I have recently got one of these sheevaplugs and have set this box up with apache /webmin / php / MySql / Zoneminder. As Zoneminder is an IP security camera software I was looking to take motion sensitive pictures and videos, obviously I needed more than a SD card or USB stick, so I decided to try a USB HDD. Using webmin, I can mount the drive easy enough. I can read the drive, but thats all I can do.
After some research I have found the following
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1082489&page=12 Basically the standard ntfs tools that come with the sheevaplug has issues, I have tried adding something called ntfs-3g which is supposed to resolve this issue, but upon mounting the drive in an ssh session I get the following:
FATAL: Could not load /lib/modules/2.6.22.18/modules.dep: No such file or directory
researching this error I found this:
http://openplug.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=37.0This goes on about recompiling the kernel, being a linux newb, I am extremely unconfident about doing this. Apparently it is an issue with NTFS filesystems, I was wondering if anybody here has found a way to get around this without recompiling the whole kernel
Any help would be appreciated.
I've done some tests with a preconfigured UBIFS setup (2.6.30.2 kernel). I now have a read/write external USB NTFS-formatted drive. In brief:
Starting with a 2.6.30.2 kernel, I installed ntfs-3g and attempted to mount a drive using webmin. I had multiple failures that gave (for instance) the following error:
Failed to save mount : Mount failed :
The disk contains an unclean file system (0, 1).
The file system wasn't safely closed on Windows. Fixing.
ntfs_attr_pread_i: ntfs_pread failed: Input/output error
Failed to read NTFS $Bitmap: Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very
important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for more details.
Failed to sync device /dev/sda1: Input/output error
Failed to close volume /dev/sda1: Input/output errorThat led me
here,
here and
here.
So ... linux thinks that the NTFS drive didn't look right, and suggests that either a linux package named
ntfsprogs may be used to fix the errors, or that the drive should be placed in a Windows PC so that Windows might have the chance to run
chkdsk and fix any problems.
And this diagnosis was correct, in that the drive is unreliable and didn't even appear consistently when plugged into a Windows PC. Nevertheless, by this time I had installed
ntfsprogs and running
ntfsfix /dev/sda1 didn't fix the drive problems.
An alternative drive worked straightaway, mounting it via webmin. Read/write-ability remained after removing ntfsprogs.
Therefore, a solution for 2.6.30.2 kernel systems is as simple as:
apt-get install ntfs-3gFor a new user, this experiment suggests that the cleanest solution might be to zap the base system and replace it with a UBIFS-booting 2.6.30.2 kernel. You still have that option, if you are prepared to learn how to use the plugcomputer.org
Installer and if it is acceptable for you to hose your existing setup. We can guide you through that. The other solution is the tougher question posed in your original post: how to upgrade the kernel as a separate exercise.
I note that kernels from 2.6.30.1 - 2.6.30-9 and 2.6.31.1 - 2.61.31.5 are
downloadable. Frankly, we haven't looked into how to do this yet; it's something that we can add to our "To Do" list, but I can't promise a turnaround as quick as you would probably wish.
Talking of "To Do"s, I also found
this entry in the slimdevices forum; at the very bottom there is listed a "TO DO"
install FUSE and ntfs-3g for read-write access to USB NTFS drive. (Unfortunately it still seems to be on their To Do list too).
Hope this helps, for the moment at least.
