Linux Device Hacking - Off-Topic

Bluetooth serial uart for console connection (5 replies)

maihoaomv — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:56:35 -0400

I'm thinking of trying to convert the wired serial console-to-usb on my GoFlex Home to a wireless-serial-bluetooth. I have an older (original) iPad that was giving to me that I'm having a hard time trying to figure out what it's any good for other than playing games. I jail broke it and installed SSH and can use it with the GoFlex over the WiFi. But what I would like to do is to use it as a wireless console to monitor the server at bootup. Has anyone seceded in getting a bluetooth wireless uart console to work with any of these devices (especially the GoFlex Home)?

The "HC-06 Arduino Wireless Serial 4 Pin Bluetooth Module RS232 With 115200 BAUD RATE" I found on ebay sounds like a good candidate for this project. Does anyone have any comments or suggestions?

Powering dockstar through USB (no replies)

metric — Fri, 10 May 2013 21:31:51 -0400

I connected a port of a powered hub to the Dockstar once and saw it light up. Does anybody know the real circuit inside? Will this work? Any problems? The powered hub can provide 1 AMP from two ports (It is actually Targus USB docking station mentioned on this forum). This will reduce one extra cable on the device and one power brick.

RAID stats on GoFlex Net using Squeezeplug (no replies)

gawd — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 20:44:13 -0400

I just got Squeezeplug installed on a GoFlex Net, and am loving it. I know I joined the party late; better late than never. I have a WD Black 500GB 2.5" sata drive (ext2 partition) directly connected to the sata port as my storage drive, and am running the OS on a usb stick. When using ftp/samba, I am currently pulling an average of 45 Megabytes/s when uploading to the WD drive, and 51 megabytes/sec when downloading from the drive, which is great. I was thinking of getting another drive and doing a RAID setup, though I don't know if the hardware on the goflex will allow for higher transfer rates.

What transfer rates are you guys getting on the GoFlex Net with a RAID setup?

Adding Wifi to GoFlex Home (1 reply)

WorldwoWires — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 21:37:45 -0400

I want to get feedback from the community about adding wifi to the GFH. Have you tried it, equipment used, experiences, headaches etc. Please share.

Thank you

Pogoplug E02G for $24.99 (6 replies)

restamp — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:45:27 -0400

Adorama Camera has Pogoplug E02Gs (that's the gray version of the normally pink E02 -- same innards) for $24.99 with free shipping. I ordered two and can confirm they really are the E02 with 256 MB of RAM. Both flashed the latest Jeff/davygravy uBoot with nary a complaint, so I just ordered two more. Don't know if it is significant overall, but the NANDs on my two looked pretty healthy: One had no bad blocks detected while booting. The other had one. If you want a good ARM processor to put to work or play around with (or stick on the shelf as a spare), this is a pretty reasonable deal. Don't know how many they have left, but here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Pogoplug-Media-Sharing-Device-Gray/dp/B0044CL1N0

How to jailbreak a used Pogoplug E02 (3 replies)

restamp — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 18:18:45 -0500

The market for new Pogoplug E02 seems to have dried up. This is my personal favorite ARM device, so I'm considering bidding on several used units for spares and to play around with. However, these units will have previously been activated and my understanding is that the default root password will no longer work. (Is this indeed correct?)

So, my question is: Should I acquire one of these units, what do I need to do to log in as root in order to convert it for my own use?

A secondary question: I rather like the E02 because it comes with 256MB of RAM, a Ethernet port with indicator LEDs, and 4 USB ports, but is there something more recent I should be considering in its stead?

Thanks in advance.

Power failure protection (2 replies)

Maxime — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 09:45:22 -0500

Hi everyone,

I'm using 4 seagate dockstars, working together on my lan for different purposes.

I've read somewhere that the seagate dockstar can be usb-powered.

Here's my question : do you think I can use some usb-battery power tanks in order to protect my dockstars from power failure ? The usb-battery would be plugged in the usb-port 24/7, and would be used only is a power failure happens.

What do you think about it ? Ever seen this kind of "cheap" protections ?

Thanks a lot and Enjoy !
Maxime

Ipfire on DockStar (no replies)

sebonweb — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 04:25:55 -0500

Note: do not expect lightning performance and/or have a list of dozens of MB for url_filter (specifications recommended minimum 256Mb of ram and the DS has 128), but it works!

Ingredients: :)

1) DS with patched uboot to load the OS from usb pendrive.
2) access to the serial console of DS: is necessary to the first set up of ipfire, then just use the gui).
3) an ethernet port usb (I found one on ebay for 7 € ss included).
4) a usb pendrive.

Preparation :)

Download ipfire-2.13rc2.1gb-ext4-scon.armv5tel-full-core65.img.gz (scon = serial console) and prepare the usb pendrive with it.
The image will create two partitions on usb pen: sdX1 in fat with files of the boot loader and the kernel, sdX3 with ext4 rootfs (the distro).
Plug the usb pendrive and copy both partitions to a folder on your pc.
Once you have copied the 2 partitions, recreated with fdisk a new pendrive filesystem (according to a scheme compatible with the Dockstar uboot) sdX1 as ext2 and sdX2 as swap, both formatted.
At this point, copied to sdX1 the rootfs previously saved (ex sdX3), create in it the /boot folder and copy all files named "kirkwood" (System.map, config, vmlinuz), also copied in the /boot folder uImage and uInit (to be renamed in uInitrd).
In the folder /etc of the pendrive (sdX1) modified fstab, adding the mount point for / , the swap partition and removing the mount for the fat partition (which no longer exists).

