Debian/U-boot? on the USI Topkick-1281p2 (Tonidoplug2)

Searching around on eBay I came across a $12 very peculiar item mis-categorized in the industrial PLC section... and doing some digging in the forum search, doesn't seem like anyone has talked about this device before, so here we go:

It seems to be made by Universal Scientific Industrial Co., as in the same USI that is the OEM of the Kace M300 that Dell contracted from them with no expense spared in terms of build quality. Inside, the specs seem to be the usual assortment: a Kirkwood at 2GHz (probably another Armada), 512MB of DDR3, 512MB of flash with a 512K secondary flash for uboot, USB2 x1, and SATA2 x1 for a single 2.5" drive.

But wait, there's more! To top it all off... WiFi. the thing has an SDIO-connected Marvell N150 chipset inside so says TechInfoDepot Wiki. The ebay listing also seems to immediately show off the docs that come with it and immediately it shows off the uboot flash partitions and such. Considering these aren't Tonido branded, I'm assuming this is going to be a basic Debian install on the flash drive included.The wiki also lists the root password for the device's stock OS being: "nosoup4u".
No soup for you! You come back in one year! NEXT!

Here's also the web archive page for the product direct from USI Shanghai's site circa 2015.

I've found a boot log from someone in 2012 that accessed it via serial here. And at that, considering there's already a dtb file for it with the bodhi kernels, I'm guessing running modern Debian on it might be a piece of cake. Might be. as in, definitely a Method B first-boot to start and see what breaks...! Aside from that, even more special, is that it seems, for all intents and purposes, the mainline Debian kernel 100% supports this device, or so says the sparsely-updated Debian Wiki.

Questioning if I should pick one up... seeing as the M300 outdoes it in the RAM department probably not, but it's yet another device with a 2GHz Kirkwood and knowing it's at least in some part related to the M300 gives me some hope.
There's no pictures of the inside of one of these things so I think this ebay listing is a lucky find for anyone that wants to go and grab one and do the honors while I fight off the inner demon telling me to spend all of my money on hackable devices... :D

Attached are images from the ebay listing for future clarity, as it won't be up forever.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2022 03:52AM by sudos.

Looks like kirkwood @ 2Ghz with DDR2 memory

https://wiki.debian.org/ArmEabiPort

so it is a shrinked version of M300 (both accept one 2.5" HD, but M300 has 2GB memory, this one has 512MB memory. The better part: this one has more flash, but it is not so useful now)

I guess M300 is a better deal. @ 512MB memory, you even can not compile a kernel without swap... (It will stop at lzma step...)

daviddyer Wrote:
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> Looks like kirkwood @ 2Ghz with DDR2 memory

DDR3. 2x H5TQ2G83DFR-H9C chips. definitely DDR3. Hynix datasheet suggests in the naming matrix that this is a normal power consumption 256Mbitx8 with "commercial temperature range" and -H9* denotes DDR3-1333 9-9-9. Probably running that RAM at 1066 for what it's worth, as with what has been identified in the past, DDR3 support on the Armada class Kirkwood SoCs only supports up to DDR3-1066 officially.

> so it is a shrinked version of M300 (both accept
> one 2.5" HD, but M300 has 2GB memory, this one has
> 512MB memory. The better part: this one has more
> flash, but it is not so useful now)

onboard flash is always a nice thing for a rescue system of OpenWRT, and 512MB would actually allow for more options in the Debian department as well for rescue.

> I guess M300 is a better deal. @ 512MB memory, you
> even can not compile a kernel without swap... (It
> will stop at lzma step...)

I... don't know why one would ever compile a kernel without swap space active.
That seems like a surefire recipe for failure, especially when you're dealing with something as crucial as the kernel.
even on a machine with say, 16GB of RAM doing the compile, I'd still have swap space. regardless of SSD wear, it's just overall good practice.

DDR2 / DDR3 speed doesn''t make big difference. Capacity is more important. The CPU is kind of slow, but 2GHz is good! M300's performance is noticeably better than Goflex Home.


After these boxes damaged a few of my flash drives, I usually just run them on NFS root, so no swap... swapfile on NFS will cause DIO error.

Flash drives are for testing only, not for the long run. I run these boxes on NFS or hard drive. (mainly the old hard drives from laptops).



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2022 03:32PM by daviddyer.

The Techdepot says it's 800Mhz, not 2Ghz like M300. 1/4 of the RAM. NEWIT product description confirms it "POWER EFFICIENT
TonidoPlug2 is based on Marvell Armada 310 chipset which draws only 1.2 watt and offers GHz level performance (~800 MHz). TP2 power consumption costs approx. 2 dollars to run 24/7/365 days (Individual results may vary)."

