Native SW vs Archlinux

[baranrj]

Please help me understand what is going on here. On your overview page for the pogoplug pro, the following statement is made:
"The SoC used in these models is not supported in the mainline Linux kernel, and all sources are covered under an NDA with PLX."

Yet at this url: http://download.pogoplug.com/opensource/#PRO You can download a considerable amount of the software that is used in the pro, including the Pogoplug Pro Linux Kernel, the Pogoplug Pro U-Boot Bootloader and a host of other software which I suspect allows the pogoplug pro to do everything except hook up to the pogoplug cloud. All of this software is open source. Is there a contradiction here? The software is clearly not NDA.

In the installation instructions the following is mentioned: "Unlike it's Marvell based brethren, a modern U-Boot has not been created for the OXNAS line as of this time." This may be true, but the Pogoplug Pro U-Boot Bootloader exists and is open source. Has anyone looked into using it to load Archlinux into the pogoplug pro?

Finally, rather than having the archlinux flashed alongside the original kernel in flash memory, I would like to completely replace the original kernal with archlinux, but have the original software completely backed-up so if I wanted to go back to the pogo software sometime in the future, I could do it. Has someone worked out the proceedure to do this?

Thank you for your help.

[baranrj]

replying to my own question, there is some admission of failure to communicate there...

Could someone please give me the proceedure to completely back up the "out-of-the-box" software in the pogoplug pro? I am a noob so please keep it simple. I tried using the software in the box, but it wouldn't recurse (I hope I said that right) the subdirectories.

Has anyone cleared out the old software from the box and just have Archlinux in NAND? I have a thing about "dead" code also it frees up the USB port if you have everything running in NAND.

Once you have Archlinux running in the box, reverting back to the old pppro software should be a piece of cake, right?

Thanks

[kuleszdl]

Hi,

you typically want to use "nanddump" for this. Unfortunately, it is not part of the original ROM so you need to install the binary first. If you put it to a drive mounted via tmpfs (or on a locally attached usb stick or something) you should be able to dump the original, unmodified ROM. You can find some instructions here, they are for the v1/v2/v4 models but should also apply to a B04 model (at least I did my backup this way also):

http://mehl.co/articles/installing_debi ... index.html

Please just follow step1 in this blog otherwise you might break your box with putting incompatible firmware on it!