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ReadyNAS Duo v2: apt-get and free P2P clients?
Hello all,
before asking what I intented to ask, I wanted to provide a "feeling" of this unit: a brand new ReadyNAS Duo V2 unit, on which I installed a 2TB Samsung F4 in Flex-RAID/JBOD configuration. After having been an owner of a Maxtor Shared Storage II 500Mb unit for years, I have mixed feelings upon initial configuration. Specifically, transfer times are much - much higher on the RNAS, I was transferring at speeds ranging from 27to 34 Mbytes/sec, compared to the MSS meagre 10... I was struck by the lack of USB print sharing functionality, but that was not big deal.
What was a big deal, was (a) the lack of a package management architecture a la optware (which I had on MSS, after tinkering with some custom firmwares of course) and (b) the fact that there are no free software packages, at least for the P2P functionality I am looking for...
With regard to (a), on MSS II I had optware and from it, rtorrent. I was glad to see very good transfer rates from it, despite the meagre cpu of that thing. AFAIK, there is a similar environment that allows the download of Debian packages, but only on the SPARC-based ReadyNAS models :( I would really love, beg for having this ported to the ARM-based v2. This way, one could install rtorrent (even without the snappy-looking rutorrent interface) and a zillion of useful stuff.
Moving to (b): unless I am wrong here, there is only a transmission client which is not free??? Please, no disrespect to the author himself is intended here. The multiple question marks are mainly due to the fact that a platform in circulation for a year does not have a community to push developmert of FOSS software. Of course there might be development issues, but since at least one developer managed to produce a lot of plugins it might be possible! In the transmission port, the help pages indicate that this sofware is donate-ware. But visiting the page, one should definitely purchase it? I feel a bit stupid purchasing the newer/better version of the NAS, only to find out that even small apps have to be paid for? Comparing to the SPARC, there is super-poutin providing donate-ware software...
Please discuss, perhaps I am deeply misinformed here and I will definitely read onwards. It's just that I thought that a rich optware/opkg environment was either included or easily modified to be included in all NAS boxes, seems I did not study carefully...
before asking what I intented to ask, I wanted to provide a "feeling" of this unit: a brand new ReadyNAS Duo V2 unit, on which I installed a 2TB Samsung F4 in Flex-RAID/JBOD configuration. After having been an owner of a Maxtor Shared Storage II 500Mb unit for years, I have mixed feelings upon initial configuration. Specifically, transfer times are much - much higher on the RNAS, I was transferring at speeds ranging from 27to 34 Mbytes/sec, compared to the MSS meagre 10... I was struck by the lack of USB print sharing functionality, but that was not big deal.
What was a big deal, was (a) the lack of a package management architecture a la optware (which I had on MSS, after tinkering with some custom firmwares of course) and (b) the fact that there are no free software packages, at least for the P2P functionality I am looking for...
With regard to (a), on MSS II I had optware and from it, rtorrent. I was glad to see very good transfer rates from it, despite the meagre cpu of that thing. AFAIK, there is a similar environment that allows the download of Debian packages, but only on the SPARC-based ReadyNAS models :( I would really love, beg for having this ported to the ARM-based v2. This way, one could install rtorrent (even without the snappy-looking rutorrent interface) and a zillion of useful stuff.
Moving to (b): unless I am wrong here, there is only a transmission client which is not free??? Please, no disrespect to the author himself is intended here. The multiple question marks are mainly due to the fact that a platform in circulation for a year does not have a community to push developmert of FOSS software. Of course there might be development issues, but since at least one developer managed to produce a lot of plugins it might be possible! In the transmission port, the help pages indicate that this sofware is donate-ware. But visiting the page, one should definitely purchase it? I feel a bit stupid purchasing the newer/better version of the NAS, only to find out that even small apps have to be paid for? Comparing to the SPARC, there is super-poutin providing donate-ware software...
Please discuss, perhaps I am deeply misinformed here and I will definitely read onwards. It's just that I thought that a rich optware/opkg environment was either included or easily modified to be included in all NAS boxes, seems I did not study carefully...
14 Replies
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- a) apt-get is pre-installed on x86 and ARM, that is it's included in the firmware. Years ago Sparc didn't have SSH available as an option so apt-get wasn't and still isn't included in the firmware for Sparc.
You can of course alternatively also use wget to download a debian package and install it using dpkg
b) The add-on installer isn't free. As for Transmission itself it would be donate-ware to the developers of the Transmission source code. If you look at the Genie App store which is the way things are going on the v2, you'll find the Transmission Genie App there is developed by super-poussin. If you want to try to install stuff manually yourself but you'd need to do the work to make sure it works. When you weigh up your time versus paying for the Genie App I reckon it'd be much cheaper to buy the app. mdgm wrote: a) apt-get is pre-installed on x86 and ARM, that is it's included in the firmware. Years ago Sparc didn't have SSH available as an option so apt-get wasn't and still isn't included in the firmware for Sparc.
