Is there a way to get rid of all the netgear stuff and just install vanilla Debian on the Ultra 2?
I connected a serial adapter and I'm able to fiddle with the BIOS and select a USB stick as the startup device. However, when I save and exit the settings, they revert back to booting from the internal USB thing. My USB stick contains the Wheezy netinstall, which I want to run on the box.
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 😕
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.
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 🙂
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
does the wheezy installer find it for you? I've tried both ubuntu 12.04.2 (kernel 3.5) and wheezy and both installer failled. after installing ubuntu with sky2 driver network doesn't work, I get no lights on the card and dmesg says something like "link not ready". reverting to raidator fix the prob so I assume it's not the HW. any help is appreciated.
The Wheezy installer found both network ports in my Ultra 2 without any hassle, and asked which one to use during install, as expected. It's been running smoothly 24/7 since the install.
All I can say is that it worked for me... Perhaps try sniffing the traffic with Wireshark or similar? See if it's actually sending something? Or check the logs on your DHCP server, if available.
If you wipe the Internal flash you would need to make use of USB Boot Recovery to restore it but the EEPROM data would be lost. Without the EEPROM data RAIDiator x86 4.2.x won't work.
A step-by-step of this procedure would be pretty nice... 🙂
1. connect serial cable - verify that you can access the bios and similar over it 2. make an netinstall x86 debian usb stick - verify that it can boot another x86 machine 3. with serial cable connected and usb stick inserted, boot the ultra 2 with the backup-button on the unit held down to boot from usb. repeatedly hit the escape key on your keyboard while doing this to get the "boot:" prompt 4. type in "install video=off console=ttyS0,9600n8" (no quotes) and run through the installer as usual 5. profit
If you wipe the Internal flash you would need to make use of USB Boot Recovery to restore it but the EEPROM data would be lost. Without the EEPROM data RAIDiator x86 4.2.x won't work.
