Booting Debian on Pogoplug Pro

Can i use ext4 has bootable drive with debian ?

dinjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks shiv the file should go to
> /etc/udev/rules.d right ? Also i see there is no
> mention of ext3 ?

The folder is right. It works for ext3 without to mention is seperately.

dinjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Can i use ext4 has bootable drive with debian ?

This is not possible with the ALARM kernel 2.6.31.6 in the flash because ext4 is not included but loaded as a module. To use ext4 rootfs you must compile and flash a different kernel.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/14/2013 09:12AM by shv.

Yeah thanks automount is working now , final query that you have used barrier=0,nobh in mount options is it recommended for ext4 ?

See: http://blog.smartlogicsolutions.com/2009/06/04/mount-options-to-improve-ext4-file-system-performance/

Thanks again shv ,maybe you want to include automount script in your tarball itself

Hi Bodhi

Thanks for the comment. I looked in to it. Made a ext3 fs on sdb and also on sdb1 and untarred the varkey rootfs. It blinks furiously for a little while and then sits there - no ip or anything on router. I tried adding

echo "hi" >> /log.txt and similar commands to rcS single etc files to see where is it bailing out. It does not even create the log.txt so I guess it is not even coming to sysvinit.

For now I have arch on it but without being able to install httpd/ftpd etc it is just a box I can ssh in to and do not much else! I wonder if I should try and compile the lighttpd and bftpd myself and atleast give it a function? However I never compiled cross-platform.

[root@alarm ~]# uname -a
Linux alarm 2.6.31.6_SMP_820 #6 SMP Thu Jun 14 19:49:57 CDT 2012 armv6l GNU/Linux

[root@alarm ~]# file /boot/uImage.nopci 
/boot/uImage.nopci: u-boot legacy uImage, Linux-2.6.31.6_SMP_820, Linux/ARM, OS Kernel Image (Not compressed), 2288744 bytes, Thu Jun 14 19:50:32 2012, Load Address: 0x60008000, Entry Point: 0x60008000, Header CRC: 0x03F17E7B, Data CRC: 0xAB975482

Thanks for your effort in the community projects.

Is the name of the partition "rootfs"?

sxk Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
... snip ...
> blinks furiously for a little
> while and then sits there - no ip or anything on
> router.
... snip ...

This could possibly be a problem with 70-persistent-net.rules (see this post; didn't help there, but problem seems to have been different).

---
Standart ist der Standardfehler

@sxk,
> I guess it
> is not even coming to sysvinit.
>

I think you're right, the LED indicated that you have not got to the point where the system is loading rootfs. So as shv mentioned above, make sure the partition on USB is ext3, active, and labeled "rootfs".

You have a newer ALARM kernel, my kernel is
Linux PogoPro 2.6.31.6_SMP_820 #99 SMP Sun May 29 03:04:43 EDT 2011 armv6l

Varkey created that roofts about the time we all worked on this. The new kernel might have problem using it. My suggestions:

- Perhaps you can use shv rootfs.
or
- Do the manual installation on a Debian roofts, as described in the 1st post.

@chessplayer,
I think at that time we will see the LED already solid green. My guess the problem is earlier.

@shv,
I recalled you've posted link to download your PogoPro Debian rootfs, but don't remember where?

-bodhi
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2013 05:01PM by bodhi.

The link is on page 5: http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3,6336,10999#msg-10999.

I read the links above. I am going to get myself a few more flash drives this weekend and try again. For now I tried a slightly unorthodox approach :-) and got the lighttpd and vsftpd and relevant files from current arch linux arm mirror and stored these locally, installed them using pacman -U and crossed my fingers. It is atleast functioning as a web/ftp server. However I can't install the cups which is a shame - I was using the pogo as a print server as well before!

I will try a debian install again sometime this weekend and see.

In the interim I stored the current working packages of lighttpd and vsftpd and a few others on one of the pogos and if anyone wants these they are here http://www.bigharpoon.com/arm/index.html .

Thanks folks

@shv

No. I did not name the partition rootfs. I completely missed that! I will remember that bit and also about the udev net rules this weekend.

Hi folks,

I've set up a complete guide on how to create a Debian Squeeze rootfs from scratch via debootstrap, merging information from this thread and various other tutorials and completing it with a few missing bits. It's available on Howtoforge:

http://www.howtoforge.com/installing-debian-squeeze-on-pogoplug-v3-oxnas-cleanly

Unfortunately, I only succeeded in getting this to run this only on Debian Squeeze but not on Wheezy. I would appreciate it if someone could point me to the missing bits. Thanks!

kuleszdl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi folks,
>
> I've set up a complete guide on how to create a
> Debian Squeeze rootfs from scratch via
> debootstrap, merging information from this thread
> and various other tutorials and completing it
> with a few missing bits. It's available on
> Howtoforge:
>
> http://www.howtoforge.com/installing-debian-squeez
> e-on-pogoplug-v3-oxnas-cleanly
>
> Unfortunately, I only succeeded in getting this to
> run this only on Debian Squeeze but not on Wheezy.
> I would appreciate it if someone could point me to
> the missing bits. Thanks!