Another potential issue, looks like the wifi/bt is the same as Dreamplug and Guruplug, have been unable to get those two to work simultaneously with modern kernels.

The built in 2.5 hard drive cage is nice easy access. Like that.

Dollar to dollar M300 much better more powerful. Would consider it though for $15 shipped.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2022 03:39PM by LeggoMyEggo.

Speaking of price, Ctera C200 can be $16 shipped. (Best offer. With power supply, but no back door).

Can't wait to see cheap dual core 64 bit processor 2gb RAM SBC devices become sub 25 dollar eBay scores someday.

Long time ago, those 1GB Quad core Rock64 SBCs were really good. It also had 5V3A power supply, ugly case, i2c 1602 lcd, 16GB or 8GB SD card.
I got three @ amazon for $12 each.
And those M300 used to be $15 each.

The good old days...

This USI Topkick has been done and should be on the support list.

There it is:

Quote

Linux Kernel 5.17.x Kirkwood package and rootfs for GoFlex Home/Net, Pogoplug E02/Mobile/V4, iConnect, Dockstar, Sheevaplug, NSA320, NSA320S, NSA325, NSA310S, NSA310, Topkick, Netgear Stora, ASUS-M25, Iomega ix4-200d, QiZhiTong 501mv2, HP Thin Client T5325, LG N1T1, Linksys EA4500, Lenovo/Iomega ix2-ng, Toshiba Canvio Home NAS, Lenovo Iomega EZ, Dell KACE M300, Freecom Silverstore HNCN2, DNS-320-B1, Medion P89634, Netgear Ready NAS Duo v2, Lenovo/Iomega ix2-dl, CTera C220 V1, and all other Kirkwood plugs that are already in the mainline.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2022 05:07PM by bodhi.

Leggo,

> Can't wait to see cheap dual core 64 bit processor
> 2gb RAM SBC devices become sub 25 dollar eBay
> scores someday.

That day should be near :) for some of the Realtek SoC boards. It's a lot cheaper than Marvell SoCs.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner

bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This USI Topkick has been done and should be on
> the support list.
>
> There it is:
>
>

Quote

.......,
> Lenovo/Iomega ix2-dl, CTera C220 V1, and all other
> Kirkwood plugs that are already in the
> mainline.

Hi, bodhi, just found one typo here, C220 should be C200

> Hi, bodhi, just found one typo here, C220 should
> be C200

Thanks David! fixed.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner

Quote

Questioning if I should pick one up... seeing as the M300 outdoes it in the RAM department probably not, but it's yet another device with a 2GHz Kirkwood and knowing it's at least in some part related to the M300 gives me some hope.

It's actually also related to Zyxel NSA325, and a few others 6282 SoCs based Kirwood boxes.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2022 09:39PM by bodhi.

The TechInfoDepot data was taken from my entry on the original WikiDevi created from the device I have. I now contribute to WikiDevi. The processor is an 800 MHz 88F6283.

Ray

bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This USI Topkick has been done and should be on
> the support list.
>
> There it is:
>
>

Quote

Linux Kernel 5.17.x Kirkwood package and
> rootfs for GoFlex Home/Net, Pogoplug
> E02/Mobile/V4, iConnect, Dockstar, Sheevaplug,
> NSA320, NSA320S, NSA325, NSA310S, NSA310,
> Topkick, Netgear Stora, ASUS-M25, Iomega
> ix4-200d, QiZhiTong 501mv2, HP Thin Client T5325,
> LG N1T1, Linksys EA4500, Lenovo/Iomega ix2-ng,
> Toshiba Canvio Home NAS, Lenovo Iomega EZ, Dell
> KACE M300, Freecom Silverstore HNCN2, DNS-320-B1,
> Medion P89634, Netgear Ready NAS Duo v2,
> Lenovo/Iomega ix2-dl, CTera C220 V1, and all other
> Kirkwood plugs that are already in the
> mainline.

yeah I saw it was on the kernel list, but I didn't see a specific uboot build for it out of the 2017 uboot images available, so I'm assuming one was never conjured? pretty much means it's definitely a method B kernel install.

sudos,

> yeah I saw it was on the kernel list, but I didn't
> see a specific uboot build for it out of the 2017
> uboot images available, so I'm assuming one was
> never conjured? pretty much means it's definitely
> a method B kernel install.

Right! I did not roll a new u-boot for Topkick. It's been a while I can't remember exactly why, probably I was not very interested in doing that for this box because it is too underpower. This is in the same family as the Sheevaplug and Dreamplug (same stock root credential nosoup4u :)

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner

And bodhi said to Topkick: No new u-boot for you!

daviddyer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And bodhi said to Topkick: No new u-boot for you!

Yes! u-boot nazis, LOL ... that was a small classic.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner