Pogoplug Pro

Hello,

On my short stay in the USA I bought a Pogoplug Prog (black).
I was wondering if the procedure to update the uBoot on the Pogoplug (pink) would also work on the Pogoplug Pro (black)?

I know a bit about linux (have ssh to the pogoplug) but very little about uBoot.

Emailed Jeff about this, and offered to send him my PogoPro to get things rolling possibly. It's a new hardware platform, so it might take more time to make patches and all, since it's no longer Sheeva or Kirkwood-based.

Hi,
I've got some interest in this device, too. It features an ARMv6 dual core CPU with 750 MHz and an internal S-ATA port:
http://www.plxtech.com/products/consumer/nas7820
http://www.plugapps.com/images/8/8a/Pogoplug_Pro_Front.jpg

I've got some questions:
1. Do the Pogoplugs use internal hard drives and especially does it connect to S-ATA in the Pro version?
2. Is the CPU supported by vanilla kernel? I did not see it on first sight in the kernel configuration. Or is support provided by patches?
3. I don't think u-boot already supports this board. Does anybody know about it's development state?
4. AFAIK u-boot does not support loading the kernel of a S-ATA device, so it probably has to be installed on internal NAND?

--
Salix OS: www.salixos.org

@thenktor

The CPU is a ARM11MPCore, armv7 (not a full implementation) that is ~2x750mhz. I'm uncertain if the Pro actually clocks it there, but shes runs well. The internal sata can be use, however, it is not hotpluggable, and it does not support a multiplexer.

The vanilla kernel likely supports the processor without a problem, as it presents as a armv6l, however, the portions of kernel code required for using the gmac coprocessor etc, are not in the mainline kernels at this time, from what we can tell.

Also, no, uboot does *not* support this board. The sources provided and usable at this point are 1.1.2 version, and do not have full sata capability active at this time.


We at PlugApps are preparing to roll out proper support shortly :)

WarheadsSE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The internal sata can be use, however, it is
> not hotpluggable, and it does not support a
> multiplexer.

That's no problem. I'm just interested in connecting one hard disc for root/home usage. But according to some pictures I've seen the Pogoplugs only support external hard drives? Or does the Pro support an internal drive, too?
Is there a S-ATA power connector available?

> The vanilla kernel likely supports the processor
> without a problem, as it presents as a armv6l,
> however, the portions of kernel code required for
> using the gmac coprocessor etc, are not in the
> mainline kernels at this time, from what we can
> tell.

I've never heard of gmac. Is this some floating point unit or enryption engine?

> Also, no, uboot does *not* support this board. The
> sources provided and usable at this point are
> 1.1.2 version, and do not have full sata
> capability active at this time.

So I guess you'll load the kernel plain from internal NAND without any file system?

> We at PlugApps are preparing to roll out proper
> support shortly :)

Nice :-)

--
Salix OS: www.salixos.org

Plugapps just released an instruction on installing pluglinux on PogoPlug Pro (link below).

http://www.plugapps.com/index.php5/Install_on_Pogoplug_Pro

OK, they are doing what I've expected. Is the kernel config available somewhere?
As this u-boot has ubifs support it should even be possible to put the kernel on the original rootfs and boot it from there.

--
Salix OS: www.salixos.org

This was what Jeff said last month (http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?2,3202,4191#msg-4191)

Jeff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've played with one. It was on my desk for
> months, but I only had time to tinker with it for
> a few hours. It's a completely different chipset
> than the older Pogoplug and Seagate devices, so it
> needs its own uBoot before it will become usable.
> From what I saw, building a replacement uBoot was
> going to be a lot of work, at least until another
> device with a similar chipset is added to the
> current uBoot tree.
>
> Cloud Engines uses a very old fork of uBoot to
> create their bootloader, so even though they
> provide the sources, it's of very limited value
> because their fork doesn't contain support for
> booting from external media and migrating their
> patches to the current uBoot code would take more
> knowledge of the uBoot sources than I have.
>
> On the other hand, the folks over at PlugApps
> have put together some interesting hacks for
> running Plugbox on it inside a chroot. It's a
> clever way of getting around the uBoot
> limitations, but it limits you to using the kernel
> shipped with the devices.
>
> -- Jeff


Everybody, so I guess there is no hope for running Debian on Pogoplug Pro?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/2011 11:55PM by bodhi.

Well, actually, you can do the same method as plugapps (as thenktor also figured out). The plugapps install basically uncompresses the root file system to usb, copies the kernel to an unused portion of nand, points to the root file system on the usb, then uses nboot to load the kernel from nand to memory then runs it. This is pretty much the same method used on the kurobox pro at http://buffalo.nas-central.org. If you really wanted to jazz it up, do like the meego developers and get kexec working on the nand kernel to be able to load the kernel directly from usb. That way kernel updates would be easier. For the nand kernel, just make sure you have the needed drivers to be able to boot (hence, why thenktor wants the kernel config which WarheadsSE maintains). You probably don't want to overwrite the original rootfs since you can definitely brick the unit pretty easily (Then you have to do some soldering to get jtag access). What plugapps did is pretty sensible in using an unused portion of nand.

