Debian on the slug

[sawyl]

I spent most of yesterday getting my slug up and running. It was slightly tricker than it should have been because (a) the automatic debian installer is currently broken and (b) I'm a son of Berzerkeley, so finding a system capable of creating ext3 file systems proved to be a bit of challenge. For the record, here's how I went about things:

1. Created a Debian Live CD and used it to boot up one of my spare boxes.

2. Connected my USB disc to the debian box and partitioned the disc as follows:

  Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
  255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
  Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
  
     Device Boot  Start   End     Blocks  Id  System
  /dev/sda1   *       1   120    963868+  83  Linux
  /dev/sda2         121 60801 487420132+   5  Extended
  /dev/sda5         121   132     96358+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
  /dev/sda6         133 60801  487323711  83  Linux

3. Made the file systems in the usual ways:

  sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda1
  sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda6
  sudo mkswap /dev/sda5

4. Brought up the network on the debian box and set a default route.

5. Mounted up the large partition on the USB disc (/dev/sda6) and grabbed the base.tar.gz package:

  wget http://people.debian.org/~tbm/nslu2/etch/base.tar.bz

6. Mounted up the root partition on the USB disc (/dev/sda1) and untarred the base package.

7. Grabbed a slug firmware image that contains the NPE proprietory network driver.

8. Monkeyed around with the image to extract the driver code:

  untar debian-4.0.r0.zip
  slugimage.pl -u -i di-nslu2.bin
  devio '<< ramdisk.gz; xp $ 4' | zcat | cpio -i

The cpio step produced a whole bunch of errors, but these turned out to be harmless.

9. Copied the driver into place:

  cp lib/firmware/NPE-B.01000201 /mnt/lib/firmware
  cd /mnt/lib/firmware
  ln -s NPE-B.01000201 NPE-B

10. Changed /etc/network/interfaces to force the network to use a static IP rather than probing for a dhcp address:

  iface eth0 inet static
  address 10.0.0.4
  netmask 255.0.0.0
  gateway 10.0.0.128

Also set the hostname by changing /etc/hostname.

11. Downloaded the latest debian firmware, put the slug into update mode with a modified vulcan death grip, then flashed the firmware with upslug2 on my BSD machine:

  sudo ./upslug2 -d ep0 -i /arc/tmp/deb/sda1-2.6.18.dfsg.1-12.bin

The -d ep0 was needed because the Berzerkeley box doesn't use eth0 as its primary interface.

12. Connected the USB drive to the slug and rebooted. Confirmed that the system was up on the network and logged in as root (default password is root).

13. Made few basic admin changes:

  passwd root
  ssh-keygen -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key -N "" -t rsa
  ssh-keygen -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key -N "" -t dsa
  tzconfig

Also created a couple of user accounts.

14. Installed some essential packages:

  apt-get update
  apt-get install ntp
  apt-get install sudo
  apt-get install netatalk
  apt-get install avahi-daemon

15. Published netatalk settings with mDNS by putting the following in /etc/avahi/services/afpd.service:

  <service-group>
    <name replace-wildcards="yes">%h</name>
    <service>
      <type>_afpovertcp._tcp</type>
      <port>548</port>
    </service>
  </service-group>

Published ssh settings with mDNS by putting the following in /etc/avahi/sevices/ssh.service:

  <service-group> 
    <name replace-wildcards="yes">%h</name> 
    <service> 
      <type>_ssh._tcp</type> 
      <port>22</port> 
    </service> 
  </service-group>

16. Finally, an updated and rebooted:

  apt-get upgrade
  reboot

A couple of tests showed everything working more or less expected, although there appear to be a few glitchs with netatalk — files disappearing, minor stuttering whilst playing video files — that I need to sort before I start using the slug in anger.