The pendrive is now ready. Insert it into a usb port on the DS, connect the serial port of the DS with an adapter and made the first ipfire configuration.

regards

p.s. sorry for my bad english I translated the message from an Italian board :)

Goflex Raid5 over network (no replies)

Cassie — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 22:23:59 -0500

I'd like to use several "Goflex Home" units connected to a gigE switch as a single file system that is striped with parity, (like RAID 4 or RAID 5). Do they have enough cpu power and ram? What do I need to do to set this up, and what filesystem is best to use?

how do I connect the serial cable? (7 replies)

Cassie — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 03:32:59 -0500

bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> If all else failed, you can get a serial-USB
> module to connect serial console to the GF Home
> from your iMac. Here is a good one:
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-2-0-to-TTL-UART-6PIN-M
> odule-Serial-Converter-CP2102-STC-PRGMR-Free-cable
> -/170895253016?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27ca
> 269e18

I got this module cable, but the connectors are to big for the pins. bodhi how did you get it to work?

anyone know a solution?

GoFlex Home via SATA to USB -help! (no replies)

daniel — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 14:22:46 -0500

Hello,

So I am attempting to abandon my 1T Goflex Home as a network drive and connect it directly to my server. To do so I have removed the hard drive from the casing and attached it to a SATA to USB cable (with power supply). Then I hooked it up to my laptop but I get nothing. No hard drive spin up. No device notification. Nothing. I am aware this could be a problem with the power supply (there is a LED on it that is not lighting up) but I am really hoping this is not the case and I am forgetting some really obvious step. Any suggestions???

-Daniel

OpenMediaVault on GoFlex Home (no replies)

maihoaomv — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 12:27:22 -0400

Yep! it's possible to run OpenMediaVault on your GoFlex Home (probably GoFlex Net and Dockstar also). There is an excellent tutorial over on the OpenMediaVault fourm at:
http://forums.openmediavault.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=514

Be sure to read the entire for tutorial first. There are a few things that may not work as advertised. I had some problems with getting the openmediavault key installed and plugins to work.

OpenMediaVault is so much nicer than ArchLinux

GoFlex Home real time clock -bad battery (1 reply)

maihoaomv — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 07:07:29 -0400

I finally got my GFH to boot debian 3.3.2 kernel from the hard drive. One of the problems I'm having is that during boot it refuses to fsck.

Checking root file system...fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2
rootfs: Superblock last mount time (Fri Oct 19 14:39:39 2012,
	now = Wed Sep 12 12:16:53 2012) is in the future.


rootfs: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
	(i.e., without -a or -p options)
fsck died with exit status 4
failed (code 4).
An automatic file system check (fsck) of the root filesystem failed. A manual fsck must be performed, then the system restarted. The fsck should be performed in maintenance mode with the root filesystem mounted in read-only mode. ... failed!
The root filesystem is currently mounted in read-only mode. A maintenance shell will now be started. After performing system maintenance, press CONTROL-D to terminate the maintenance shell and restart the system. ... (warning).
Give root password for maintenance
(or type Control-D to continue):

The reason fsck fails is that the real time clock (RTC) is not retaining the time because of a bad battery. As a result it sets the system date/time to a date before fsck was run on the partition which confuses fsck and causing it to fail at boot time. If I disable fsck in the /etc/fstab file it will boot all the way the up.

Is there a work around for this problem until I get around to opening the unit up and replacing the battery?
Is it possible to run NTP (to set the clock) prior to running fsck?

Update: I found a work around for the problem at http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=45797#p261964
It's not what I wanted but it will do until I either replace the battery or find the soulation I was looking for.

More than one USB port available on GoFlex Net (no replies)

felixfurtak — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 00:06:21 -0400

This question didn't seem to fit in any of the other sections so here we are!

I was wondering whether the GoFlex Net had any more USB ports accessible on the PCB beyond the one that is available.

Possibly with a bit of hardware hacking it might be able to find some, I don't know.

Or alternatively, would the single USB port be able to be split with a hub to provide more ports (albeit with shared bandwidth).

Has anyone seen anything along these lines?

Let me start with a short introduction of myself (no replies)

tuilkna — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 10:10:44 -0400

Hello, this is tuilkna, aged 50 and director of a hotel. I am glad to be new user of this forum and wish us all a good time. Bye.

Benchmarks (4 replies)

optim — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:05:34 -0400

Are there any benchmark programs out there that we can use to compare the speed of some of these devices we play with? I am intrigued by the Alwinner A10's but would like a general idea of how much faster it is than some of the other devices. Also I am interested in how these perform while using an HD vs USB stick vs SD card.

I think a nice comparison would be helpful for all, we just need to decide on a nice accurate benchmark(s) that can measure a few of the things we would all be interested in knowing about the performance of.

Pogoplug mobo (no replies)

Liz — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 23:38:32 -0400

On the Pogoplug E02 there is a socket with 8 pins in one line. It's between the 4 pin serial socket and the power socket.
So far I haven't been able to find out its purpose (and potential uses). Next to it it might say "J1". JTAG??
Any hints?

startup new nsa320 (no replies)

rray — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 06:59:13 -0400

I am trying to bring up a new nsa320. From the indicator lights it appears to be up but the starter utility finds nothing. I am running the startup utility under wine. Is that a problem? I have dhcp set up on my router but still no luck.

Richard

Wiki moderator needed (no replies)

Jeff — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 12:28:40 -0400

There have been ongoing requests to create a wiki. I think it's a great idea, but I do not have the time to moderate a wiki. If I can get one or two volunteer moderators, I will be more than happy to create and host a wiki.

Moderator responsibilities:
- Pre-seed the wiki with general structure and stubs for important topics
- Edit contributed articles to maintain style and quality across the wiki
- Remove spam and/or vandalism

If you're interested, please let me know!