Thanks for laying the procedure out very clearly. I'd wish it could be more automated like what Jeff did for the Dockstar.

bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks for laying the procedure out very clearly.
> I'd wish it could be more automated like what Jeff
> did for the Dockstar.


It can.

I was fortunate enough to take advantage of a sale on the 'pink' Pogoplug recently, and I somewhat regret only getting one. Now I notice that a small sale is occurring for the 'black' Pogoplug in my area i.e. the 'Pro' version. From reading this thread, and others, it sounds like 'PlugApps' is already successfully running on the Pro. From the conversation above, it sounds like 'Debian' is a possibility sometime in the future (?). Anyone care to comment whether I should take advantage of this sale price, or are risks (no Debian yet) not worth the benefits (i.e. wireless, dualcore, etc) that the Pro offers?

darethehair Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was fortunate enough to take advantage of a sale
> on the 'pink' Pogoplug recently, and I somewhat
> regret only getting one. Now I notice that a
> small sale is occurring for the 'black' Pogoplug
> in my area i.e. the 'Pro' version. From reading
> this thread, and others, it sounds like 'PlugApps'
> is already successfully running on the Pro. From
> the conversation above, it sounds like 'Debian' is
> a possibility sometime in the future (?). Anyone
> care to comment whether I should take advantage of
> this sale price, or are risks (no Debian yet) not
> worth the benefits (i.e. wireless, dualcore, etc)
> that the Pro offers?


The risk is like the Pink V2, the Pro has been discontinued and it is the only one with wifi. The new V3 does not have it so it is a Pro without the wifi among other things (Cloud Engines trying to increase their profit margins, they are offering the usb wifi again separately). It should not be hard to get Debian running on it right now. If you are interested in applications that make use of the wifi, such as kismet or as a CPE, this is a good buy. Plus it is pretty easy to use the built in SATA for faster disk access making better use of the GbEthernet.

oddballhero Wrote: It
> should not be hard to get Debian running on it
> right now.

I sadly confess that I myself am totally incapable of being the one to perform the magic required for Debian to run on devices like this -- I depend on the superior skills and abilities of others to do so. I was fortunate that when the opportunity to purchase the 'Pink' pogoplug came around, that all the hard work had already been done. It feels presumptuous of me to assume that someone else will do the same for the 'Pro' model -- wouldn't it be better to wait for some folks to announce their intentions to do so?

I think the worst case is you'll still be able to run PlugLinux. I would love to run Debian because of the flexibility to add whatever you need to it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2011 12:58AM by bodhi.

It doesn't matter what distribution you put on the root partition as long as you have a working u-boot and kernel. I'm using ARMedSlack only on my devices.

@thenktor

So basically we can follow the same procedure at http://plugapps.com/index.php5/Install_on_Pogoplug_Pro
and modify the oxnas-install.sh to use Debian uImage and root partition? If you have done that with ARMedSlack, can you share the modified script?

Thanks!

No, I did not do this on the Pro because I don't have one. But IMHO it should work this way. You have to make sure you use their custom kernel and add their kernel modules to the /lib/modules dir on your root image.
They load their kernel from plain NAND. What I'm not sure about: Does their kernel support the SATA interface? Because having the filesystems on a SATA drive is a big advantage.

bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> @thenktor
>
> So basically we can follow the same procedure at
> http://plugapps.com/index.php5/Install_on_Pogoplug
> _Pro
> and modify the oxnas-install.sh to use Debian
> uImage and root partition?

Just curious bodhi...do you have a Pogoplug Pro, and are you planning to try tweaking the 'oxnas-install.sh' script to install Debian onto it? If you are, I am sure that lots of us are curious to know what successes you have! :)

thenktor Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No, I did not do this on the Pro because I don't
> have one. But IMHO it should work this way. You
> have to make sure you use their custom kernel and
> add their kernel modules to the /lib/modules dir
> on your root image.
> They load their kernel from plain NAND. What I'm
> not sure about: Does their kernel support the SATA
> interface? Because having the filesystems on a
> SATA drive is a big advantage.

