Esata Kernel problems .

[peter a]

Hi , having another go at installing the latest kernel with Esata support ,
Similar to before I`m still having problem, but this time I hope I’m a bit wiser in what’s happening.
 
O.k I`m running Debian as per :- http://Http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/unpack.html
And compiled the kernel as per :- http://www.newit.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,285.0.html

If I boot up from Esata it doesn`t load any modules ( Modules are there ) , but will boot and access the Esata port .
My workaround was don`t use modules build them into the kernel !!!

If I boot from the SD card it loads the modules, but I can`t get access to the Esata drive.

So how can I get access to the Esata drive while booting from the SD card , or why ,when I`m booting from the Esata port isn`t loading the modules .

[peter a]

I`ve found when I said that “boot from SD loaded the modules”, that was an uboot env error.
( it loaded my image with modules built in )

I`m going crazy with this one !!!!!

I just can`t get it to load the modules which I`ve compiled with the(m)
But :-
 Setting the system clock.
Cleaning up ifupdown....
Loading kernel modules...done.
Assembling MD arrays...failed (failed to load MD subsystem).
Checking file systems...fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008)
e2fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008)
/dev/mmcblk0p1: clean, 29/14112 files, 44137/56416 blocks
done.
Setting kernel variables (/etc/sysctl.conf)...done.
Setting kernel variables (/etc/sysctl.d/10-process-security.conf)...done.
Mounting local filesystems...done.

Oh well back to compiling all the modules back in the kernel I guess !!!!!!

[maisondouf]

what kind of version of uboot you have ?

It's only one version with which you ca have all running....
It's is this version, an old 3.4.16 version dated the 14th of july 2009

Perhaps, you have already try this, but my plug run this version of uboot with Squeeze 2.6.32 in a SDHC and eSATA port run fine.

[peter a]

I had problems making my own kernel, I worked out !! , don`t invent the wheel I`ve started using the http://sheeva.with-linux.com/sheeva kernel .

So what do you think of the Sheeva compared to the NSLU2 ?

I`ve just added the ability to play mp3s , so my sheevaplug is running with about 11 different  roles.

web , file , e-mail , music , control , servers

[maisondouf]

ho ho, the big difference between Nlu2 and Sheeva is firstly the speed.

I had make this saturday a simply test :
I put a CD in my wife's PC who work with Windows and launck "UltraISO" (a software to create .ISO files from CD).

I ask the soft to create directly the image file on a network disk attached to the NSLU2, result 10 minutes.
I ask the soft to create directly the same image file on a network disk attached to the Sheeva, result 4 minutes.

The most important is that if I ask to create it on a local disk, the time to create the image is approximatively the same as via the network on the sheeva.

I'm not saying that the sheeva network read/write operations are as fast as a local disk, but quite.

[peter a]

on a gigabit link , I can access my Esata drive over the network faster than a local usb drive.

I couldn`t get on with the NSLU2 , I found it too slow and never used it for years , I will have to dig it out and find a use for it , eg a printer server.

[katieburton12]

IU think my problem is I don`t understand how it boots and which files I need :-

DO I NEED ALL OF THESE TO MAKE IT BOOT ?

/boot/config-whatever
/boot/initrd.img
/boot/whatever-uImage
/boot/System.map-whatever
/boot/uInitrd
/boot/vmlinuz-whatever

Any links so I can understand it would be helpful

[NewIT_Marcus]

IU think my problem is I don`t understand how it boots and which files I need :-

DO I NEED ALL OF THESE TO MAKE IT BOOT ?

/boot/config-whatever
/boot/initrd.img
/boot/whatever-uImage
/boot/System.map-whatever
/boot/uInitrd
/boot/vmlinuz-whatever

Any links so I can understand it would be helpful

If you are trying to boot from eSATA, here may be a good place to start:

http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=1684.0

[David James]

I took delivery of an eSATA multi-boot SheevaPlug from NewIT on Saturday. I now have it booting Ubuntu off a 1TB external drive connected over eSATA.


In case it helps anyone else, so far as I can remember, these are the steps I took ...

The first thing I did was to copy the two partitions off the Ubuntu SD card using another Linux system (so that I had a backup of the as-delivered state in case of major problems). I used an SD card reader, mounted each partition in turn and made a gzipped tar backup of the partition. For good measure I also used dd to make an image of the entire card.


Then, mainly guided by http://www.computingplugs.com/index.php/Booting_entirely_off_an_external_USB_device (but dipping in and out of several other forum postings as well), on the SheevaPlug, having booted from the SD card:

Partitioned the external eSATA drive with fdisk: first partition approx 40MB, second partition approx 300GB (I suspect these are vastly larger than needed, but with 1TB to play with ...). The remainder of the disk unallocated. Both the partitions are Linux partitions. I marked the first partition as bootable (though I'm not sure this is necessary)

I then used mkfs.ext3 to put ext3 filesystems on both of them

Then:
mkdir /mnt/mtdroot
mkdir /mnt/sda1
mkdir /mnt/sda2

mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 /mnt/mtdroot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/sda2


cp -av /mnt/mtdroot/. /mnt/sda2

cd /mnt
scp -p <the other sLinux system>:/mnt/usb/sheeva/as_delivered/sd_ubuntu_1.tgz .
# this is the gzipped tar copy of the first partition on the SD card as delivered.

tar -xvozf sd_ubuntu_1.tgz
cp -p uImage /mnt/sda1


I then re-booted and interrupted the boot to set extra UBoot variables:


setenv bootcmd_ide 'setenv bootargs ${bootargs_console} ${bootargs_root_ide}; ide reset; ext2load ide 1 0x800000 /uImage; bootm 0x00800000; reset'


setenv bootargs_root_ide 'root=/dev/sda2 rootdelay=10'


Most of the articles seem to suggest "ext2load ide 0:1 ...", but I couldn't get that to work.

There are various suggestions in different threads for what the two hex numbers should be. The two I chose are the same as the NewIT multi-boot uses in the boot strings for both internal NAND and SD card.

The two hex numbers should be the same - I scratched my head for several minutes wondering why things didn't work when through a typo, I had one as 8 followed by 5 zeroes and the other as 8 followed by 6 zeroes.

Then
run bootcmd_ide
and it boots from eSATA.

At some point I'll get around to making this the bootcmd varianble so that it automatically boots from the eSATA drive.