but those should be general instructions for getting normal Debian installed onto iomega ix2-200 NAS
sudo apt install u-boot-tools
First figure out your usb stick name
lsblk
Then format it with ext2. Replace /dev/sdX1 with your stick name
sudo mkfs.ext2 /dev/sdX1
And mount the usb stick to /mnt folder
sudo mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt
To make things easier, lets change the usb stick permisions to be more open
sudo chmod 777 /mnt
First lets cd to the mounted usb device
cd /mnt
And download files there
wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer-armel/current/images/kirkwood/device-tree/kirkwood-iomega_ix2_200.dtb
wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer-armel/current/images/kirkwood/netboot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-6-marvell
wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer-armel/current/images/kirkwood/netboot/initrd.gz
iomega has a realy old u-boot that does not support seperate device tree files. We will append device tree dtb file end of the kernel images
cat vmlinuz-4.19.0-6-marvell kirkwood-iomega_ix2_200.dtb > vmlinuz_with_dtb
then we have to wrap the kernel and initrd into u-boot image files
mkimage -A arm -O linux -T ramdisk -C none -a 0x00000000 -e 0x00000000 -n initramfs -d initrd.gz uInitrd
mkimage -A arm -O linux -T kernel -C none -a 0x00008000 -e 0x00008000 -n kernel -d vmlinuz_with_dtb uImage
Do not simply unplug the usb drive from your computer!
First lets make sure that all of the files are written to our usb stick by running sync This command my take some time if you have a slow usb stick
sync
Then unmount the usb stick
sudo umount /mnt
- Plug the usb drive into iomega
- power on the device
- in u-boot promt start usb support
usb start
- make sure that your usb drive is detected
usb storage
If its not detected, you can try again by running reset
- Make sure that you can list files on the usb drive
ext2ls usb 0:1 /
- Load files and boot
ext2load usb 0:1 0x00800000 /uImage
ext2load usb 0:1 0x01A00000 /uInitrd
setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200
bootm 0x00800000 0x01A00000
Create a seperate /boot partiton of about 200MB size with ext2 file system!
Installer might tell you that it cant find any kernels to install, simply say continue without a kernel
Mark down the kernel args the installer gives you. Probably you need the root=<device> kernel argument line.
Before rebooting in the installer you have to change into shell window by pressing ctrl+a and then n
chroot /target
and then install kernel
apt install linux-image-marvell
After that we need to create uboot image files
cd /boot
cp /usr/lib/linux-image-4.19.0-6-marvell/kirkwood-iomega_ix2_200.dtb /boot
cat vmlinuz-4.19.0-6-marvell kirkwood-iomega_ix2_200.dtb > vmlinuz_with_dtb
mkimage -A arm -O linux -T kernel -C none -a 0x00008000 -e 0x00008000 -n kernel -d vmlinuz_with_dtb uImage
mkimage -A arm -O linux -T ramdisk -C none -a 0x00000000 -e 0x00000000 -n initramfs -d initrd.gz uInitrd
In u-boot prompt
Start hdd support
ide reset
List files in boot partition
ext2ls ide 0:1 /
If you can see uImage and uInitrd then you can try to boot them
ext2load ide 0:1 0x00800000 /uImage
ext2load ide 0:1 0x01A00000 /uInitrd
setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/<device>
bootm 0x00800000 0x01A00000
in u-boot prompt
setenv loadfiles 'ide reset; ext2load ide 0:1 0x00800000 /uImage; ext2load ide 0:1 0x01A00000 /uInitrd'
setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/<device>
setenv bootcmd 'run loadfiles; bootm 0x00800000 0x01A00000'
And thest if those commands work
boot
If it boothed then you can reboot to u-boot prompt, run those setenv command again and this time instead of boot you save the variables with
saveenv
UNTESTED
Inside normal linux desktop:
sudo apt install u-boot-tools dnsmasq python3
Inside normal linux desktop:
mkimage -A arm -O linux -T script -C none -n boot.scr -d ix200_boot.scr boot.scr.uimg
Inside normal linux desktop:
wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer-armel/current/images/kirkwood/device-tree/kirkwood-iomega_ix2_200.dtb
wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer-armel/current/images/kirkwood/netboot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-6-marvell
wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer-armel/current/images/kirkwood/netboot/initrd.gz
Inside normal linux desktop:
sudo ./bootserver enp2s0 ./
where enp2s0 is your network interface where dhcp server will be run
and ./ is folder where boot.scr.uimg, kernel and other files are
Those commands should boot debian kernel from the dhcp/tftp server
Inside Iomega U-boot console:
env set autoload yes
dhcp
tftp 0x00800000 boot.scr.uimg
source 0x00800000
Installer should run inside a screen program
dont know but the kernel should be on a seperate ext2 boot partiton and from there u-boot should be capable of loading kernel via usb or sata disk
Inside Iomega U-boot console:
sata start
ext2ls sata 0:1
where 0 is disk nr and 1 is partiton number, partiton 0 is whole disk
boot script could be something like this
make sure that kernel, device tree and initramfs filenames are correct
Inside Iomega U-boot console:
setenv bootargs_console 'console=ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/sda'
setenv bootcmd 'sata start; ext2load sata 0:1 0x00800000 /vmlinuz; ext2load sata 0:1 0x01800000 /dtbs/kirkwood-iomega_ix2_200.dtb; ext2load sata 0:1 0x01A00000 /initrd.gz; bootm 0x00800000 0x01A00000 0x01800000'
You can test those commands with
Inside Iomega U-boot console:
run bootcmd
and if everything works then you can permanently save those env variables with this command
Inside Iomega U-boot console:
saveenv