There is still sold USL-5P in the same LANDISK series, using SH4 [21].
Although there is no IDE, it starts from CF and the environment which
sets a USB drive to rootfs has some which I made. Even if this puts in
AC adaptor, it is convenient to hack by carrying around in about the
same size as Paperback, since it is very compact.
[21] http://www.iodata.jp/prod/storage/hdd/2004/usl-5p/ (Japanese)
I think that LANDISK becomes a reliable base platform of debian for
the time being. Because, there was shipped over 100,000 sets to
market.
Best,
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