You can of course alternatively also use wget to download a debian package and install it using dpkg
So it seems that I'm out of luck, unless I go full throttle to try and do this for the ARM-based v2... Do you know of any optware porting efforts for the v2 platform, or something similar in nature?b) The add-on installer isn't free. As for Transmission itself it would be donate-ware to the developers of the Transmission source code. If you look at the Genie App store which is the way things are going on the v2, you'll find the Transmission Genie App there is developed by super-poussin. If you want to try to install stuff manually yourself but you'd need to do the work to make sure it works. When you weigh up your time versus paying for the Genie App I reckon it'd be much cheaper to buy the app.
Nah, I prefer tinkering tbh :) On the MSS II, I had to install optware of course, but that was not a big fuss considering the high quality of howto's around. I'd be willing to install (from command line that is), test things, and even do reports about bugs/issues to the developer. I never shell out cash for stuff like that. I offer my work in return. Lots of it to be precise.
Had my eyes on this or the qnap 212. I was won over due to the faster cpu and the extremely rugged looks of the v2. But until I figure a way to put free software on this thing, I won't be able to push away this feeling of making a poor decision... And, you know, the only thing I'd like to have is basically rtorrent. Without any interface, just plain old CLI rtorrent.cosmos wrote:
So it seems that I'm out of luck, unless I go full throttle to try and do this for the ARM-based v2... Do you know of any optware porting efforts for the v2 platform, or something similar in nature?
I repeat what I said above. APT is pre-installed on the ARM devices. So this means you can simply install EnableRootSSH (http://www.readynas.com/addons), login as the 'root' user (password initially set to 'admin' password) do an "apt-get update" then start installing stuff via apt.cosmos wrote:
Nah, I prefer tinkering tbh :) On the MSS II, I had to install optware of course, but that was not a big fuss considering the high quality of howto's around. I'd be willing to install (from command line that is), test things, and even do reports about bugs/issues to the developer. I never shell out cash for stuff like that. I offer my work in return. Lots of it to be precise.
Had my eyes on this or the qnap 212. I was won over due to the faster cpu and the extremely rugged looks of the v2. But until I figure a way to put free software on this thing, I won't be able to push away this feeling of making a poor decision... And, you know, the only thing I'd like to have is basically rtorrent. Without any interface, just plain old CLI rtorrent.
Well you can have a go at installing it. If you have issues it's possible someone on the forum may be able to give you some tips.- Is the basic procedure to install a package with APT and then move it to another directory on the /c volume (to save memory) and then link from the old location to the new?
That is basically what I did to install ZNC on a Duo V2, then the new firmware upgrade seems to have broke it. Is there a better way so it survives a firmware upgrade? I had also changed my APT sources to wheezy instead of squeeze before installing ZNC.
Would doing an apt-get upgrade be a bad idea? I assume it would be bad whether it was pointing to squeeze or wheezy. - Yes you need to ensure that your 4GB OS partition does not overfill.
Review what files were installed by the apt-get package. Also see whether any were removed or replaced upon the firmware upgrade.
Yes an "apt-get upgrade" would be a bad idea. It would likely break stuff requiring an OS Re-install (leaves data intact) or possibly even worse a factory default (wipes all data, settings, everything) to be done. mgdm wrote:
I repeat what I said above. APT is pre-installed on the ARM devices. So this means you can simply install EnableRootSSH (http://www.readynas.com/addons), login as the 'root' user (password initially set to 'admin' password) do an "apt-get update" then start installing stuff via apt.
OMG, I didn't read your previous post carefully! Thank you for clarifying this with me. I will avoid apt-get upgrade altogether, just an apt-get install for rtorrent and screen, carefully checking that no other files are overwritten, or installed, that might change behaviour.
You're awesome mate, thumbs up! If I succeed I'll try to share my experience here!- I tried doing an apt-get install libtorrent, but it was not found. Of course I could try an apt-get update, but I have a bad feeling about it :) Do you believe that I could do a local install of libtorrent and rtorrent?
cosmos wrote: I tried doing an apt-get install libtorrent, but it was not found. Of course I could try an apt-get update, but I have a bad feeling about it :) Do you believe that I could do a local install of libtorrent and rtorrent?
Apt-get update only updates package lists and doesnt break anything, apt-get upgrade instead will definately brick it, as lots of core libraries are being upgraded and so on...
Also extreme caution is advised if installing something from debian repos, as packages have dependencies and there is a risk of upgrading core libraries or just having "dependency hell" afterwards.
So you have to carefully work trough dependencies to avoid accidentally breaking ReadyNAS OS...- I know about the caveats of apt-get upgrade, but thought I should stay clear of any updating mechanisms, just to be on the safe side ... But, since you and mgdm state that apt-get update is ok, I'll just try that...
- All "apt-get update" does is download an up to date copy of the packages lists listed in /etc/apt/sources.list. It doesn't install anything.
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