**** BEGIN LOGGING AT Wed May 07 02:59:56 2008
May 07 12:35:37 <osmeest> hi
May 07 12:35:53 <osmeest> I'm trying to run Debian on an Iomega NAS 100d
May 07 12:36:27 <osmeest> problem: the apex in slugos/LE does not support the ram disk (needed by debian)
May 07 12:36:53 <osmeest> and the apex in debian does not work with the NAS 100d (kind of FatSlug)
May 07 12:37:17 <osmeest> anyone knows how/where I could get an APEX that works with debian ?
May 07 12:37:38 <osmeest> (or how to recompile APEX for debian on the NAS)
May 07 12:39:54 <Sinclair73de> Hi osmeest
May 07 12:40:58 <Sinclair73de> I think the difference between with or without ramdisk is only the "startup" and "cmdline" settings in apex
May 07 12:41:44 <Sinclair73de> do u have access to the apex-console?
May 07 12:43:16 <osmeest> yes through serial line
May 07 12:43:22 <osmeest> apparently, there is more than that
May 07 12:43:33 <osmeest> there is an ATAG-INITRD2 which needs to be set
May 07 12:44:17 <osmeest> when I use the apex from debian, the ATAG is set but the kernel does not like the ramdisk format
May 07 12:44:29 <Sinclair73de> i see...
May 07 12:44:36 <osmeest> when I use the apex from slugos, the ATAG is not set so the ramdisk is ignored by the kernel
May 07 12:44:51 <Sinclair73de> i'm using a fatslug with 2 apex
May 07 12:45:26 <Sinclair73de> my first apex (redboot replacement) has the ATAG_INITRD2 and the second not
May 07 12:45:55 <osmeest> I did not dare to replace redboot, so I use it only as a secondary bootloader
May 07 12:46:02 <osmeest> it works ok with slugos
May 07 12:46:18 <osmeest> debian boots but the mounting of root (initrd) fails
May 07 12:47:00 <Sinclair73de> i did the ram upgrade 2 years ago... at this time no second stage bootloader was available
May 07 12:47:36 <Sinclair73de> and the cmdline is correct?
May 07 12:47:38 <osmeest> lucky I am... I had only to solder the serial port on the NAS motherboard
May 07 12:48:32 <osmeest> I guess (I use the default one from the Debian APEX)
May 07 12:48:51 <osmeest> the one from slugos specifies the root and rootfstype (jffs2)
May 07 12:49:27 <Sinclair73de> no init= ?
May 07 12:49:37 <osmeest> no
May 07 12:50:02 <osmeest> but the problem is earlier: it complains about no root being defined or accessible
May 07 12:51:07 <Sinclair73de> console=ttyS0,115200n8 root=/dev/mtdblock4 rootfstype=
May 07 12:51:07 <Sinclair73de> jffs2 rw init=/linuxrc noirqdebug
May 07 12:51:25 <osmeest> that's for slugos and works ok
May 07 12:51:34 <osmeest> but initrd is not jffs2
May 07 12:52:16 <Sinclair73de> but i dont know if this is working, because that loads only my second apex
May 07 12:52:48 <osmeest> what's the cmdline for the apex that loads the debian kernel ?
May 07 12:53:00 <osmeest> (the second apex boot command)
May 07 12:56:27 <Sinclair73de> a i changed the cmdline of the first to that from the second
May 07 12:56:35 <Sinclair73de> so now, both are the same
May 07 12:56:52 <Sinclair73de> but the difference was in the startup command too
May 07 12:57:12 <Sinclair73de> do u have 1 or 2 copy commands in the startup
May 07 13:00:10 <osmeest> two for debian
May 07 13:00:14 <osmeest> one for slugos
May 07 13:01:08 <osmeest> something like copy $kernelsrc $bootaddr; copy $ramdisksrc $ramdiskaddr; wait... ; boot
May 07 13:01:19 <Sinclair73de> i think two are correct for ramdisk
May 07 13:01:50 <osmeest> it looked fine to me too...
May 07 13:02:02 <osmeest> but the kernel does not recognize the ramdisk
May 07 13:02:27 <osmeest> I've the impression the address of the ramdisk is wrong in the debian apex 
May 07 13:02:52 <osmeest> and the ramdisk is simply ignored when using the slugos apex
May 07 13:07:14 <osmeest> one thing I'm not sure also is whether the ramdisk of debian has to be byteswapped to be recognized by the kernel
May 07 13:07:34 <osmeest> I would hope not (because both slugosle and debian are little endian)
May 07 13:08:35 <Sinclair73de> i dont know...
