Either last week or the week before I was complaining that the wiki pages didn't make it clear enough what to do regarding the baud rate issue with the serial port when installing Debian Linux from a PXE boot.
I've added a few lines to the entries I thought needed clarification and I'm still working on a new page that I should be able to post in 1-2 days about installing Debian Squeeze on a Soekris. But I have also completed something that took a little more work than just documentation (which we all know is hard enough!). I've created a Debian Squeeze image that can be installed directly on a compact flash (CF) card, then plugged into a Soekris box (I'm doing it on a Net5501, so I don't know what else it works on) and booted immediately. I don't know about others, but I don't have a place where I can play around with hardware too much and dealing with the serial cable and USB-to-serial converters and such can be a pain. While I did get that set up, there were the baud rate issues, which set me back hours when I was setting up my Soekris box. So I did something about it. I did a simple Debian Squeeze Net Install and added two packages (resolvconf and xinetd) to it. Then I packed it all in one .tgz file, along with a few other files and a few Perl scripts. The result is a program you can run that will format a CF card (using just one ext3 and one swap partition, but if you want a different setup, you can alter it), copy all the Debian Squeeze files from the .tgz file, then modify some so the system boots and the NICs will work, and leave you with a working Debian Squeeze image. I didn't want to just use dd, since there are times around here I need a CF card for something and can't always find them in the size I need, so I had to allow for different size CF cards. Once you finish installing the OS on a CF card, you can plug it into your Soekris box and let it boot. Then ssh in, using the username and password I provide, and you have a working Soekris box. It takes less than 5 minutes and, since the image is in a tarball and is modified after it is copied over, allows for a lot of flexibility. I'm sure by now someone is saying, "But how do you connect to the box with ssh if you don't know the IP address?" That's simple. The reason I installed xinetd is so it runs a simple Perl program called syslocate. You run sysfind (included in the tarbal), give it the hostname of the Soekris box, and it'll send out ONE broadcast message asking where that box is. The syslocate service I've added will answer back and sysfind will print out the IP address of the Soekris box. Here's a page on my blog explaining it and including download links: http://halblog.com/SqueezeOnSoekris.html I think, now that it's done, it's about the easiest way you'll get Debian Squeeze on a Soekris box. I'd like comments and feedback. At this point I only have one Net5501 for testing, so I know it works there, but I want to be sure it works on other hardware, too. (I think I found ways to handle every config file that uses either MAC addresses or UUIDs.) I will still be adding a wiki page about installing Debian Squeeze, as well as an entry about this install method, but I'd like to know it works for others, too. If you can do any testing on this, or if it would help you to use it, let me know if it works for you. Hal _______________________________________________ Soekris-tech mailing list [email protected] http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