You could update to wheezy rootfs by changing apt sources.list to point to wheezy main. And then do apt-get update, apt-get upgrade.
The kernel is still 2.6.31.6_SMP_820, there's no way to upgrade it to 3.x.x currently. It's a compromise, but still much better running Debian wheezy rootfs so you can get newer packages.

-bodhi
===========================
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Bodhi: I haven't tried this way yet. But I was curious why the usual method with the debootstrapped rootfs (which seems fine elsewise) does not seem to work with Wheezy. And some post earlier, people mentioned installation of libaccept4 which I also tried but which didn't help me either.

I will try the Update-Approach via apt and see if that works although I don't understand what this does different to a direct clean installation like the one I described for squeeze. And yes - of course, the kernel be still the same, old one.

kuleszdl,

It does make some differences using wheezy rootfs this way. Something like udev can't be upgraded without new kernel 3.x.x, but userland packages will be upgraded OK. I did the apt-get update and apt-get upgrade using wheezy apt source, and quite a few were upgraded (including xfce) so it worked well for me.

-bodhi
===========================
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2013 03:30AM by bodhi.

Thank you for the hint, bodhi! Indeed I have tried updating the system, and during upgrade you get asked whether you want to keep the old udev due to kernel incompatibility (guess this will not work when doing this in the chroot though). Anyways, it seems like installing udev fails anyways:

Moving obsolete conffile /etc/init.d/module-init-tools out of the way...
Moving obsolete conffile /etc/modprobe.d/aliases.conf out of the way...
Unpacking replacement module-init-tools ...
dpkg: warning: unable to delete old directory '/lib/modules': Directory not empty
Selecting previously unselected package kmod.
Unpacking kmod (from .../archives/kmod_9-3_armel.deb) ...
Preparing to replace xz-utils 5.0.0-2 (using .../xz-utils_5.1.1alpha+20120614-2_armel.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement xz-utils ...
Processing triggers for install-info ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/udev_175-7.2_armel.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

If it is just udev that prevents wheezy from working, wouldn't it be feasible to install just the old udev-version manually into the chroot (for the long term maybe with using sources.list and package pinning)? Or is there more than just udev that stands in the way?

Actually I thought libaccept4 was supposed to workaround this issue but seems like either I did something wrong (I recompiled it from sources) or it doesn't work for other reasons.

kuleszdl,

I was hoping somebody would be able to build and flash Debian to NAND the same way WarheadsSE did for Arch. That would give us an upgrade path. But it seems it was not that easy. If pazos still visits this forum, I am sure he can tell us much more about this.

-bodhi
===========================
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bodhi,

what is wrong about the upgrade path via the usb drive? This way, if you mess up the system you can easily "reflash" the stick externally via dd or by copying over your backup. Messing with NAND is rather difficult and you always have the danger of screwing up your system and can only recover it with serial cable and other quirks. I was running arch before also from the usb drive, and the system broke several times so I am pretty happy I did not run it from NAND.

kuleszdl,

The reason was that how WarheadsSE original set it up, in order to make it work he has to get some NDA info from the manufacturer, so I'm not sure if moving the kernel to USB would be feasible with the current uBoot (I did not try). It could be booted directly from the internal SATA port, since it is always picked up first, and there is instruction for that at Arch site.

-bodhi
===========================
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bodhi: Okay, this was a misunderstanding then - I just meant the userland, not the kernel.

bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> kuleszdl Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I've set up a complete guide on how to create a
> > Debian Squeeze rootfs from scratch via
> > debootstrap, merging information from this
> thread
> > and various other tutorials and completing it
> > with a few missing bits. It's available on
> > Howtoforge:
> >
> >
> http://www.howtoforge.com/installing-debian-squeez
>
> > e-on-pogoplug-v3-oxnas-cleanly
> >
> > Unfortunately, I only succeeded in getting this
> to
> > run this only on Debian Squeeze but not on
> Wheezy.
> > I would appreciate it if someone could point me
> to
> > the missing bits. Thanks!
>
> You could update to wheezy rootfs by changing apt
> sources.list to point to wheezy main. And then do
> apt-get update, apt-get upgrade.
> The kernel is still 2.6.31.6_SMP_820, there's no
> way to upgrade it to 3.x.x currently. It's a
> compromise, but still much better running Debian
> wheezy rootfs so you can get newer packages.

Did you do this successfully?

