Debian Slug Notes some more notes for my bad memory for when I have to do it all over again I have come back from OpenWrt to Debian. I wanted a silent slug and thought that OpenWrt might be good without a swap drive and thus I could use a USB Flash memory stick. I soon found I had run out of memory. So these are my notes aimed at running Debian on a Flash drive but with as few writes to swap as posssible. I used QTParted on Fedora to create sda1 as swap and sda2 as ext3 on a 2GByte SanDisk memory stick Many thanks to - http://nslu2.pcprobleemloos.nl/doku.php http://n0tablog.wordpress.com/howtos/configuring-debian-etch-on-slug-nslu2/ # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 /dev/sda2 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro,noatime 0 1 /dev/sda1 none swap sw 0 0 /dev/sda1 /media/usb0 auto rw,user,noauto,noatime 0 0 /dev/sda2 /media/usb1 auto rw,user,noauto,noatime 0 0 touch /.ext3flash echo "0" > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness :Disable 'MARK' messages in /etc/default/syslogd options: add - SYSLOGD="-m 0" - or "-m 1440" - for every 24 hours Disable disk integrity checks. Slug51local:~# /sbin/tune2fs -c 0 -i 0 /dev/sda2 tune2fs 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006) Setting maximal mount count to -1 Setting interval between checks to 0 seconds Speed Check Slug51local:~# dd if=/dev/sda2 of=/dev/null bs=10000 count=10000 10000+0 records in 10000+0 records out 100000000 bytes (100 MB) copied, 9.12616 seconds, 11.0 MB/s

Save Memory Use If you are not using IPv6, you can prevent the module from being automatically loaded by adding the line blacklist ipv6 to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist. The same goes for any other kernel module which is automatically loaded which you know you won’t need lsmod to see what is loaded free to see memory use apt-get remove NFS (and NetaTalk) - seems they were not present on mine

Using a high definition UVC Webcam with Debian this link introduced me to the mjpg-streamer and the Quickcam Pro 9000. That uses OpenWrt but I want to now use Debian - getting it to run was the biggest Linux challenge yet! - also many thanks to the owner of http://www.botdream.com/blog/ for much advice I took ages trying to find how to load "Video for Linux" or "V4L2" by "apt-get install" - fear not ! - it is in the Kernel as installed. When you plug the camera into the USB port the terminal (in ttyS0 by rs232) should report that a UVC camera has arrived. So you need a driver get the UVC driver for Quickcam pro 5000 and 9000 apt-get install subversion - so we can join the Linux Gods and work from the bleeding edge svn checkout svn://svn.berlios.de/linux-uvc/linux-uvc/trunk apt-get install debconf - it was already installed in mine - not sure why I need it.... BUT I eventually found lots of other things to do first before it would work !! from - http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=HowTo_compile_for_Ubuntu_6.06_LTS apt-get install build-essential - that worked apt-get install kernel-headers - OOPS! that one failed to so more Googling- How to get kernel headers from - http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-install-kernel-headers-package/ apt-get update - it did not work if I ignored this one Install linux-header package - apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) - Oh I see!! - kernel-headers are really called linux-headers-$(uname -r) - obvious really...... So in the terminal I see - Slug51local:~# modprobe usbvideo Linux video capture interface: v2.00 But still no camera detected - Ahh! new magic word "insmod" needed - You have to load the newly installed driver module uvcvideo.ko cd /lib/modules/2.6.18-6-ixp4xx/usb/media Slug51local:/lib/modules/2.6.18-6-ixp4xx/usb/media# insmod uvcvideo.ko Now when you plug the camera in you see !!!- usb 3-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5 usb 3-5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device <unnamed> (046d:08ce) input: UVC Camera (046d:08ce) as /class/input/input3 Load and run mjpg-streamer - see the pictures in Firefox This link helped a lot http://mjpg-streamer.wiki.sourceforge.net/Usage so do - svn co https://mjpg-streamer.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/mjpg-streamer mjpg-streamer (it says Checked out revision 69) More preparation work needed! apt-get install subversion build-essential libjpeg62-dev libjpeg62 try - make clean all OOPS!! - it needs the "convert" command Google found http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/62 apt-get install imagemagick make clean all make DESTDIR=/usr install - now a very slow conversion of pictures (why?)- just wait! now copy the contents of the www folder that come with the install to /webcam_www and do - mjpg_streamer -i "input_uvc.so -r 960x720" -o "output_http.so -p 8080 -w /webcam_www" and in Firefox I then looked at 192.168.0.51:8080 And there it was at last - a beautiful picture of an untidy pile of cables on my bench!!!! make things happen after boot Debian startup scripts are more complex than OpenWrt! In /etc/init.d I added a script (with actions at boot up but none at closedown) - #! /bin/sh # # My startup script - webcam etc # note - # update-rc.d -f graham_startup.sh defaults 99 # update-rc.d -f graham_startup.sh remove # # Some things that run always # <commands here> # Carry out specific functions when asked to by the system case "$1" in start) modprobe usbvideo cd /lib/modules/2.6.18-6-ixp4xx/usb/media insmod uvcvideo.ko mjpg_streamer -i "input_uvc.so -r 960x720" -o "output_http.so -p 8080 -w /webcam_www" ;; stop) ;; *) echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/graham_startup.sh {start|stop}" exit 1 ;; esac exit 0 and then, to make this the last script to run, did update-rc.d -f graham_startup.sh defaults 99 modprobe usbvideo cd /lib/modules/2.6.18-6-ixp4xx/usb/media insmod uvcvideo.ko - loads the webcam driver BUT The problem I now have is that if I use - mjpg_streamer -i "input_uvc.so -r 960x720" -o "output_http.so -p 8080 -w /webcam_www" (either in the startup script above or in the command line of the ttyS0 terminal) the terminal hangs even though I can see streaming pictures in Firefox and all other apps work OK. Only if it was a manual command I can then issue a Control-C and the mjpg-streamer stops and the terminal can be used again. Thanks to NN for this - "there is an option in mjpg-streamer to launch it in background, use it as a daemon: [-b | --background]...: fork to the background, daemon mode" So this lets me keep using the ttyS0 terminal - mjpg_streamer -i "input_uvc.so -r 960x720" -b -o "output_http.so -p 8080 -w /webcam_www" Note:- to make mjpg-streamer exit cleanly, use - kill -9 `pidof mjpg_streamer` Run two cameras in graham_startup.sh above replace mjpg_streamer -i "input_uvc.so -r 960x720" -o "output_http.so -p 8080 -w /webcam_www" with if [ -e /dev/video1 ]; then mjpg_streamer -b -i "input_uvc.so -d /dev/video0 -r 960x720" -o "output_http.so -p 8088 -w /webcam_www" mjpg_streamer -b -i "input_uvc.so -d /dev/video1 -r 960x720" -o "output_http.so -p 8089 -w /webcam_www" else mjpg_streamer -b -i "input_uvc.so -d /dev/video0 -r 960x720" -o "output_http.so -p 8088 -w /webcam_www" fi