I think you will find this thread answers your question http://plugapps.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=554 . What xenoxaos here did not originally do was move the kernel modules from nand rootfs to sata rootfs (after pointing to sata in uboot parameters "root=/dev/sda1 rootfstype=ext3 console=ttyS0,115200 mem=128M" ) , which was taken care of later. Very perceptive of you thenktor. Slackware is easier to install because they provide a mini root file system (barebones, kinda like plugapps, then add more stuff later) http://www.armedslack.org/doku.php?id=installation which can be placed on an external drive rather than having to do a full install like Debian. The oxnas plugapps script is useful only if you want to use a different kernel than what comes with the Pro (which plugapps needed to do since they updated their libraries).

darethehair Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Just curious bodhi...do you have a Pogoplug Pro,
> and are you planning to try tweaking the
> 'oxnas-install.sh' script to install Debian onto
> it? If you are, I am sure that lots of us are
> curious to know what successes you have! :)


darethehair, yes I do have the Pogoplug Pro :-) bought it while it was on sale a while back and been saving it. I'll be glad to share whatever I'll learn. I'm still gathering info and hope to get all necessary instructions from experienced members here before I attempt. Like you, I'm still learning so I would be slow in getting there :-) (I don't have a serial cable right now for rescue purpose).

Interesting information from the arch linux ARM website. Looks like it has be refined quite a bit:

http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv6/pogoplug-provideov3

This is from the FAQ page

"Are there other Linux distributions available?
Yes, in case Arch Linux ARM isn't right, you can use any distribution's root filesystem and kernel, simply substituting the other distribution's root filesystem URL in where the one for Arch Linux ARM is in the installation guides. The PlugApps bootloader installed on Pogoplug and DockStar devices supports other operating system as well in the same way. Some examples of other operating systems are Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, etc. Just make sure the root filesystem is on a USB drive and there is a kernel named "/boot/uImage". You're best off asking in the Forum about others' experiences"

Juts what oddballhero and thenktor said before. Now I'm wondering how oxnas installation script can be modified so that it will boot the Debian. Where do we get Debian for this armv6 ?

bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Interesting information from the arch linux ARM
> website. Looks like it has be refined quite a
> bit:
>
> http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv6/pogoplug-p
> rovideov3
>
> This is from the FAQ page
>
> "Are there other Linux distributions available?
> Yes, in case Arch Linux ARM isn't right, you can
> use any distribution's root filesystem and kernel,
> simply substituting the other distribution's root
> filesystem URL in where the one for Arch Linux ARM
> is in the installation guides. The PlugApps
> bootloader installed on Pogoplug and DockStar
> devices supports other operating system as well in
> the same way. Some examples of other operating
> systems are Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, etc.
> Just make sure the root filesystem is on a USB
> drive and there is a kernel named "/boot/uImage".
> You're best off asking in the Forum about others'
> experiences"

Actually, the quote above is still probably referring to the Kirkwood based platform with Jeff's bootloader, not the oxnas based platforms.
>
> Juts what oddballhero and thenktor said before.
> Now I'm wondering how oxnas installation script
> can be modified so that it will boot the Debian.
> Where do we get Debian for this armv6 ?

Actually, since my previous posts, I have been "rolling my own" kernel for the oxnas platform for some added functionality, although I wouldn't advise anybody else to do the same thing. I did this for my own personal use and anybody else reading this and trying it is at your own risk, as-is, no warranties. By the way, it is easy to mess up and I had my trusty serial cable just in case. I also redid busybox on the original platform to get mdev functionality for hot plugging devices. This got rid of the "mount -o rw,remount /" functionality (actually it is always rw unless you do umount -r /).
For my B01s (Yeah I accidentally bought some of these instead of E02s. DOH), I downloaded http://download.pogoplug.com/opensource/pro/pogopro-linux-2.6.31.6-r2.tar.bz2 . Copied .config.old to .config (good enough for me). Then, make menuconfig. Got rid of pci support (B01s don't have it, Pros do). Added the stuff I wanted. Then, make uImage. Backed up my old modules. Copied my modules to /lib/modules/2.6.31.6_SMP_820/kernel/ subtree. Did depmod -a. Backed up mtd1 (with and without oob). Cleared some space with /usr/sbin/flash_erase /dev/mtd1 0x500000 17 (or change this to whatever space your kernel takes up). The arch guys also use 0xB00000 (and they probably had a good reason for doing this), but I'm doing ok with just 0x500000. Then, I went to the location of my uImage and typed /usr/sbin/nandwrite -p -s 0x500000 /dev/mtd1 uImage. I then had to set the boot parameters with /usr/local/cloudengines/bin/blparam load_custom_nand="nboot 60500000 0 500000", /usr/local/cloudengines/bin/blparam boot_custom="run load_custom_nand boot", and /usr/local/cloudengines/bin/blparam bootcmd="run boot_custom". Needless to say, if I also used 0xB00000, I would have had to modify the above stuff. I did this a bunch of times (thanks to ocd and neverending tweaks). I am really glad that I did not wear out the nands.
I guess I could have also set rootfs to /dev/sda1 and my rootfs type to ext3 if I wanted to use a copy of my V2's debian squeeze (or my dockstar's lenny) usb flash (after converting it to ext3) or tried ftp://ftp.armedslack.org/armedslack/armedslack-devtools/minirootfs/roots/ slackware minirootfs. I guess arm is an arm... Might not even have had to recompile the kernel and install it to nand if I didn't have custom modifications (kernel mods only). And of course I would have had to load the modules I built under /lib/modules/2.6.31.6_SMP_820/kernel/ subtree. When I did make menuconfig, I could also have included the Kernel command line: root=/dev/sda1 ubi.mtd=2,512 rootfstype=ext3 console=ttyS0,115200 elevator=cfq mac_adr=0x??,0x??,0x??,0x??,0x??,0x?? rootdelay=15 mem=128M poweroutage=yes option. Of course, as with the archlinux install, I would be stuck with the 2.6.31.6_SMP_820 kernel and its repercussions, maybe slight incompatibilities, udev problems, libraries, etc. But then, I did not do this. I guess I could have also made oxnas modifications to 2.6.32 kernel or newer, but, I did not need to.

