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Debian on my NSLU2: The Revenge of the Swirl

with 11 comments

After some playing with Unslung on my Linksys NSLU2, I realize it was a “very limited solution” for our needs. We need to share 4 (sometimes 5) NTFS (or others) volumes, where everyone of them is 500GB: this is too much even for the modified firmware of Unslung, unable to read the full directory trees (and the contained files) of my massive movie’s collection.

The Debian/NSLU2's Reign

So, I came back to the Debian/NSLU2 solution. This time, with all the intention to make it work.
It’s quite pointless to report here all the things I did to make it work in the way I want/need. I’ll just write down the most important bits:

• Memory Optimization:
  • remove unused kernel modules (blacklisting in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist)
  • remove unnecessary services/daemons (like exim4 or nfsd)
• Mount volumes “by-label“, to avoid messes in mounting if the /dev files associated with the particular devices changes (reboot, unplug/replug, etc.) (take a look at this page for more info)
• Use the noatime option in the /etc/fstab file to avoid the system to update the “last-access” field in the i-nodes: this is very important to reduce I/O on Flash memories
• Reduce the swappiness of the kernel (reduce the I/O)
• Install fuse and compile ntfs-3g by hand: on Debian stable it’s not available yet (I could have used stable-backports but no one compiled ntfs-3g for ARM :( )
• Configure one Samba share for Disk. This avoid the problem of Samba calculating “free-space” when the sub-directory of a share is the mount point of a different disk.
• De-underclock the NSLU2: the CPU (XScale-IXP42x Family rev 1 (v5l)) is soldered to the board with a pin configuration that makes it run half of is speed. I just removed the Resistor that realize that particular configuration. More info here and here.

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11 Responses to 'Debian on my NSLU2: The Revenge of the Swirl'

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1. Ma che stai inciarmando??? Casa tua è diventata una centrale elettrica!!! :-D

   

   Lelly

   19 May 08 at 15:39
2. Thanks for these bits of knowledge. I have almost the exact same setup as yours and have been trying to get it to work for a couple of days now. I was about to give up altogether before I read your post.

   I have a couple of questions:

   1. How did you install fuse “by hand”?
   This is what I am getting:
   :~# apt-get install fuse
   Reading package lists… Done
   Building dependency tree… Done
   E: Couldn’t find package fuse

   2. Did you compile ntfs-3g on the Slug itself?

   

   Another Illegal

   27 May 08 at 8:10
3. 1) To make “fuse” available as package, you need to activate all the repositories of your Debian. To do that, you need to update your “/etc/apt/sources.list“.

   Configure it to have something like mine:

   deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ etch main contrib non-free
   deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib non-free
   

   After that, the “fuse” package should be available. (Don’t forget to give a “apt-get update“)

   2) Yes, I compiled by hand “ntfs-3g“: first, install the packages “build-essentials” and “linux-headers” (same versione of the kernel you are currently using); second, “download->./configure->make->make install” ntfs-3g.

   Hope this helps.

   

   Detro

   27 May 08 at 8:36
4. It is all working now!

   The NSLU2 is now serving files right and left. Very impressive indeed.

   Thanks a million for your help

   

   Another Illegal

   29 May 08 at 14:51
5. Glad to be helpful ;)

   

   Detro

   29 May 08 at 17:47
6. come hai risolto il problema dello share samba (su debian) e leopard che si schifano?
   con la 3.0.24 di samba e leopard aggiornato, non c’era verso di aprire su osx lo share perché voleva a forza user/pass

   su tiger ovviamente funziona senza il minimo problema

   

   killinmilk

   23 Jun 08 at 13:13
7. ehm… ho configurato samba per usare SOLO username/password: non ti dimenticare cosa ho studiato io ;)
   [SECURITY IS WHEN YOU DON'T TRUST EVEN YOURSELF]

   

   Detro

   23 Jun 08 at 14:25
8. ah ok, quindi il problema per me rimane -.-

   

   killinmilk

   23 Jun 08 at 15:56
9. Sia in Win che in Lin che in Mic (non ci stava bene Mac, non suonava :) ) puoi registrare lo username/pass e… scordartene.
   E continui a mantenere una certa sicurezza.

   

   Detro

   23 Jun 08 at 17:07
10. la discussione è un evergreen…

    ora, dopo aver messo samba con il controllo utenza, ho l’esigenza di mappare un nuovo disco. questa cosa del by-label è meravigliosa (ho visto che si può anche usare by-id)

    (mi sono già scontrato coi problemi che comporta avere due dischi sullo stesso switch usb; ovviamente lo slug voleva partire dal disco sbagliato. mi è toccato metterlo sull’altra porta usb)

    

    killinmilk

    22 Sep 08 at 17:15
11. [...] (ma forse è solo un problema mio, mah). Ho poi aggiunto un nuovo disco, e seguendo quello che aveva fatto detro, ho impostato il file fstab per fare il mount del disco “by-label” (impostando la label [...]

    

    La lumachina « L’angolo della ricotta (salata) - Lisergico andante

    17 Oct 08 at 10:48

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