May 07 13:12:09 <osmeest> OK thanks anyway for trying :)
May 07 13:13:30 <Sinclair73de> is the nas proc the same like in the nslu2?
May 07 13:18:33 <osmeest> I think so (Intel IXP420)
May 07 13:19:00 <osmeest> the bootloader is a little different (no network support - hence the serial port I had to add)
May 07 13:19:30 <osmeest> the memory is bigger and it comes with an internal HDD of 250MB
May 07 13:20:00 <Sinclair73de> and >64MB RAM are running stable and fast?
May 07 13:20:34 <osmeest> it has 64MB of RAM
May 07 13:21:46 <osmeest> slug has 32 as I've read
May 07 13:22:58 <osmeest> fast: it all depends to what you compare... compared to my PC, it's horribly slow
May 07 13:23:14 <osmeest> file transfers with SSH are quite slow also
May 07 13:23:24 <osmeest> but SMB or FTP is OK
May 07 13:23:41 <Sinclair73de> ok, 64MB is ok
May 07 13:24:01 <osmeest> I ran slug os for sometime which was fine but HPLIP is not available for it
May 07 13:24:13 <osmeest> so I wanted to go to Debian so to be able to install it
May 07 13:24:26 <Sinclair73de> my fatslug is running with 64MB "fast" and stable, but still not with 128MB
May 07 13:25:00 <osmeest> it becomes what with 128MB ? slow ? unstable ? or both ?
May 07 13:25:20 <Sinclair73de> both
May 07 13:25:29 <osmeest> aouch!
May 07 13:28:00 <osmeest> I would not dare to use a soldering iron in such a device... I'm too much of a software guy...
May 07 13:28:27 <osmeest> (at least not for piggybacking memory chips)
May 07 13:29:11 <Sinclair73de> i'm both, but everything only for 50% ;-)
May 07 13:30:37 <osmeest> hehe
May 07 13:30:46 <osmeest> OK, I've got to go...
May 07 13:31:01 <osmeest> see you and thx again for trying to help :)
May 07 13:31:19 <Sinclair73de> ok, sry...
May 07 13:31:21 <Sinclair73de> bye!
May 07 13:53:48 <rwhitby> osmeest: apex for nas100d: http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/kernel/
May 07 13:58:26 <rwhitby> osmeest: but you don't actually need apex for debian on nas100d, since nas100d has working fis support in redboot, so you can size the kernel and ramdisk partitions however you want.
May 07 13:58:59 <rwhitby> (I have two nas100d boxes, one of which runs Debian)
May 07 14:09:37 <osmeest> rwhitby: I thought it was needed for big kernels...
May 07 14:10:42 <osmeest> if I put debian kernel in kernel and the debian initrd in filesystem (or was it ramdisk), what's the cmdline to boot it properly then ?
May 07 14:10:49 <osmeest> do I need to byteswap the initrd ?
May 07 15:29:34 <CIA-45> 03bzhou * r8286 10optware/trunk/make/zile.mk: zile: 2.2.56 -> 2.2.58
May 07 16:03:26 <osmeest> rwhitby: when do you know you have to byteswap ? I tried the debian kernel straight... I just get one line starting with a $ sign (I guess I need to swap)
May 07 16:04:00 <osmeest> rwhitby: but what about the initial ramdisk then ? to swap or not to swap...
May 07 17:39:50 <kowalczyk> I had trouble getting debian working on my nslu2 yesterday. I tried upslug... Now I tried the webbrowser. when I press start upgrade I get disconnected from web browser
May 07 17:41:52 <osmeest> on the NAS100d, upslug is not an option because it has a different version of redboot (no upgrade mode, no sercomm)
May 07 18:30:15 <kowalczyk> I'm having problem installing debian on my nslu2. I have tried both upslug2 and webinterface. I install it. and its okay. but when It reboots nothing happens. I plug my harddrive to it. but the light dosen't light, and I cant ssh to it. It just a orange light:(
May 07 18:32:24 <kowalczyk> im using the last debian unofficial
May 07 18:32:36 <mwester> kowalczyk:  Use only upslug2 (webinterface is not reliable on any firmware,really).
May 07 18:32:51 <Reedy> and please dont duplicate this in both channels
May 07 18:32:52 <mwester> kowalczyk:  Start by flashing the original Linksys firmware, and making sure that boots.
