SheevaPlug - not ready for prime time?

[docbee]

First of all I would like to say that I really enjoy working with the plug and porting meteohub to it (www.meteohub.de) was quite straight forward. To make Meteohub running from an SD card on the plug I had to
1) update u-boot by an sd enabled version via tftp
2) make a serial connection to make the u-boot flash happen and to tell the plug how to boot from SD
3) prepare an SD card
To my impression that is a fair procedure for tech savvy early adopters, but if I would have to guide the meteohub community (which is more weather enthusiastic than linux experts) through this, this will be a no go. (you find the much too complicated meteohub installation instructions here: http://www.meteohub.de/joomla/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_details&gid=270&Itemid=29)

On all other platforms (even NSLU2) I found a quite easy way to setup the rig, but the plug is a nightmare in regard to this.

I think a more easy way for setting up a dedicated plug system is a vital precondition to make it a success. For meteohub I would need some prebuild function that looks for a connected USB stick on boot and hands over control to it, when it detects a certain signature. Then USB stick will do the setup (including setup of SD card stickking in the plug and including flashing a more recent u-boot version and doing settings there if needed. Installation should be something like this: Take the plug, insert preconfigured USB stick, insert emtpy SD card, power up, wait until beep/blink, power-off, tear-off USB stick, power-on, have fun.

Please give this a serious thought or the plug will remain geek ware not ready for prime time (imho). 

[docbee]

one more thought...

An alternative might be an external program that detects a SheevaPlug (in stock condition) on the LAN and can make a complete Backup and Restore (including u-boot and it's environment) of it. just my $0.02

[docbee]

one more thought (sorry for thinking in serial)...

Does SheevaPlug installer fit my needs?
1) looks like it brings SD enabled u-boot onto the plug without ftfp hassle
2) looks like u-boot environment settings can be controlled by the installer script, that would be great
3) I guess "runme.sh" can be started automatically, right?
4) unclear remains how/if SD card can be reached from the installer. Is the installer itself SD aware?

any hints are welcome!

[ianjb]

just my $0.02

Just my $0.02. The Sheevaplug Development Kit is just that, a development kit for tech savvy early adopters. I think GlobalScale Technologies is hoping those tech savvy early adopters will create products from the development kits (e.g Pogoplug) that will sell to non-tech savvy consumers.

So here's your chance to make a product!

[Rabeeh Khoury]

Hi docbee,

Thanks for the feedbacks you provided; but i'm still having rough time understanding the nightmare you had install Metohub.

Potentially you should use the Sheevaplug installer, install your distro; if there is a ready package you just install it; if not then you native build your package.

Please shed some light on the difficulties you had.

Thanks,
RAbeeh

[docbee]

Thanks for your swift reply!

My intention is to find a way of installing Meteohub on a SheevaPlug as it comes from the factory as easy as possible. The way I discovered to do that was ok for me, but will not work for a larger customer base. When you have a look at the provided link to the end user documentation, you might probably come to the same conclusion. If you can line out a more easy alternative I would be more than happy.

Reading more, I am just playing with SheevaPlug installer, that also needs a separate Linux box, but at least takes tftp out of the equation. Some questions in regard to the installer:
1) does it need the two serial connections correctly setup? If so the burden of giving udev-rules to the Linux box to make these /dev/ttyUSBx popping up would still be there. This is another hickup for customers (apart from not having a linux box at hand).
2) can I set u-boot environment variables without having the environment flushed before? I would hate to have the user to type in a MAC address as this is another error-prone thing and the info is already there in the box
3) How can I access the SD card with the installer to bring the Meteohub data on it?

Your statement, that SheevaPlug installer makes it easy to bring any Linux distro onto the plug is certainly right, but I am looking for a way to bring a turn-key application onto it and things like the need of a Linux box to issue commands from or typing in anything by means of a terminal programm will simply not work with large non-geek customer base.

Any hints are very welcome!

[Rabeeh Khoury]

In theory the following should work -
1. This is a devkit that is intended for developers to develop their applications, use cases etc... (I know that today it requires some Linux experience, but soon it will be even easier - look below).
2. Once the developer (or company) is satisfied with the results they can contact one of the plug manufacturer, or Marvell and go for mass production without the debug module, maybe less DDR etc... in order to make the plug even more cost efficient.

