Full Debian ARM for Under $200

An anonymous reader writes "With minor elbow grease, you can now set yourself up with a complete Debian ARM Linux box for under $200. This is thanks to Peter Korsgaard, who figured out a cool byteswapped kernel hack for the little $99 Linksys NSLU2. Add a $99 USB harddrive, and the tiny, cute, quiet 'Slug' can run any of about 16,000 Debian ARM packages, 24x7, for pennies per month worth of electricity, since ARM is still orders of magnitude more power-efficient than anything x86. Serve files, music, web pages, printers, backups, kernel images, webcams/motion detection, firewalls/routers, wireless access point... or whatever. Oh, did I mention you can overclock the Slug?"

Re:Stereo component

[anthonyclark]

usb audio for $30-$50?

Already hacked

[Anonymous Coward]

The Linksys NSLU2 has already been hacked [tomsnetworking.com] so you can run your own applications on it. :-)

Fans of this should check out openwrt.org

[kaldek]

OpenWRT is a similar thing for the Linksys WRT54G and GS wireless routers. Same goes for the Asus WL500 series. Linux forever! heh

Getting there, but not yet perfect

[glowworm]

This is a cool project and Kudos to Linksys for using Linux as a basis for their NAS and Routers.

But TFA says "built-in 10/100 (not yet supported in litte-endian mode)". If I read this correctly the device works, but the network port doesn't. Hopefully someone can correct me and confirm that the ethernet port does work.

This would be a perfect low-cost always-on media centre server for Slim Devices [slimdevices.com] Squeezebox Server [slimdevices.com]

Re:Fans of this should check out openwrt.org

[raz0]

You can't, however, attach a HDD to the WRT54G(S). I've just ordered myself an Asus WL-500g Deluxe with two USB 2.0 ports. Should be nice for a little web server with OpenWRT, though the performance should be poor. 1.3Mbytes/s I've heard. I guess this Linksys device has better USB performance, it being meant for file sharing, though it's not a guarantee. The WL-HDD (connects a regular IDE HDD) can only transfer 2Mbytes/s.

Re:Already hacked

[jaylee7877]

Yes but having it run Debian opens up a huge number of precompiled applicatons to the NSLU2.

Re:Stereo component

[dartboard]

http://www.slimdevices.com/ [slimdevices.com]

get of their older devices for cheap on ebay, they rock. i've got 5 of them scattered throughout my house (3 different models, all running off the same server software on my debian box).

Re:Linux Sucks!

[superpulpsicle]

It's not our fault you prefer the never-changing BSD and the 1-button MAC mouse. With the second highest install base in the world, you're bound to get breached.

Re:Stereo component

[geekylinuxkid]

but this device doesn't support the 10/100 ethernet card yet... The device has 32MB of SDRAM, 8MB of NOR Flash, built-in 10/100 (not yet supported in litte-endian mode), and dual USB 2.0 ports. so... i guess add another $30 for a USB 10/100 Adapter.

Re:Overclock the slug?

[jaylee7877]

This is not an overclock. For reasons unknown, Linksys chose to clock the unit at 133mhz. The chip is spec'ed by intel to run at 266mhz w/o cooling. So your not overclocking your un-underclocking :-)

Re:Getting there, but not yet perfect

[MindNumbingOblivion]

The key there is the "not yet supported in little-endian mode" (emphasis mine). Endianness [wikipedia.org] refers to which end of the data the processor starts chewing on first. Big endian means it reads the most significant bit first, little means it starts from the least sig bit.

ARM processes things in what is known as a byte-sexual method, ie, either big or little endian. What tfa is saying is that eth0 port should work just fine under Debian ARM in big-endian mode (otherwise having this thing set up as a network storage device is pretty useless unless you're planning on exclusively USB hubbing it).

Re:Getting there, but not yet perfect

[damiangerous]

What tfa is saying is that eth0 port should work just fine under Debian ARM in big-endian mode

What it also says is that Debian ARM only supports little endian mode. I closed the page and now I can't get back to it, so I don't recall if he overcame this problem with the ethernet port.

Ethernet not supported

[alan_dershowitz]

NOTE: First page says that the built-in ethernet isn't working under the Debian install yet. Not thinking this will be useful for most people. I'll be getting one when that's worked out, I need a low-power box to run an HTTP proxy on.

Re:Already hacked - Linux Appliance

[CaptainStormfield]

RTFA. The NSLU has nothing to do with WIFI. Its a NAS device.

Re:Think again, homies:

[pyrrhonist]

How are you planning on accessing those files? Hopes and dreams? Network Attached Storage with no Network Attached is just a hard drive.

If you don't need a distro as large as Debian, you can run Unslung [nslu2-linux.org], which does support the built-in Ethernet.

Unslung uses ipkg for package management and has a simple installation using the native firmware. It is very stable, since it has been available almost since the Linksys product was announced. It is actively being developed and you can talk to the developers via IRC at #nslu2-linux on Freenode.

