STAR9104: Linux Kernel 2.6.29 and Starting FreeBSD port

I’ve finally updated my patch to 2.6.29, the patch can be downloaded from:
http://tinyhack.com/agestar/patch-2.6.29-star.gz

and the config file:

http://tinyhack.com/agestar/config-2.6.29-star

or if you want the image that i already compiled and test (image is compiled with 32 MB memory). This is NOT a FIRMWARE

http://tinyhack.com/agestar/zImage-2.6.29

when i have the time, i will work on creating a new firmware image.

Some changes:

  • The machine ID is now registered in http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/developer/machines/
  • The network problem instability has now been fixed
  • Added new configuration option to select memory size based on your board memory (16, 32, or 64 mb). Note: selecting values larger than the supported size will cause crash.

The other news is that Bruce M Simpson has donated me an Emprex NSD 100 for porting FreeBSD to it. I have started my work, but the progress will be slower from the Linux at the beginning, because:

  1. I am more familiar with Linux kernel compared to FreeBSD kernel
  2. Currently FreeBSD kernel itself doesn’t support many ARM devices yet, so to find an exmple of something I need to look at NetBSD, (and it helps, for example the Faraday 526 processor support is already in NetBSD).
  3. I am rather busy this and coming month (planning to go to Indonesia for about 10 days)

yohanes Mar 29th 2009 12:37 pm agestar, debian, freebsd, linux 17 Comments Trackback URI Comments RSS

17 Responses to “STAR9104: Linux Kernel 2.6.29 and Starting FreeBSD port”

  1. Manuelon 29 Mar 2009 at 4:32 pm link comment

    Nice work! Could you give me a few hints how to create a working firmware image? Can’t be that hard I think…

    Simply flashing the zImage to mtd1 will not work, I think …

  2. yohaneson 29 Mar 2009 at 4:33 pm link comment

    The problem is that they changed the firmware checking, so that people can not flash from the web based interface anymore without correct checksum.

    And yes, you can just flash zImage to /dev/mtdblock1

    dd if=/dev/zImage of=/dev/mtdblock1

    and reboot.

    And of course you must prepare your debian installation first, or else it wont be useful at all.

  3. Manuelon 30 Mar 2009 at 3:25 am link comment

    I am already working with your older Debian Image / would it be enough to simply upgrade all debian packages before flashing the new kernel?

  4. Manuelon 30 Mar 2009 at 3:26 am link comment

    (I never build a debian image from scratch so I have to ask) ;)

  5. yohaneson 30 Mar 2009 at 7:17 am link comment

    @Manuel:

    You don’t need to update the Debian packages if you just want to use the new kernel. The packages and the kernel are mostly unrelated. You can update Debian packages without upgrading the kernel or update the kernel without updating Debian packages.

    Anyway, if you don’t have any problem with the previous kernel version, then you don’t need to upgrade.

  6. dheadon 30 Mar 2009 at 5:28 pm link comment

    Thats greate!
    But… can anybody compile kernel for me with 64Mb of RAM support…?!
    Thx!

  7. Z3r0on 31 Mar 2009 at 9:31 am link comment

    The links are broken atm

  8. Z3r0on 31 Mar 2009 at 9:38 am link comment

    Ah, the links are broken because they are pointing to the wrong subfolder (the href and the text are different):

    http://tinyhack.com/2009/03/29/agestar/patch-2.6.29-star.gz

    not: http://tinyhack.com/agestar/patch-2.6.29-star.gz

  9. yohaneson 31 Mar 2009 at 12:01 pm link comment

    @Z3ro

    Sorry, I’ve fixed that now

  10. Manuelon 31 Mar 2009 at 12:46 pm link comment

    The new kernel works really fine !!! Did a dist-upgrade after flashing the new kernel. Everything works nice, only thing I mentioned were a missing modules.dep for the new kernel, but everything seems to work….

    Thank you again, this little NAS-device is getting really useful :)

    Manuel

  11. microon 31 Mar 2009 at 11:42 pm link comment

    Hi
    Thanks to you Yohanes again :)
    Now I’m using new kernel 2.6.29.
    God bless your hands .
    I wish you success for new works.
    Best Regards.
    Micro

  12. Ravenon 05 Apr 2009 at 12:06 am link comment

    Hi Yohanes,

    Your updated Image with the network patch is god sent.
    Finally this cheap NAS isn’t feeling cheap anymore!!
    Thanks for your great work!

    Raven

  13. Dominikon 22 Apr 2009 at 12:09 am link comment

    Finally done firmware OpenWRT + rootfs, here link

    http://translate.google.pl/translate?prev=hp&hl=pl&js=n&u=http%3A%2F%2Fopenwrt.livenet.pl%2Fdoku.php%2Fopenwrt%3Aporty%3Aemprex&sl=pl&tl=en

    Good Luck :)

  14. microon 03 May 2009 at 4:38 pm link comment

    hi
    i tried so many things .
    but samba network is very slow and freezing.
    today i return to old frimware ;
    http://tinyhack.com/2008/09/20/update-debian-on-agestar-firmware/
    now samba very much good .
    i just writing that feedback to yours to make good.
    thanks again for frimware.
    micro

  15. BoBaon 27 May 2009 at 10:51 am link comment

    hi
    micro, do you have truble with original firmware (samba slow and freezing)?
    i have some truble, and think flash debian on my nas…

  16. halon 10 Jun 2009 at 8:24 pm link comment

    I recently got as a present an unbranded device that, from the outside, looks like an Agestar NCB3AS. Also its model number on the manual is NCB3AS.
    Its firmware version is V04R09, do you think your custom-made firmware could be working on it?
    In the past I had successfully reflashed a couple of routers with dd-wrt firmware, but I don’t own nor I know how to use a serial cable.

    Kudos for your commitment to FLOSS, thank you very much for your efforts!!

  17. Ronaldon 20 Jun 2009 at 6:23 am link comment

    Do you guys know whether this port supports EABI?

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