[Compatibility] Medion Life P89634 (MD 86783)

This forum is for Marvell Kirkwood devices such as the GoFlex Home/Net, PogoPlug v1/v2, SheevaPlug, and ZyXEL devices.

[Compatibility] Medion Life P89634 (MD 86783)

Postby Karmek » Thu Sep 01, 2016 10:24 pm

Hey there!

I have this NAS laying around. It's a Medion Life Cloud P89634 2x2 TB.
It has a Kirkwood SoC but unfortunately running HipServ.

A general question at first, would it be possible to run another distro on it (i.e ARMv5 Kirkwood platforms)?

Details about P89634
root access guide - OpenStora (works)
Karmek
 
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2016 7:11 pm

Re: [Compatibility] Medion Life P89634 (MD 86783)

Postby summers » Fri Sep 02, 2016 11:13 am

Suspect if you can get a device tree and understand how the NAS boots, then yes good chance.

Problem though is those two points - the kernel on it right now seems before the device tree - which means I guess that there is a reasonable chance a device tree exists.

Understanding booting is harder, easiest is to find the UART header on the board, attach a serial device, and see what happens when it boots.

Could be quite a bit of effort.
summers
 
Posts: 984
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:56 pm

Re: [Compatibility] Medion Life P89634 (MD 86783)

Postby Karmek » Fri Sep 02, 2016 12:25 pm

I am not that confident with ARM devices yet but I am willing to challenge myself.

About the UART header I will open the device and look for it. Once I have it I am quite certain to know someone with suitable equipment.

As for the device tree I am not sure where to look for it. May you have a hint for me?
Karmek
 
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2016 7:11 pm

Re: [Compatibility] Medion Life P89634 (MD 86783)

Postby summers » Fri Sep 02, 2016 12:42 pm

Yes could see from the /dev/mtd that the first partition was called u-boot; so thats the boot loader. Didn't seem to be any obvious environment variables, so can't use that to get into uboot. So yes easiest way is to find the uart on the board. Then you can interrupt uboot - and point it to boot of either USB of HDD. That means you can try out a distribution without changing the machine ....

On the device tree, couldn't see anything obvious in:

http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/arch/arm/boot/dts/

kirkwood would give the basics - but odds are you'll need to know how the external pins are wired ...
summers
 
Posts: 984
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:56 pm

Re: [Compatibility] Medion Life P89634 (MD 86783)

Postby Karmek » Fri Sep 02, 2016 3:02 pm

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('summers', 'k')irkwood would give the basics - but odds are you'll need to know how the external pins are wired ...

I found a System.map file in /boot. It's the only file to find there.
Would it be of any use assuming I get another distro running on it?
Karmek
 
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2016 7:11 pm

Re: [Compatibility] Medion Life P89634 (MD 86783)

Postby summers » Sat Sep 03, 2016 1:59 pm

Trying to recall what system.map tells you - its not normally a file I use ....

Most use will be /proc/config.gz if it exists .... that will tell you have the kernel was configured - and that will be useful if you have to do your own home grown kernel.

On option would be to use the current kernel (thats on the second mtd file space), but have it boot to an arch root file system. That should get you up in arch. Problem is that the default kernel is very old, and you would like to update if possible - but if updating you really want to via a device tree ...
summers
 
Posts: 984
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:56 pm


Return to Marvell Kirkwood

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests