Difference between revisions of "NSLU2"

Revision as of 12:46, 20 July 2007

http://www.andreabeggi.net/wp-content/53006-nslu2.jpg

Intro

XScale processor from Intel (ARM) at 266MHz (133MHz before hacking...)
32Mb SDRAM
8Mb Flash
2 USB 2.0 ports

Links

Description on wikipedia
OpenSlug

Todo

Mine came with
- Server Name: LKG63472F
- Version: V2.3RA5
Connect USB printer?
Install backuppc -> I tried but slug is really too slow for that :-(
Connect Tuxdroid dongle

Debian

Installation

To install, follow the howto, here are the big steps:

Get Debian 4.0r0 firmware from http://www.slug-firmware.net/ and unzip it
Power the NSLU2 and wait a bit (green light) before plugging it to the network if you've a DHCP, so the NSLU2 will choose itself IP 192.168.1.77, otherwise look to your DHCP server logs to find the IP attribution
Go to the admin webpage, tab administration, login admin/admin
Configure ALL network params if you don't have DHCP
Go to the admin webpage, tab administration, login admin/admin, tab advanced, tab upgrade
Upload di-nslu2.bin, start upgrade
Wait for "upgrading ok" (5mins) -> wait for 3 bips (5-10mins)
This is the last moment to plug an external USB mass-storage if you didn't do so yet
Login via ssh installer@192.168.1.77 (or another IP got by DHCP...) pwd "install"
- I did it from an xterm but exported term mode is pure console so it's better to login from a real text console otherwise the ncurses menu is a bit broken (but still usable)
Start installation, manually load the following modules:
- ext3-modules-2.6.18-4-ixp4xx-di
- partman-auto
- partman-ext3
- scsi-core-modules-2.6.18-4-ixp4xx-di
- usb-storage-modules-2.6.18-4-ixp4xx-di
Whatever system you choose to partition your disk, be sure to have at least 128M of swap, I've set up 512M on my 400G drive.
In total it took about 100 mins to complete
If you need a console, start a second ssh connection and choose to obtain a shell
On tasksel, I chose absolutely nothing, I prefer to take only what I need later

After first reboot

dpkg --get-selections|wc -l

du -hs /

179M

dmesg:

Linux version 2.6.18-4-ixp4xx (Debian 2.6.18.dfsg.1-12) (waldi@debian.org) (gcc versi
on 4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)) #1 Tue Mar 27 18:01:56 BST 2007
CPU: XScale-IXP42x Family [690541f1] revision 1 (ARMv5TE), cr=0000397f
Machine: Linksys NSLU2
Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writeback
On node 0 totalpages: 8192
  DMA zone: 8192 pages, LIFO batch:1
CPU0: D VIVT undefined 5 cache
CPU0: I cache: 32768 bytes, associativity 32, 32 byte lines, 32 sets
CPU0: D cache: 32768 bytes, associativity 32, 32 byte lines, 32 sets
Built 1 zonelists.  Total pages: 8192
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 rtc-x1205.probe=0,0x6f noirqdebug
IRQ lockup detection disabled
PID hash table entries: 256 (order: 8, 1024 bytes)
Console: colour dummy device 80x30
Dentry cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
Memory: 32MB = 32MB total
Memory: 25780KB available (1948K code, 496K data, 92K init)

Calibrating delay loop... 132.71 BogoMIPS (lpj=663552)
...

hdparm -tT /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads:    86 MB in  2.04 seconds =  42.20 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads:   28 MB in  3.12 seconds =   8.98 MB/sec

Tweaks

Ok so our NSLU2 is well underclocked, let's restore its full speed following this howto

Calibrating delay loop... 266.24 BogoMIPS (lpj=1331200)

Much better :-)

/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads:    90 MB in  2.00 seconds =  44.98 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads:   32 MB in  3.03 seconds =  10.56 MB/sec

A bit better but nothing fantastic...

Setup static network parameters
- apt-get install resolvconf
- edit /etc/network/interfaces

allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet static
   address 192.168.1.77
   netmask 255.255.255.0
   gateway 192.168.1.1
   dns-nameservers 192.168.1.2 192.168.1.1

From /usr/share/doc/nslu2-utils/README.Debian:
- sed -i 's/^FSCKFIX=.*$/FSCKFIX=yes/' /etc/default/rcS
- sed -i 's/^BOOTLOGD_ENABLE=.*$/BOOTLOGD_ENABLE=yes/' /etc/default/bootlogd
- Reorder the booting sequence to get ssh up earlier:

ls -l /etc/rcS.d/
S21resolvconf -> ../init.d/resolvconf
S22ifupdown -> ../init.d/ifupdown
S23networking -> ../init.d/networking
S23ssh -> ../init.d/ssh