May 07 18:33:08 <kowalczyk> it does
May 07 18:33:25 <kowalczyk> I have booth tried upslug2 and webinterface
May 07 18:33:46 <mwester> Then change the network settings using the Linksys firmware to use a static network address NOT 192.168.1.77 -- and fill in all the network items (gateway, netmask, DNS servers).
May 07 18:34:07 <mwester> Once you have set all those, reboot, make sure that the firmware boot up with the network settings.
May 07 18:34:31 <mwester> Then shut down, use upslug2 to flash the debian binary, and it should appear on the assigned network address as expected.
May 07 18:35:03 <kowalczyk> I have done that 2
May 07 18:35:17 <kowalczyk> it has ip 10.0.0.7 
May 07 18:35:56 <kowalczyk> and it doesnt show up on the network
May 07 18:36:12 <kowalczyk> its inactiv when I check my router
May 07 18:36:51 <kowalczyk> can it be something wrong with the rc3 version of debian?
May 07 18:37:57 <Reedy> how long have you given it after the post flash reboot?
May 07 18:38:23 <kowalczyk> yesterday 1 - 1.5 hour
May 07 18:38:50 <kowalczyk> and nothing happens
May 07 18:38:53 <kowalczyk> just a orange light
May 07 18:52:24 <kowalczyk> anyone have an idea what can be wrong_
May 07 18:52:28 <kowalczyk> ?
May 07 18:56:41 <kowalczyk> can it be a good idea trying rc2 instead of rc3?
May 07 19:58:52 <rwhitby> osmeest: nas100d has no limit on kernel size - that's an nslu2 redboot limitation only
May 07 19:59:35 <osmeest> rwhitby: really ?  I tried to boot the kernel from redboot, it gave the infamous $junk line
May 07 19:59:41 <rwhitby> osmeest: you need to swap or not depending on the endianness of your bootloader.  nas100d bootloader is BE, so you need to swap.
May 07 20:00:03 <osmeest> then I tried a byteswapped version, which showed some garbled text
May 07 20:00:57 <osmeest> this thing is really driving me nuts... slugos was really easy to install once I found out that there were precompiled packages for the NAS100d
May 07 20:01:09 <rwhitby> osmeest: what garbled text?
May 07 20:01:12 <osmeest> debootstrapping was not more complicated
May 07 20:01:31 <osmeest> when the kernel booted, I saw some text but it was unreadable
May 07 20:01:47 <osmeest> it was not like the $junk line
May 07 20:02:01 <rwhitby> Was there any text that was readable (like "Uncompressing kernel") ?
May 07 20:02:03 <osmeest> more like some text that would have been byteswapped
May 07 20:02:17 <osmeest> no, that's what I hoped for but it was not there
May 07 20:02:40 <rwhitby> oh, did you add the kernel prepend to switch the processor into le mode?
May 07 20:03:05 <rwhitby> (which is one thing that apex does)
May 07 20:03:05 <osmeest> heu... no... what's that ?
May 07 20:03:27 <rwhitby> come to think of it, it's probably easier just to put apex on the nas100d as a second stage.
May 07 20:03:34 <rwhitby> why don't you just do that?
May 07 20:03:37 <osmeest> that's why using APEX, it booted then :)
May 07 20:03:46 <osmeest> I did
May 07 20:03:55 <rwhitby> ok, so what's the status now?
May 07 20:03:56 <osmeest> but then it does not recognize the ramdisk
May 07 20:04:21 <rwhitby> are you using the nas100d debian apex?
May 07 20:05:09 <osmeest> I think its the debian apex but not the 100d specific
May 07 20:05:35 <rwhitby> that won't work then
May 07 20:05:38 <rwhitby> apex is board specific
May 07 20:05:49 <rwhitby> you can't use an nslu2 apex on anything else
May 07 20:06:10 <osmeest> ah :(   I thought all those devices were closer than what they really are then
May 07 20:06:35 <osmeest> so to summarize, I flash byteswapped kernel and ramdisk
May 07 20:06:44 <rwhitby> well, for a start apex needs to set up the correct machine id for the board, since the vendor bootloader on these type of devices hardly ever does that correctly.
May 07 20:06:56 <rwhitby> use the debian nas100d apex
May 07 20:07:02 <osmeest> I flash the apex for debian on nas100d from the ipkg feed
May 07 20:07:06 <rwhitby> you don't need to byteswap anything then
May 07 20:07:45 <rwhitby> make sure apex is at 0xfa0000 in the flash, with an 0x20000 length.
