Slackware now available for the SheevaPlug

[mozes]

Hi

Slackware now has support for the SheevaPlug, and is available for testing!

I've only just finished adding the support, and whilst it works for me on my two SheevaPlugs - installing onto a 16GB USB stick, and a USB hard disc - please consider the SheevaPlug support (Kernel and installer) as an alpha release.  The rest of the distribution (minus the Kirkwood Kernel & installer) is stable -- currently at release candidate 4, scheduled for a release in a couple of weeks.

This version of Slackware uses the 'old abi' - work on an EABI port will begin soon.

Please see the installation document:
http://ftp://ftp.armedslack.org/armedslack/armedslack-current/SHEEVAPLUG_INSTALL.TXT
The changelog, which includes details of the updates, is here:
http://ftp://ftp.armedslack.org/armedslack/armedslack-current/ChangeLog.txt

In the installation document, I post the instructions for upgrading U-Boot on the SheevaPlug.  This is the only way I found to get console output of the booting Kernel - unfortunately I didn't take note of the environment settings before I upgraded my device; so I don't know what needs to be changed -- I suspect upgrading U-Boot is not necessary.  Please let me know if anybody figures out what change needs to be made.

I'm on holiday next week, so I'll reply to any queries when I'm back, but I'm pretty confident that you should be able to follow the instructions at the document URL above, and get Slackware installed onto your SP.

Thanks & enjoy!
 Stuart

[Rabeeh Khoury]

Thanks a lot for the that.

Please consider writing a wiki page on the wiki's area (even a tiny one with the links).

I'm adding slackware to the wiki categories right now.

[hammack]

mozes,

  Thanks for the work and the excellent instructions.  I have slackware running on my plug now, but I can only boot over the network - not from my usb drive.  Here's what I see when trying to boot from the drive:

[

Code:

Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0                                               
(Re)start USB...                                                               
USB:   scanning bus for devices... 2 USB Device(s) found                       
       scanning bus for storage devices... 1 Storage Device(s) found           
 ** ext2fs_devread() read outside partition sector 386580                       
                                                                               
** Unable to read "/uinitrd-kirkwood" from usb 0:1 **                           
 ** ext2fs_devread() read outside partition sector 255508                       
                                                                               
** Unable to read "/uImage-kirkwood" from usb 0:1 **                           
## Booting image at 00400000 ...                                               
Bad Magic Number 

Any idea what I might have done wrong?

                                        Thanks,
                                           Jim

[mozes]

Code:

Hi Jim,

[quote author=hammack link=topic=306.msg2087#msg2087 date=1243724736]
     
       scanning bus for storage devices... 1 Storage Device(s) found           
 ** ext2fs_devread() read outside partition sector 386580                       
                                                                               
** Unable to read "/uinitrd-kirkwood" from usb 0:1 **                           
 ** ext2fs_devread() read outside partition sector 255508                       
                                                                               
** Unable to read "/uImage-kirkwood" from usb 0:1 **                           
## Booting image at 00400000 ...                                               
Bad Magic Number 

[/quote]

Is /boot definitely an ext2 partition, and /boot is definitely the first partition, /dev/sda1 ?

[hammack]

mozes,

  You're right.  I took the setup default (ext4) for sda1 rather than ext2.  I changed the partition type and everything is working great!  Now if I can find a usb hub that works....

  Thanks for the help.

                       Jim