installing Arch over an existing OS

[g8jvm]

Hi
I just got a brand new pogoplug and installed debian on it as I've used it before, but the cups pdd files are so cut down , it doesn't want to play.
So thought I'd try Arch.
I reformatted the flash drive ext2 and made it bootable
downloaded the tarball, untarred it , ran sync and rebooted.
and its not doing much, how long does it take to sort its self out and get an ipaddress from the router.
I was pleased to see that if you boot with the flash drive removed it reverts to its default state.
so if need be I can reload
Thanks #
Richard

[g8jvm]

I've now tried Arch three times, even over writing the bootloader uboot.
To avoid any mistakes I copied and pasted from http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv5 ... 2-pinkgray
It is either not booting or its decided to use a default ip-address
I 've even tried running nmap -v -sn 192.168.0.0/16 in case it decided to ignore the dhcp server.
It runs Debian off the same flash drive, now rewritten with Arch;.
It is an E02 model , but does not want to boot Arch !

[moonman]

setup netconsole to see whats going on. Link is in my signature (upgrading u-boot, just look under activating netconsole, and also set machid)

[g8jvm]

Thanks Moonman
I tried to boot back in to Debian afterwards, and that failed, I had to force a reinstall of uboot and that allowed
Debian to load.

But I've problems with something holding ports closed while I try to run Motion. so I try again with Arch.

[g8jvm]

Hi
I've left uboot as per the last install as it was the latest version
added
/usr/sbin/fw_setenv machid dd6
l
/usr/sbin/fw_setenv usb_rootfstype 'ext3'

made directory /tmp/usb
mounted /dev/sda1 /tmp/usb

downloaded the latest tarball in to /tmp/usb
untarred it and rebooted

It looks like its booted its sitting there with the Green Led on, I could see it haggling for an address from the dhcp server
by the lan activity. but as last time I tried Arch it goes no further

Does uboot need reloading even if its the same version if used on a different distro ?
I'd prefer Arch as its closer to Fedora than Debian on architecture .

With netconsole , do the addresses loaded on the pogopig have to be consecutive, as I'll have to change all the dhcp reservations if so, and its not clear which address is what.



Thanks

[g8jvm]

I'm in at last.
Am I correct in thinking so that you can use netconsole the dhcp client has been disabled.
\Setting the ipadress from fw_setenv allowed me in.
But in doing this , isn't this going to screw up routing and domain resolution requests ???????

If dhcp is disabled by default it would be nice to be told about it before installation.

That a day wasted trying to get started .

[moonman]

You are not correct. You set the ip address for netconsole only because it has to have source and destination IPs and they are mandatory. Netconsole starts working even before the kernel is up. So no it doesn't disable DHCP, it was just a coincidence that you eneable netconsole it the plug booted up.

[g8jvm]

Hi
Its a bit more than a coincidence when at least four attempts to load ARCH failed , put the ip address in and it boots.
If its coincidence it needs raising as a bug, as it means the latest tarball is broken
At least the gpio settings are correct so the Led is the correct colour.
But
there are other problems:-
[root@pogopig ~]# elinks http://localhost:631
Illegal instruction (core dumped)
[root@pogopig ~]# elinks -help
Illegal instruction (core dumped)
[root@pogopig ~]# elinks --help
Illegal instruction (core dumped)


So next step

warning: elinks-0.13-12 is up to date -- reinstalling
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Targets (1): elinks-0.13-12

Total Installed Size: 2.67 MiB
Net Upgrade Size: 0.00 MiB

Proceed with installation? [Y/n] y
(1/1) checking package integrity [######################] 100%
(1/1) loading package files [######################] 100%
(1/1) checking for file conflicts [######################] 100%
(1/1) checking available disk space [######################] 100%
(1/1) upgrading elinks [######################] 100%
[root@pogopig ~]# elinks http://localhost:631
Illegal instruction (core dumped)

That makes setting up cups awkward !

Back to booting, if you dont believe me, pleased humour me and take a spare flash drive, and follow the install instructions, on any of the blogs/wikis
ie download and install doozan's latest uboot
force an overwrite to flush out anything in fw_env
it doesn't seem to matter if the flash drive is formatted ext2 or ext3 as long as fw_env is told which
DONT put in any of the ipadresses for nc
load the latest tarball on to the flash drive
and reboot.
Look back at all the posts of not booting , there IS something very flakey.
when your pogo has just sat there for a while with the green led on but no SSH access
put in the fw_env the address which you have reserved for its MAC address on your dhcp server,
pop the flash drive back in and reboot with network access.
I've also done the same here.
If its coincidence then why is it repeatable ??????, it shouldn't be but it is.
I have one of the black E02s where the only physical difference is the change in manufacturer of the NAND.
and purchased new, so never been near a pogoplug site.

[moonman]

The only reason I can think of is that when you activate netconsole it delays the initialization of the flash drive (while U-Boot is trying to determine whether a netconolse server (your computer) is up and running by pinging it). It would make more sense if you used a serial to determine what the problem is. But I did boot up without netconsole before, although I do use a hard drive instead of a flash drive and certain flash drives are known to have problems.

Elinks: Looks like it needs updated upstream. On my desktop running archlinux it doesn's segfault, but it doesn't run as well:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'elinks: error while loading shared libraries: libmozjs185.so.1.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory'), it needs to be reported upstream.

I'll try to build the latest git tree for you.

[g8jvm]

Hi
Ok I still suspect there is a problem which has effected me, but also others installing.
If its a delay added by it pinging the NC server that might explain a few things the r/w time on a HDD are considerably
faster than a flash drive, the Sandisk drive I'm using have 10 MB/s r/w, which is fairly quick.
The HDD r/w times would be limited by the USB2 speed, from memory somewhere around 30MB/s
and an ext3 format would increase the boot up time a bit due to the extra r/w for the journal
A drive where the ext3 journalising has been done boots up quickly, by it that first boot after install the extra time taken, if its marginal, which it does look like.
That would explain comments like it just starting working when there has been boot up problem,
Whether its Uboot or Arch the problem needs to be further investigated and fixed, maybe a few seconds delay in Uboot.