HFS+ and other questions about Archlinux

[hilikustue]

Hi,

I recently bought a Pogoplug Pro and I am bit disappointed about its functionality.
So I decided that I will get my hands dirty and install Archlinux ARM on it. (mainly I want to run a Plex Media Server, sabnzbd and samba on it)

I have an external Hard drive with 2 TB which is almost full. It is formatted in HFS+.

Can Archlinux handle HFS+? Because otherwise I would have to wait until I can afford a second external hard drive, copy that, reformat and so on.

I read many guides and many times the guides say that the process of installing archlinux does not affect the original software installed on the Pogoplug. The question is, can I choose which OS should boot? This way I could retain the Pogoplug services when I know I am gonna be away for a longer period and otherwise boot Archlinux. That would be pretty neat.

If I have my 2 TB Hard drive and a second 4 TB hard drive, can I do a Software Raid 1 with Archlinux? So that the 2 TB drive would be mirrored with the 4 TB drive but leave the spare 2 TB usable?

Thank you in advance for the help.

[WarheadsSE]

Plex is not open source, and as far as I have manged to see, there are no ARM binaries, so that one is out of the question (sorry)

As for choosing which to boot, there is a small script that can be run to "return" to factory OS (aka, it resets the bootloader variables to point at the built-in NAND as compared to the usb/sata drive.)

You can do a software raid 1 I believe, but to be honest, you're not going to see any great performance with it.

[hilikustue]

Thank you for your answer.

I forgot to say in my first post that I am not a complete Linux noob but I am an experienced user. I worked as a user for about a year Suse and Mint and I even had to install some software via compiling and so on using the terminal. But when it goes down to bootloaders and so on, well yeah I am a noob in this area^^

Ok, that leaves Plex out. I am not too fixed on Plex and I think I remember from various searches and reads that an XBMC or Boxee Server thingy should run on the Pogo, right?

Regarding the boot: So theoretically it should be possible to have two scripts at hand, which I could run on the Pogo and therefore change the bootloader and which OS to boot by simply executing one of the scripts? Then I reboot and voila. Or am I thinking this too easy?

The Software Raid 1 shouldn't be too hard for the CPU or USB. Anything above 5 MB/s is absolutely sufficient for my needs anyways.

That leaves the question with HFS+ compatibility.

[WarheadsSE]

I have no HFS(+) drives myself, so I can't speak to that.

I can however easily create a set of 2 scripts for you to use for switching back and forth, yes.

The current 'oxnas-revert.sh' script is a little overkill for just swapping back and forth.

[ankit]

The oxnas kernel you get when you install arch does support hfs+ in read-only mode. I believe it should also work with read-write if you disable journaling on the file system (but I haven't tried this).

Hi,

today I installed Archlinux on an 8 GB Flash Drive (to have enough space to play around).
I already did the first steps and created a 4 GB Swap File (I read that sabnzbd works better with a bigger swap file and since I have an 8 GB Stick...)
I installed cherokee, samba and sabnzbd (I dodn't configure it yet though)
I plugged my external drive into my Mac and deactivated Journaling.
Then I plugged it into the Plug but of course it doesn't automount. How can I activate automount? Or how exactly do I access the drive? The folder mnt and media was empty.

On another note:
I just typed in reboot in the shell and my Plug is flashing its light for 3 minutes now. How long does it take to reboot? Could this be because of the big swapfile?

thank you.


Edit:
After 3 hours of flashing I cut the power to my pogoplug and unplugged the external HDD. Then I plugged it into the power supply again. After another 2 minutes of flashing I wanted to try the tip given in the installation tutorial:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')lace your boot drive in another Linux computer/device and check the file system. If you're still having issues then we'll proceed with starting from scratch on the rootfs.