Wow! what you've done is really way out of my league. I was hoping to learn how to mod to the oxnas-install script to run it in a similar way that Jeff's script provided.

Well it's about time I checked back in!

So:
We've found that you can boot directly from the SATA port with a little magic, including stage1 bootloader, uboot and kernel in a series of specially marked places, and appropriate partitioning. I am doing this now with my "bricked" Pro (more like NAND failure while on vacation). It now boots right up, and fires into ALARM. Makes swapping kernel a cake walk.

What we've yet to manage:
Upgrading the kernel to a newer baseline. I'm not a kernel expert and I've had little/no help. I'm trying, really.
Replacing the uboot from Cloud Engines - I haven't had time.
Figure out wtf is wrong with kexec on the Pro.

WarheadsSE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> What we've yet to manage:
> Upgrading the kernel to a newer baseline. I'm not
> a kernel expert and I've had little/no help. I'm
> trying, really.
> Replacing the uboot from Cloud Engines - I haven't
> had time.
> Figure out wtf is wrong with kexec on the Pro.

WarheadsSE,
Callum Lerwick used your script to install Fedora on a Pro (PLX Oxnas system) http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/arm/2011-July/001622.html . He also used the PLX Oxnas modification from CE to update a newer kernel, you may want to contact him to save some work and get his kernel source or try the same method that he described for a learning experience.

We're working on, and getting close to, full support of a 3.1+ kernel for the oxnas 7820 (specifically the pogoplug variant)

https://github.com/WarheadsSE/OX820-3.1-Linux

WarheadsSE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We're working on, and getting close to, full
> support of a 3.1+ kernel for the oxnas 7820
> (specifically the pogoplug variant)
>
> https://github.com/WarheadsSE/OX820-3.1-Linux


Cool!
Just in time since CloudEngines just switched back to Marvell.....
It's a good sendoff. The PLX reign has ended, for now.
The way that CloudEngines is going through the downgrade cycle, I'm expecting the final Hardware Pogoplug to have the same specs as an NSLU2 or Arduino board.

I still use a NSLU2 and it's running great!!!

I have 4 Dockstars (2 of them have 'off-site backup' duty with an encrypted disk at friend's houses)

I have 2 Pogoplugs and 1 Pogoplug Pro.

My NSLU2 is my samba server - (serves for shuffling files around the house - doesn't have any capability to access the Internet - so I don't need to run too much on it.) - it works just great. My 'disks' are USB keys.


The basement is much quieter than it was when I had multiple rackmounted PCs in operation!!!

I burn a lot less power too.

Many thanks to Jeff and everyone on this forum who made this possible.

(Oh - and they all run either Debian Squeeze or Wheezy (testing on one Pogoplug and one Dockstar))
.
PHT

hopetindall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I still use a NSLU2 and it's running great!!!
>
>
> My NSLU2 is my samba server - (serves for
> shuffling files around the house - doesn't have
> any capability to access the Internet - so I don't
> need to run too much on it.) - it works just
> great. My 'disks' are USB keys.
>

I actually have 2 and am using them as Print/Scan Servers for HP all-in-one Printers.
I'm sure Martin Michlmayr http://www.cyrius.com/debian/nslu2/ appreciates your use of his Debian Port on the NSLU2.

Addendum:

> I have 2 Pogoplugs and 1 Pogoplug Pro.
http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3,2124,6339#msg-6339

Also, WarheadsSE (and the ArchLinuxARM guys) for the install for the PLX OxNAS line and his continued work on improving the new kernel for kexec. He is a multiplatform/distro dude!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2011 05:38PM by oddballhero.