- By default the power button restarts the slug, change the call to shutdown in /etc/inittab:

ca:12345:ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -h now

Devel

Be prepared to do some native compilation...

apt-get install build-essential

Tuxdroid

Basics

apt-get install subversion libusb-dev libglib2.0-dev ipython
mkdir /home/tuxdroid; cd /home/tuxdroid
svn co http://svn.tuxisalive.com tuxdroid-svn
cd tuxdroid-svn/daemon/trunk
make
mkdir -p /opt/tuxdroid/api
ln -s /home/tuxdroid/tuxdroid-svn/software /opt/tuxdroid/api/python
mkdir -p /opt/tuxdroid/bin
ln -s /home/tuxdroid/tuxdroid-svn/daemon/trunk/tuxdaemon /opt/tuxdroid/bin
ln -s /opt/tuxdroid/bin/tuxdaemon /usr/local/bin/tuxdaemon
echo -e "#/bin/bash\npython -i /opt/tuxdroid/api/python/tux.py" > /opt/tuxdroid/bin/tuxsh
chmod 755 /opt/tuxdroid/bin/tuxsh
ln -s /opt/tuxdroid/bin/tuxsh /usr/local/bin/tuxsh

Flashing tools

cd /home/tuxdroid
cd tuxdroid-svn/firmware/tuxup/trunk/
make
ln -s /home/tuxdroid/tuxdroid-svn/firmware/tuxup/trunk/tuxup /opt/tuxdroid/bin
ln -s /opt/tuxdroid/bin/tuxup /usr/local/bin/tuxup
wget http://belnet.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/dfu-programmer/dfu-programmer-0.4.0.tar.gz
tar xzf dfu-programmer-0.4.0.tar.gz
cd dfu-programmer-0.4.0
./configure
make
ln -s /home/tuxdroid/dfu-programmer-0.4.0/src/dfu-programmer /usr/local/bin
apt-get install gcc-avr avr-libc gdb-avr libsvn-dev
wget http://svnwcrev.tigris.org/files/documents/3444/29110/svnwcrev-0.1.tar.gz
tar -xzf svnwcrev-0.1.tar.gz
cd svnwcrev-0.1
sed 's/apr-0/apr-1.0/' config_mk.template > config.mk
make
ln -s /home/tuxdroid/svnwcrev-0.1/svnwcrev /usr/local/bin/

Audio

apt-get install alsa-utils mpg321
cat /proc/asound/cards

0 [Droid          ]: USB-Audio - Tux Droid
                     Kysoh Tux Droid at usb-0000:00:01.0-1, full speed

with a more recent firmware you get:

0 [default        ]: USB-Audio - TUX RF DONGLE
                     C2ME BELGIUM TUX RF DONGLE  at usb-0000:00:01.0-1, full speed

For oss layer:

modprobe snd_pcm_oss
modprobe snd_mixer_oss

Webradio

Status

compiling tuxdaemon OK
running tuxdaemon FAIL
- USB part seems ok (displays tux events properly) but not TCP part, seems not to be listening on port
compiling tuxup OK
compiling dfu-programmer OK
compiling svncrev OK
compiling tuxcore tuxaudio OK
flashing tuxcore.hex tuxcore.eep tuxaudio.hex tuxaudio.eep OK
sound PARTLY
- ALSA and OSS-emulation layers are up
- the sound is quite hashed and lot of "alsa underrun" msgs, slightly better results through oss than alsa
- recording at 8000 Hz mono is very poor (played on host)
- playing at 8000 Hz mono is poor (recorded on host)
- madplay -b8 -R8000 ...mp3 is correct

Misc

Boot diagnostics

From /usr/share/doc/nslu2-utils/README.Debian but in case of problems I prefer to have the text here :-)

Some of the led states during boot include:
- Cycling down all the leds from top to bottom: The APEX boot loader.
- Amber status led: Initramfs is running, mounting root filesystem.
- Disk 1 on, status slowly switching between amber and green: Root
  filesystem mounted, system booting.
- Disk 1 on, status green, with fast double amber flashes: System is booted
  and running. The frequency of the amber flashes indicates the system's
  one minute load average; faster flashes denote higher load.
- Disk 1 on, status quickly flashing between black/green and black/amber.
  Single user mode. Again the flash interval denotes load.
- Disk 1 on, status slowly switching beteween amber and red: Shutdown in
  progress.

tests

apt-get install locales
apache2-mpm-prefork - Traditional model for Apache HTTPD 2.1
apache2-mpm-worker - High speed threaded model for Apache HTTPD 2.1