There is also a Yahoo group [yahoo.com] for running Linux on the NSLU2.

Re:Fans of this should check out openwrt.org

[commanderfoxtrot]

I have one of the older Asus WL500G wireless routers. At various times I've had photo printers and USB disks plugged in to it- it's a fantasic piece of kit. You can make it boot off USB and have SSH as well.

Not blazingly fast, but enough for most of us.

My Compaq laptop can only do about 1.5MB/sec using SSH anyway. FTP is obviously faster.

Re:I've been waiting for this!

[chrysrobyn]

Cheaper, more efficient, faster (Disk I/O wise), more stable, more flexible (apt-get) than the Mac Mini.

Cheaper? Granted, by at least 5x. More efficient? Less power, certainly, can't attest to what efficiency you're shooting for -- if its CPU cycles per cubic inch, not likely. Faster? If I put an identical IDE drive on a firewire bridge, the MacMini will be faster than some USB implementation.

Not to mention the ability to hack it when I want (The warranty is already void!).

Who cares about the warranty when you're doing something like this? With a Mac Mini, you're not voiding the warranty by loading an alternative OS anyway.

My Linux box is a PowerMac 7600 with a 500MHz G3 upgrade card, running PowerPC Debian. PowerPC doesn't have all the support of the x86 world in Linux (and ARM is even worse), but Debian provides a great platform to provide support for us non-x86 platform users.

If you don't want to mod...

[pyrrhonist]

To install Debian on the NSLU2, you'll need to do a serial port modification. If you aren't comfortable with modifying your NSLU2, than I suggest running Unslung [nslu2-linux.org].

Unslung can be installed without using a serial port modification, because it simply uses the built-in Linksys web administration to upgrade the firmware to the Unslung distribution.

Once Unslung is installed, it only takes a matter of minutes to have your NSLU2 running Samba, OpenSSH, Apache, Slimserver, and even Asterisk!

Re:Project page slashdotted, but I have questions.

[pyrrhonist]

Probably about the same, but of course, a external hard drive is going to suck a lot more power...

Unslung supports USB memory sticks, so you don't actually have to use a HD with it.

Also, I have a 40 GB Segate attached to mine that is USB powered.

It still might use more power than the WRT54, but at least you don't need anymore power than is available with the NSLU2's adapter.

Re:Read Slashdot post, Read TFA, Order NSLU2. 5 Mi

[pyrrhonist]

I want to make this a PBX using Asterisk.

I've tried (Asterisk is already ported for Unslung [nslu2-linux.org]). Unfortunately, the NSLU2 just isn't powerful enough for that.
You can get one side of a conversation at most, and it's really jittery.

Try it out anyway - it's an easy install with Unslung!

Re:More Secure?

[SA Stevens]

Yes, but often the 'exploits' people make use of in, say, Samba, involves injecting a little bit of binary code into the stream that runs and gives the cracker root. On a non-x86 platform, the cracker would have to keep around different 'little bits of binary code' to inject. And it's safe to say that script kiddies won't do that. They'll move along to the next box they've found somewhere else to crack.

Re:Stereo component

[Sir_Real]

I'll throw in my vote for gumstix.

http://gumstix.com/spexExpnsion.html [gumstix.com]

They're super small, (shuffleish sized), do usb, ethernet, and other stuff. Runs linux out of the box. XScale processors start at 200Mhz. The price is right too.

x86 power consumption

[slashdot.org]

since ARM is still orders of magnitude more power-efficient than anything x86

This is utter bullshit.

On this page [nslu2-linux.org] it says that at 133MHz, idle, the board consumes 8.6W. There are plenty of embedded x86 boards that run lower power and/or higher clock frequency.

For example, here's a board [ampro.com] that runs at 133MHz, 5 Watt at 100% CPU load.

Re:Practically useless

[Anonymous Coward]

The ARM610 (1993ish vintage) was regarded as more powerful than a 486DX - a contemporary chip. ARM CPU designs do get more powerful, though there are also lower power devices in the current range, but the prices are nowhere near 1998 desktop prices. Look at the Philips LPC2000 series - under $10 for an ARM7 microcontroller with decent memory, flash and I/O.

I don't see why the inability for some people to program the device should reflect on it's capability (and I wouldn't call VoIP trivial)

Limited memory :-(

[Mark Gillespie]

The crippling factor on the NSLU2 is the limited memory. Fine for what it's intended to do, but they to expand it's capabilities, and you hit the wall. Many people have this problem when trying to use it as a UPnP Mediaserver (using Twonkyvision). The hardware is simply not powerfull enough, or enough memory to cope with large scale media databases and heavy network media streaming.

Re:Stereo component

[CrazyWingman]

Gumstix would be great if they would just add USB host capability. I don't care about controlling it over USB; I want it to read data off of a USB keychain drive. :(