May 07 20:08:01 <rwhitby> (it's compiled so that the environment region appears near the end of that erase block)
May 07 20:08:21 <osmeest> oh ho... mine is not at that address
May 07 20:08:35 <osmeest> will have to play with redboot fis :)
May 07 20:08:38 <rwhitby> yep
May 07 20:08:44 <rwhitby> or recompile apex with a different config
May 07 20:09:08 <osmeest> it's easier to play with fis...
May 07 20:09:09 <rwhitby> put kernel, then rootfs, then sysconfig (if you want slugos sysconf to work), then apex
May 07 20:09:48 <rwhitby> I have compiled these apex images to always assume that apex is the last block before the fis stuff at the end of the flash
May 07 20:09:58 <osmeest> I did my best to keep sysconf at its original location (but shrunk it to make space for apex config)
May 07 20:10:10 <rwhitby> (BTW, I'm expecting you to be writing a wiki page up with all this info in it - are you prepared to do that?)
May 07 20:10:46 <osmeest> when I manage to put debian on my slug, I'm ready for doing it yes
May 07 20:11:08 <osmeest> the procedure is much simpler than when I started my slug experiments last year
May 07 20:11:53 <osmeest> honnestly, information about those byte swapping and what the bootloaders are doing about it should be made available in one page
May 07 20:12:08 <osmeest> that's the thing I'm doing trial and error to proceed
May 07 20:12:20 <osmeest> and even so, I can't find my way without bothering you :)
May 07 20:12:32 <rwhitby> yep, and I'm expecting you to put a page on the wiki where you would have been expecting to find that info
May 07 20:14:29 <rwhitby> debian-nas100d-arm_config has CONFIG_ENV_REGION="nor:0xfbc000+15k"
May 07 20:14:29 <rwhitby>  in the apex binary you'll get from the kernel feed location
May 07 20:14:55 <osmeest> yep, saw that in slugos version as well
May 07 20:14:56 <rwhitby> that mandates where you put the apex binary in flash.  I usually use "apex" as the fis directory entry name.
May 07 20:15:14 <osmeest> I had a fis partition for it but it ignores it apparently
May 07 20:15:18 <rwhitby> yep, I put apex in the same location on both
May 07 20:15:36 <rwhitby> you then need to change fconfig to "fis load apex ; go"
May 07 20:15:49 <rwhitby> so that redboot palms off to apex
May 07 20:15:53 <osmeest> that's what I have already
May 07 20:16:15 <rwhitby> what's it ignoring then?
May 07 20:16:34 <osmeest> apex does not use my apex config partition
May 07 20:16:54 <osmeest> I thought it would check on the partition names
May 07 20:17:43 <osmeest> I have "apex" and "apex config"
May 07 20:17:50 <osmeest> but only apex is used
May 07 20:19:04 <rwhitby> no, it uses a hard coded flash address
May 07 20:19:34 <rwhitby> and there's no need for a separate config partition
May 07 20:19:57 <osmeest> I know why I did that: in FisList page, there is a partition scheme for LudeBoot which has a separate config partition
May 07 20:20:27 <rwhitby> yeah, but ludeboot is a redboot replacement, it's not apex.
May 07 20:20:55 <rwhitby> actually, I'd like you to add an apex/debian fis scheme on that page.
May 07 20:26:09 <osmeest> OK
May 07 20:26:14 <osmeest> I'll do
May 07 20:27:12 <osmeest> BTW, on the NAS, there was a usr partition which seemed unused by the original firmware
May 07 20:28:06 <osmeest> at some point, I merged the filesystem and usr partitions to make room for the slugos rootfs
May 07 20:33:58 <osmeest> what do you think about it ? keep it or merge them ?
May 07 20:34:43 <rwhitby> for slugos, merge them, cause you can run from jffs2.
May 07 20:34:58 <rwhitby> for debian, it doesn't matter, cause it doesn't use rootfs after installation
May 07 20:42:41 <osmeest> can you use debian apex with slug os ? or is it linked to the OS as well ?
May 07 20:45:55 <rwhitby> it's linked to the OS too, however that link is just the default settings - you can change that at the apex command line after installation.
May 07 20:46:20 <rwhitby> but it's easiest just to flash the correct one each time
May 07 21:38:33 <osmeest> rwhitby: I'll try with the right apex in the right flash location tomorrow and hopefully have good news :)
May 07 21:38:39 <osmeest> see you tomorrow
May 08 01:29:30 <CIA-45> 03bzhou * r8287 10optware/trunk/make/pcre.mk: pcre: 7.6 -> 7.7
**** ENDING LOGGING AT Thu May 08 02:59:57 2008