Debian on QNAP Turbo Station (TS-xxx)

The QNAP Turbo Station (TS-xxx) series will be EOL in Debian bullseye.

https://www.debian.org/releases/testing/armel/release-notes/ch-information.en.html#no-longer-supported-hardware

These DTBs in /boot/dts folder are for the QNAPs:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11158 Jul 31 22:10 /boot/dts/kirkwood-ts419-6282.dtb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10266 Jul 31 22:10 /boot/dts/kirkwood-ts419-6281.dtb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11178 Jul 31 22:10 /boot/dts/kirkwood-ts219-6282.dtb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10286 Jul 31 22:10 /boot/dts/kirkwood-ts219-6281.dtb

I created this thread so QNAP TS-xxx will have some place for discussion and perhaps some users will try our released kernel and rootfs (bullseye, to be supported here soon).

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2021 06:30PM by bodhi.

@bhodi Thanks or starting this thread.

I'm working on Bullseye support for a bunch of similar Buffalo devices and am curious to hear about any experiences with these older QNAP devices.

I'm particularly curious if anyone has TS-409 and what was the latest kernel it worked with.

@1000001101000,

I found it a bit strange that the reason for the EOL was hardware not capable for bullseye.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

I believe the specific issue is that the uboot on these older devices can't handle kernel images larger than 2MB and it's become virtually impossible to compile a kernel that small these days. I have some ideas to work around that limit but haven't spent much time looking at it yet.

I'm guessing the TS-409 would have separate issues since it is an Orion5x devices that uses PCI SATA. There were big changes to PCI in 4.13 which broke PCI->SATA for the Orion5x and MV78100 Terastation devices I've been working with that I assume also affect other devices like the TS-409. More specifically I think it's broken for non-dtb arm devices, there were a bunch of other bugs introduced around that same time for non-dtb devices but those all eventually got fixed.

I'm a little curious what the level of interest is in all of the above as i turn my eye toward getting Bullseye working on the armel-based Linkstation/Terastation devices.

> I believe the specific issue is that the uboot on
> these older devices can't handle kernel images
> larger than 2MB and it's become virtually
> impossible to compile a kernel that small these
> days. I have some ideas to work around that limit
> but haven't spent much time looking at it yet.

Ah. So nobody has stepped up and mainline a new u-boot for these. Now I vaguely recall somebody did this out of tree. I'll dig out my notes to see what can be done.

>
> I'm guessing the TS-409 would have separate issues
> since it is an Orion5x devices that uses PCI SATA.
> There were big changes to PCI in 4.13 which broke
> PCI->SATA for the Orion5x and MV78100 Terastation
> devices I've been working with that I assume also
> affect other devices like the TS-409. More
> specifically I think it's broken for non-dtb arm
> devices, there were a bunch of other bugs
> introduced around that same time for non-dtb
> devices but those all eventually got fixed.

That sounds right. Pre-FDT board files tend to break like that, because now the drivers rely on the facts that everything is device-tree oriented.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

Ah, I see that the 2MB kernel size is artificial (limited by the stock MTD partition).

For the QNAP TS-xxx to boot with USB/HDD rootfs, kernel size should not be an issue.

If anybody who has a QNAP TS-xxx, connect serial console and post the serial boot log with

printenv

It might be possible to change a few envs and boot into Debian on USB/HDD.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

Quote
bodhi
Ah, I see that the 2MB kernel size is artificial (limited by the stock MTD partition).

That sounds worth a shot, though it might not be the only limitation. I know from experience on some of those Orion5x devices uboot crashes if you try to load a kernel file larger than 2mb. It's also pretty common for NAS devices that boot from mtd devices to not have drivers for their onboard SATA (to my eternal frustration).

Hopefully neither of these apply to the QNAP devices if someone does end up pursuing this.

U-Boot source code appear to be available for most of the QNAP devices. Should be able to update U-Boot to remove the limitations. I'm on holiday until late August, but would be happy to look into this when I get back. I currently have a TS-219+and a TS-112.

Ray

Neat!

On a brighter note, I was able to Upgrade my LS-GL to Bullseye (with Debian's 5.10 kernel) without issue. Looks like some Orion5x devices should work just fine.

A good explanation of the situation with Debian Bullseye on QNAP Kirkwood devices and a work-around is available at https://github.com/amouiche/qnap_mtd_resize_for_bullseye.

> A good explanation of the situation with Debian
> Bullseye on QNAP Kirkwood devices and a
> work-around is available at
> https://github.com/amouiche/qnap_mtd_resize_for_bullseye.

Yeah, but that problem with QNAPS in Bulleyse is with mainline Debian installation (which use the MTDs to store kernel files, as stock FW does).

We don't have that problem because we boot from USB/HDD/MMC rootfs.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)