For your questions below -
1. It needs a single serial connection through the mini usb connector; where both usb to serial and usb to jtag functionality is provided over the same phyiscal mini usb cable. Today it requires Linux (installed or live-cd) but the following 1 to 2 weeks we will provide Windows installer that gives same functionality.
2. This is a developer devkit; today we ask the user type the MAC address part of the uboot-custom.txt file. Potentially it can be changed to first read the MAC address for the env. variable, and then restore it. But regardless, in a mass production scenario you never use openocd to revive a plug since you should never have a debug module, and all firmware updates are done magically through the network, or through SD card.
3. The installer we will release might have SD card support. So potentially you should only change rootfs.tar.gz file in the installer and it will take care of everything else. Again, might have SD card - not for sure.

Regards,
Rabeeh

[docbee]

@ianjb:

I am just developing and selling SW and would like to add the SheevaPlug as an alternative platform for meteohub. I am not going to sell anything physical as I have a global customer base and I will not start shipping tiny boxes worth $99 around the world ;-). The idea is: get a generic SheevaPlug from one of your local dealers and install the application you need yourself in an easy way that is ready for the masses.

@Rabeh:

I don't think that selling dedicated devices will be a success. Having a generic device that can be bought everywhere and can be easily adapted to several applications by the end user is the way to go, from my perspective.

re 1) so I do need the udev-rules, right?
re 2) how can I read the MAC before environemnt gets flashed? can you give me a pointer where in which file to handle this?
re 3) is that a new installer or just the one released as alpha?

Any chance to make installation from a USB stick without any other systems connected? I have read something about a recovery USB stick here in the forum, which sound promising. When I can provide users with an USB stick to plugin in, starting the plug and waiting until installation done, that would be a HUGE step twards prime-time ;-)

[ianjb]

@docbee
Is meteohub available in optware ipkg form or are you able to create an optware package for meteohub? If so you may want to look at http://www.openpogo.com/ (I'm not affiliated with OpenPogo or Pogogplug). The guy at that site provides instructions for install optware ipkgs on the PogoPlug. The Pogoplug is a Sheevaplug based product without the mini-usb/sdio debug board. It's the same price (for now) as the Sheevaplug Development Kit. Ipkg installs can be done from the ethernet connection via ssh and as a bonus it has a cool file sharing application. You have around 450MB of nand for your application.

[docbee]

@ianjb:

Thanks for your ideas!

Meteohub is not avail as ipkg. Meteohub shapes the plug into a dedicated appliance with a web interface, networking setup, etc and is not a package to be installed on the standard linux stack for the linux developer. It is a complete different approach.

Meteohub needs a total of about 4 GB of storage as it is a data logging application. Not having the SD card makes the plug useless. Having USB storage connected via USB HUB (as USB port is mainly needed to connect to weather stations) is not an option as
a) this has turned out to be not reliable (I had that experience with NSLU2)
b) u-boot not being able to boot from USB when other devices are also connected to USB (u-boot bug discussed in this forum).

[docbee]

just to let you know... I started modifying the SheevaPlug installer to make a Meteohub installer out of it.
Reading u-boot environment before flashing and by that having a chance of preserving the original MAC does work.

Unfortunately, reading the NAND via "nand dump" is extremely slow. It takes nearly half an hour to get the 128 KB read. Any idea how to tweak this? Here is the corresponding code:

Code:

proc sheevaplug_read_uboot_env { } {

        # read the u-Boot environment
        sheevaplug_init
        nand probe 0
        nand dump 0 uboot-env.old.bin 0x000a0000 131072
        resume

}

 

[moong]

just to let you know... I started modifying the SheevaPlug installer to make a Meteohub installer out of it.
Reading u-boot environment before flashing and by that having a chance of preserving the original MAC does work.

Unfortunately, reading the NAND via "nand dump" is extremely slow. It takes nearly half an hour to get the 128 KB read. Any idea how to tweak this? Here is the corresponding code:

Code:

proc sheevaplug_read_uboot_env { } {

        # read the u-Boot environment
        sheevaplug_init
        nand probe 0
        nand dump 0 uboot-env.old.bin 0x000a0000 131072
        resume

}

 

docbee I'm in the same situation but with guruplug, have you already solved this? or anyone in this same situation?

[guidol]

To my impression that is a fair procedure for tech savvy early adopters, but if I would have to guide the meteohub community (which is more weather enthusiastic than linux experts) through this, this will be a no go. (you find the much too complicated meteohub installation instructions here: http://www.meteohub.de/joomla/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_details&gid=270&Itemid=29)

Hmm, non-techies could buy a Meteo Sheeva from Newit.co.uk?
http://newit.co.uk/shop/proddetail.php?prod=MeteoSheeva
Ok, you have to pay a little more and for US-people it could be a pain to buy from the UK (time for delivery)