@shv,

I did. But my Arch kernel on NAND is older, I beleive. I recalled WarheadsSE has done at least one update. Mine is running on Debian wheezy rootfs. But the kernel is still ALARM 2.6.31.6_SMP_820.

-bodhi
===========================
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@bodhi,

I removed the other kernel (2.6.32) which was still installed beside 2.6.31.6 but kept linux-base.

ii linux-base 2.6.32-46 Linux image base package
ii linux-image-2.6-kirkwood 2.6.32+29 Linux 2.6 for Marvell Kirkwood (meta-package)
ii linux-image-2.6.32-5-kirkwood 2.6.32-46 Linux 2.6.32 for Marvell Kirkwood

Afterwards I used upgrade funktions with Wheezy references in sources.list. I got a conflict with flash-kernel and decided to keep the old one. I think that just some packages were updated but not the whole system.So I am not sure if it was already a Wheezy system or still Sqeeze with some packages updated to Wheezy versions. I was able to boot the system.

Afterwards I tried to use dist-upgrade and refused to update udev. The boot of the system was not possible anymore.

-shv



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/2013 12:33PM by shv.

shv,

I did not remove the linux-2.6.x kernel packages. I don't think it matters. And flash-kernel problem is really a don't care, because we are not using any of the /boot files anyway.

Before the apt-get update, apt-get upgrade, I just put a hold on udev with:

echo  "udev hold"  | dpkg --set-selections

And the upgrade just went without problem. And you're right, there are packages that need newer udev version and so they were hold back by the apt-get upgrade. It is not entirely wheezy, but a majority of packages were upgraded to wheezy versions. So I think it is better than keeping them to squeeze version.

-bodhi
===========================
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I see - you kept back udev and ended up with a "most wheezy but squeeze-leftovers"-system. While this sounds practical and probably is better than staying with squeeze (especially after support will end!) but still I think we should strive to find a way to get a clean and (mostly) complete wheezy on the pogo pro. Actually I see two feasible approaches to accomplish this:

(1) get libaccept4 working so we can emulate the newer udev-calls on the old kernel
(2) compile and run successfully a 3.x kernel so udev will work as usual

Since compiling (and testing!) a good and working 3.x kernel seems like a big hassle to me I would opt for trying the libaccept4 approach first. There are quite a lot of other devices (some with android) around with locked bootloaders etc. which need to stay at a 2.6-kernel but are trying to get the newer udev to work via libaccept4. One of them is this wm8650 netbook/slate which also uses a 2.6.32 kernel and seems to be an armv6 device. Check out these links:

http://pond-weed.com/wmt8650/
http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/33922-installing-archlinux-to-a-wm8650-netbook/

Maybe we could team up with these guys? As I mentioned, I successfully compiled their libaccept4 for the debian wheezy but yet I was not able to successfully boot it. I didn't attempt to debug it yet though.

Wohoo, I got it working with a clean wheezy system running the ALARM kernel thanks to libaccept4!

As indicated earlier in this thread by bharath (I must have overread this!), apart from adding the libaccept4 library and enabling it via /etc/ld.so.preload you also have to disable the udev-checks done by /etc/init.d/udev. I achieved this by uncommenting the following lines, so that the method "supported_kernel" always returns 0 (of course it's an ugly hack that will possibly break once udev is updated):

supported_kernel() {
#  case "$(uname -r)" in
#    2.[012345].*|2.6.[0-9]|2.6.[0-9][!0-9]*) return 1 ;;
#    2.6.[12][0-9]|2.6.[12][0-9][!0-9]*) return 1 ;;
#    2.6.3[0-1]|2.6.3[0-1][!0-9]*) return 1 ;;
#  esac
  return 0
}

For me, it works both with the libaccept4 binary provided by wmt8650 folks as well as with the one I recompiled myself from the source they provided. When I find the time, I will submit another tutorial to howtoforge on how to do this all step by step from scratch.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2013 04:18PM by kuleszdl.

@kuleszdl ,

Great works :)

I wish WarheadsSE would give us some hints about flashing new kernel to NAND. That would be fantastic.

-bodhi
===========================
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@bodhi:

Nah, the great work was done by the others who found out how to make udev work on pre 2.6.32 kernels!

And I think there are all the instructions on how to flash a newer kernel are there (see here: http://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=4683), the problem is just that

- there is no "proven stable" kernel newer than warhead se's available
- some people have tried compiling newer kernels, but have run into issues which they didn't seem to resolve

I thought I saw several Linux-3.x kernels around but I can't find them. And as stated in the linked thread - if you boot kernels via SATA and don't flash them into NAND, you can experiment with them pretty safely. But once you nandwrite them into the flash, you need a serial cable to recover your pogo if something goes wrong.

If I find the time I will also try to put the lastest testing-version of debian on the pogo to see if it's armed for the future. :)