Sheevaplug installer - version 1.0

[Rabeeh Khoury]

This is version 1.0 of the Sheevaplug installer.
Please refer to the wiki on changes -

http://www.plugcomputer.org/plugwiki/index.php/SheevaPlug_Installer

You can download from -

http://www.plugcomputer.org/index.php/us/resources/downloads?func=select&id=5

Credit for this release mainly goes to Ofer (rooster on the forums).

[DamonHD]

Ah, fab!  I was just starting on alpha-6 last night and was unable to get the tarball!

Rgds

Damon

[mgillespie]

If I am running a system updated with the alpha6 instaler, are there any benefits of installing this?  It looks like I will get an updated uboot.  Is there a way to get any benefits without it rewriting my root file system, so I have to start again?

Ubuntu related:  Is there a way to get a list of installed packages, so I can just feed that list back in after doing the full install, and it installs what's needed?

[SuperRoach]

Wow, was about to take my sheeva to a conferernce, and found this bombshell

On first impressions, I've installed win32 CDM drivers for usb serial support, and plugged the sheeva in.
However running the runme.exe on it just exits out straight away.

[Tom]

Rabeeh,

what are the changes within u-boot ? I don't find details about the u-boot update in the wiki.

The reason I ask is that I have exactly the same difficulties with usb hdd which tnagai reported here:
http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=131.0

We already have two delays which we can use within u-boot:
bootdelay = time before automatic boot starts
rootdelay = time between bus scan for devices and loading the kernel

I think we also need a delay within the bus scan for devices (call it "scandelay") because our usb hdds do not start to spin up until "usb start" is executed "scanning bus for devices". Unfortunately the following "scanning bus for storage devices" is executed immediatly before the usb hdd had finished the spin up. bootdelay and rootdelay will not influence this behaviour because they are used before respective after the bus scan.

I also can only boot from usb hdd when I manually power on the usb hdd just before booting the SheevaPlug, keeping the drive awake until "scanning bus for storage devices". On reboot the usb hdd spins down, therefore every reboot fails.

I assume that such a scandelay would fix a whole bunch of problems with usb devices.

Please let us know whether the u-boot update from version 3.4.16 to 3.4.19 bring us any progress with the bus scan problem for usb devices. Or are there any plans to work on this in a future u-boot update ? I am really waiting for a full working usb hdd support because that is the only reason why the SheevaPlug haven't yet replaced my NSLU2.

[knireis]

Wow, was about to take my sheeva to a conferernce, and found this bombshell

On first impressions, I've installed win32 CDM drivers for usb serial support, and plugged the sheeva in.
However running the runme.exe on it just exits out straight away.

same here

[mgillespie]

Wow, was about to take my sheeva to a conferernce, and found this bombshell

On first impressions, I've installed win32 CDM drivers for usb serial support, and plugged the sheeva in.
However running the runme.exe on it just exits out straight away.

same here

The instructions are in a pretty dire state (almost every step has something wrong with it).   This particular problem is because you need to supprt runme.exe with an argument, either runme.exe nand    or runme.exe mmc   (depending on where you are installing the root filesystem.

Other notible errors, are the part about editing the mac addres for the plug, the file no longer resides there, and you have to go hunting for 2 files with totally different filenames...   There are many other errors in the readme, i'll try and take the time to document them..

[westyd1982]

There isn't a Mac OS X option for the installer, but  I can compile most of the source code with very minor modification.  Is there any interest in a Mac version?

The beginning of the runme.php can be modified to find if it is running on a Mac:

$WIN32=0;
$MACOSX=0;
$openocd_cmd="";

/* find out if we run on Linux/Windows*/
/* Should the next line be: if (PHP_OS == "WIN32" || PHP_OS == "WINNT") */
if (strstr($_ENV["OS"], "Windows"))
    $WIN32=1;

if (PHP_OS == "Darwin") {
   $MACOSX=1;
}

The main problem I run into is OS X doesn't have modprobe.  Does anyone know what would be in the variable $out that is produced in the php script when exec("modprobe ftdi_sio vendor=0x9e88 product=0x9e8f", $out, $rc); is run?

[mgillespie]

Just to follow this up, I never managed to get the installer to work on my Ubuntu 9.04 desktop, however it worked first time under WIndows...

Things that perhaps need mentioning:

In the instructions, steps 4 and 5 (and 6) are all the same!

If you get the error:  "openocd/openocd: error while loading shared libraries: libftdi.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"

Then you need to install libftdi1   (apt-get install libftdi1)

[DamonHD]

I'd be very interested in an OS X version: it would help my unbrick my plug right now!

Rgds

Damon

[hansamurai]

I just got my Sheeva Plug today, is this something I should do right away?

[DamonHD]

Have a look here under "Pause for a Second":

http://www.openplug.org/plugwiki/index.php/New_Plugger_How_To

Rgds

Damon

[DamonHD]

Argggh!  So I've moved to my Linux box but I'm having trouble getting PHP for my Ubunty Feisty/Gutsy...

Wouldn't it be more portable to have this script in /bin/sh instead?

Rgds

Damon

[knireis]

I just got my Sheeva Plug today, is this something I should do right away?

Well you don't have to, but if you do it later on, everything will be erased. So i did it right away before setting up my server.

[hansamurai]

Any issues with having the host PC be 64-bit Linux?