My wife agrees that I can buy another Agestar to hack and use the other one for our network storage. With this new Agestar I can continue my hacks. Currently I am working on building a firmware that can be used to install Debian without serial port. On the first stage, I will build a generic firmware without automatic installer, so the user still needs to do some manual steps to install Debian. So it is something like the manual Debian install on NSLU2 (http://www.cyrius.com/debian/nslu2/unpack.html). Actually because this is generic command line, you would be able to install Gentoo or something else. The next step would be to make an automatic installer like in NSLU2(http://www.cyrius.com/debian/nslu2/install.html).
The main reason why I started with manual installer is because I am not yet familiar with the Debian installer. Currently the manual installer is almost complete, I just need to test it thoroughly to make sure that this will really works without serial port. I hope I can release this in the next few days (or this weekend at the latest).
Lucky You! 🙂 My wife doesn’t want me to do such a strange (like she thinks) things with our storage 🙂
Sounds great! I’m just wondering, what are the advantages of having the NAS with the Debian operating system on there?
@Artem: Yes, I have such a nice wife 🙂 she’s a programmer too, so she understands me
@Tim Loader: The advantage is you can do a lot of things with your NAS.
The ROM (flash) for firmware is only 8 megabytes. It is impossible to fit everything that everybody wants in that tiny space. Installing a full Debian gives you choice to install anything you like.
Some examples:
– Turn your NAS into a web server
– Turn your NAS into an iTunes music server (using MT-DAAPD)
– Turn your NAS into a download station. You can use it to download files on background using any protocol (HTTP, Torrent, and so on).
– Turn your NAS into a mail server (I use it to backup my email, i forward all my emails automatically to my router)
Basically, you should be able to do things like you can do on NSLU2:
http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Info/WhatPeopleAreReallyUsingTheirSlugsFor
Hello I am too interested in installing your firmware. I am using a Coolmax CN-570 and not too happy with it. I would like to use this as a UPNP server, iTunes Sever, etc…. thanks
Is it possible to overclock the Agestar?
It would be very cool if you be successful in your task. The original firmware has several highly unpleasant issues so the cool device do not show its strenghts.
Even some preliminary firmware based on your kernel build will be great!
Helo,
after a long journey accross the the internet and google i landed here. I bought me this system: http://www.agestar.com/english/products/nsb3as1.asp
I thought i can update it to a debian system. But it doesn’t work. I have only a windows PC and it seems, thats the firmeware update mode not works. What can i do?
@Mykeey: On my agestar i activate the upnp Server and i can controll him, when i go to the browser and tipped in YOUR.IP.FROM.NAS:9000
Thanks for Reading
P.S: My German is better than my English 😉
@jez:
Not enough documentation, so I don’t know whether it is possible or not.
@hercemina:
Can you explain your problem about installing debian?
My Problem is easy to explain: I can’t change the Firmeware. Even the Orginal firmeware is able to install. And you must change the Firmware to install debian.
I download now a live linux cd and try your way with Linux.
Is it possible to format disk as NTFS since it’s much more stable and will not crash in the event of power failue. If not, can you recommend another that can use NTFS?
Yes, you can use NTFS if you want to. If you use Debian, please upgrade to Lenny that can read/write NTFS using ntfs-3g.