Debian Squeeze/Wheezy on Ultra 2?

The BIOS on the 2/4bay always reverts to the internal flash. You could erase the /dev/md0 and unpack a newer Debian on it. You could then drop the kernel and initrd on the internal flash, a 128MB vfat.

To use your netinstall, hold the Backup button on boot will boot your external flash.

Trying to boot with the netinstall on a USB stick, that boots on my desktop machine, I get the BIOS output and then just a couple of lines of underscores.
No menu, no install. It just hangs there :/

It is probably going into VGA mode, which you won't see over serial. Find the kernel args to load it in 80x25 text mode.

That seems like it was exactly what was happening. The boot menu was drawing in a mode the serial console didn't like very well. My solution was to repeatedly bang the escape key during boot, while holding down the backup button as you said, until the console said "Aborted." and "boot: "

At that prompt, "install video=off console=ttyS0,9600n8" kicked it into serial install mode, with working menus and everything. Yes, for some reason the RNDP200U seems to run at 9600 baud by default. Also, increasing the baud rate in the BIOS gave random garbage at random points on the screen, so I kept it at 9600. video=off may not be strictly needed, but it has the nice side effect of disabling the screen TTY's in inittab by default, and I can't use those without a screen anyway.

I put /boot on ext3 on the internal USB storage, / on an inserted harddrive and made sure to run grub-install on /dev/sdc (which was the internal USB) instead of /dev/sda (the first harddrive).

In short, my RNDP200U now runs Debian Wheezy 64-bit, and I really really really need to run off to bed.

Thanks a bunch! :D

Hi, can you please share the details for the serial pinout on the Ultras?
Thanks

There's not much to share in that regard, as the port is readily available on the back of the unit. When viewed from the back, the ground pin is at your left, vcc at your right (most adapters don't need that connected). RX and TX are in the middle. I forget which is which, but you have a 50% chance to get it right and won't break anything by trying :)

Oh, and they communicate on 9600 baud by default.

There is info around the web covering the serial port layout.

http://netgear.nas-central.org/wiki/Rea ... al_Console

All x86 based NAS currently use 9600 8N1 No Flow Control – Some are TTL level UART, some are RS232 All Marvell ARM based NAS use 115200 8N1 No Flow Control – All TTL Level UART All Infrant Sparc based NAS use 9600 8N1 No Flow Control – All TTL level UART

ReadyNAS OS uses Debian Wheezy/Sid 64-bit. It may be worth considering if you don't need Vanilla Debian.

Thanks guys!!!
Installing ubuntu server right now but it's not recognising the network card

It should be a sk98lin/sky2 driver.