Helios4 NAS

This is for any ARMv7 device that we do not officially support.

Helios4 NAS

Postby Chal » Sun Feb 24, 2019 6:29 pm

Hi Helios4 owners!

Following my initial work to have Arch Linux ARM running on the Helios4 NAS, and after a lot of researches and help from Summers here on this forum and the Kobol Team that makes the NAS, I am very glad to announce that I have a reproducible way to create Arch Linux ARM image files for Helios4 NAS.

Here are two repositories that should allow you to enjoy all of this:

  • * alarm-helios4-image-builder is a Bash script allowing to create an Arch Linux ARM image file ready to be written on a microSD card. The image contains the u-boot bootloader allowing to boot directly on it.
  • * linux-helios4 is a PKGBUILD to make a Linux kernel package for Helios4. It is based on the linux-armv7 PKGBUILD and contains specific patches. Especially to make the second fan detected by the kernel. It is already included in the image file created by the Bash script.

The usual cautionary statement: please keep in mind that it is a work in progress. Use at your own risks. Read carefully the README files from those repositories. While I learned a lot by doing that, a lot of things were new to me, and there are probably mistakes to fix and improvements to bring.

Any feedback and help is welcome. I would greatly appreciate if skilled people could review the Bash script and the PKGUILD to point errors and bring advices.

Enjoy!
Chal
 
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:52 pm

Re: Helios4 NAS

Postby summers » Sun Feb 24, 2019 7:52 pm

Glad you got it to work - and thanks for for the thanks.

In ArchLinux Arm - and we need people to to put in the time and effort - so I'm glad you got it to work. You are the people that keep ArchLinux Arm moving forward.

Regards,

David.
summers
 
Posts: 984
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:56 pm

Re: Helios4 NAS

Postby Chal » Mon Feb 25, 2019 7:24 pm

Thank you Summers, greatly appreciated!
It's a pleasure to contribute to ArchLinux ARM.

More good news should arrive soon. Stay tuned! ;)
Chal
 
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:52 pm

Re: Helios4 NAS

Postby Chal » Wed Feb 27, 2019 11:27 pm

Here are some news about progress for Helios4 NAS support:

Thanks to the information provided by Aditya from the Kobol Team, I added patches to the linux-helios4 package to support LED trigger on disk activity. By the way, linux-helios4 has been updated to Linux 4.20.12.

The last version of the Bash script to build ArchLinux ARM image files for Helios4 includes the last linux-helios4 version. See links in first post.

Enjoy!

PS: for those of you who might be interested, the third campaign to pre-order Helios4 NAS is on: https://blog.kobol.io/2019/02/19/3rd-campaign-started/
Chal
 
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:52 pm

Re: Helios4 NAS

Postby summers » Thu Feb 28, 2019 10:18 am

If I didn't have my NAS325 already - I'd be tempted with one of those, just for the 4 HDD slots.

If using 4HDD can merge them together using btrfs - doesn't do RAID 5/6 yet, but does do the other raid modes fairly easily.

Does the board have any eMMC on board, e.g. can the OS be installed on the eMMC or does it have to be on the HDD?

Edit: OOps see it has a microSD slot, so presumably no eMMC ...
summers
 
Posts: 984
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:56 pm

Re: Helios4 NAS

Postby Chal » Thu Feb 28, 2019 1:22 pm

Helios4 has 4 boot modes. See the Helios4 wiki here: https://wiki.kobol.io/hardware/#boot-modes and here: https://wiki.kobol.io/spi/
Chal
 
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:52 pm

Re: Helios4 NAS

Postby Chal » Wed Mar 20, 2019 8:53 am

Hello Helios4 owners,

Here are some fresh news for you!

The build-archlinux-img-for-helios4.sh has seen a few changes/enhancements recently:
- use the latest version ArchLinuxARM-armv7 as the base system
- set a fixed MAC address. Allows to configure your DHCP server to give the same IP address to your Helios4
- default hostname set to helios4.
- the linux-helios4-headers package is no longer installed by default. You can still install it yourself if needed.
- run sync before unmounting the partition and device loop
- improve cloning speed of the U-Boot repository by getting only the HEAD release

Additionally, the latest version of the linux-helios4 package, which has been updated to version 5.0.2, is now automatically used to build images. And the great work of the Kobol team for Wake-on-LAN support has also been added!

Last but not least, the Helios4 wiki has now a page dedicated to Arch Linux! :D
Look at it here: https://wiki.kobol.io/arch/

Find all of this here:
- https://github.com/gbcreation/alarm-hel ... ge-builder
- https://github.com/gbcreation/linux-helios4

Enjoy!
Chal
 
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:52 pm


Return to Community Supported

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests