Armed slack on tonidoplug

Phorize · 03-21-2011, 03:41 PM

Howdy. Has anyone here succeeded in getting armed slack running on a consumer kirkwood device .ie. one without serial console? I have a tonido plug that I want to liberate. By default the plug boots first from the external usb, so I would only need to set up / on the first partition. I would be very interested to know if someone had managed to install slack to the internal nand without bricking it.

All the best,

Kris

rworkman · 03-23-2011, 08:17 AM

That thing appears to be mostly identical to the SheevaPlug. Is there a mini-usb connector on one side?

Phorize · 03-23-2011, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rworkman

That thing appears to be mostly identical to the SheevaPlug. Is there a mini-usb connector on one side?

It's basically a sheeva plug minus a mini usb connector. The board is the same, so I could crack it open and solder one on, but that seems excessive. Uboot is configured to boot first from any bootable device plugged into the external usb, an option is install slack to an external drive with / as the first partition:

ftp://ftp.armedslack.org/armedslack/...tfs/README.txt

The real conundrum is whether it is in any way possble to flash the internal nand with a slack file system and no console. Any thoughts?

rworkman · 03-23-2011, 09:29 AM

Yeah, it's definitely possible. If you can boot an install on an external drive, then you can do the flashing from there.
Not having a serial console available makes it a bit risky though :-)

Phorize · 03-23-2011, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rworkman

Yeah, it's definitely possible. If you can boot an install on an external drive, then you can do the flashing from there.
Not having a serial console available makes it a bit risky though :-)

Yep, this could get ugly, but I just know I'm past the point of no return now

That said, this thing runs everything as the root user, which completely redefines risk in my book. I'll probably be able to mimimise the risk of completely bricking it by keep the default boot device as the external usb.

rworkman · 03-23-2011, 10:35 AM

I'd be tempted to open the case and look around in there - there's likely some pins sticking up somewhere to connect a serial cable :-)

Phorize · 03-23-2011, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rworkman

I'd be tempted to open the case and look around in there - there's likely some pins sticking up somewhere to connect a serial cable :-)

Yep, that's what I'm going to do-trying to flash the internal nand without being able to properly administer it would be reckless, even by my standards

I'll be pulling this apart over the next day or so and if it looks viable, I'll get a connect and have a go.

rworkman · 03-23-2011, 11:10 AM

Come join us in #armedslack on freenode IRC :-)

Phorize · 03-24-2011, 10:26 AM

I've opened this up and compared what I've got to the dev kit schematics. It seems that all I need is a jtag adapter card and I can plug that straight into the j6 header. I've asked a uk supplier if they can get me one as it looked like flashing this without console would be a bit hairy. Hopefully I'll be posting back soon with it running slack. Robby and some of the guys on #armedslack have been very helpful

rworkman · 03-24-2011, 10:44 AM

Very nice :-)
As an aside, I got a Netgear Stora a couple of weeks ago, and I got ArmedSlack running on it two nights ago -- I posted to the mailing list: http://lists.armedslack.org/2011-March/000817.html