Running "Motion" with a UVC Webcam with Debian (tested with Quickcam 5000) I did apt-get install motion and loaded Motion and all the suggested sub packages On the ttyS0 terminal I did - motion -n to run in terminal reporting mode BUT THIS IS AN OLD VERSION It ran with an old Quickcam 4000 that uses a built in driver that comes with Debian but it gave errors if I used the Quickcam 5000 (even if that had a running UVC driver) So I went to http://www.lavrsen.dk/twiki/bin/view/Motion/DownloadFiles and downloaded motion-3.2.11.tar.gz In the download directory I did ./configure make make install Now it runs with the Quickcam 5000 !! NB the 5000 has a screen of 640x480 pixels and this needs to be set for the webserver in /usr/local/etc/motion.conf (this is a copy of the default motion-dist.conf) Now to adjust many things in motion.conf - especially where it saves pictures and how often (turn your back for a moment and the disk is full!)

Adding a WIFI dongle Objective Make the Slug mobile and with the lowest possible WIFI power use From eBay I bought a D-Link DWL-G122 IEEE 802.11b/g USB 2.0 High Speed 2.4GHz Wireless Adapter Hardware Ver. : C1 Firmware Ver. : 3.0 And then I followed most of the instructions here to compile the driver - http://3lled.blogspot.com/2008/02/nslu2-dwl-g122-nas-with-wi-fi.html Here is my backup copy of those instructions (in case the link dies) with my own mods (with many thanks) 1) Download and uncompress the driver's source code: $ wget http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/rt73-cvs-daily.tar.gz $ tar zxvf rt73-cvs-daily.tar.gz 2) Edit the Module/rtmp_init.c file to change the RTMPMoveMemory function body to only { memcpy(pDest, pSrc, Length); } $ cd rt73-cvs-AAAAMMDDHH $ vi Module/rtmp_init.c // RTMPMoveMemory must change to: VOID RTMPMoveMemory( OUT PVOID pDest, IN PVOID pSrc, IN ULONG Length) { memcpy(pDest, pSrc, Length); } 3) Compile the driver: $ cd Module $ make arm 4) Copy the resulting rt73.ko module to an appropriate place under /lib: $ su # mkdir -p /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel\ /drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00-legacy/ # cp rt73.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel\ /drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00-legacy/ 5) Copy the rt73.bin firmware to /lib/firmware: # cp rt73.bin /lib/firmware 6) Update module dependencies: # depmod Before losing the working Ethernet connection you must get some tools "iwconfig", "iwlist", etc. (that is the bit no-one tells novices about !) apt-get install wireless-tools 7) Edit the /etc/network/interfaces file according to the configuration of the wireless network. The alias for the DWL-G122 interface will be wlan0. --my version-- /etc/network/interfaces # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5). # The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback # wifi D-Link DWL-G122 allow-hotplug wlan0 iface wlan0 inet static pre-up ifconfig wlan0 up pre-up iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed pre-up iwconfig wlan0 essid "225" # The primary network interface # allow-hotplug eth0 # iface eth0 inet static network 192.168.0.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255 address 192.168.0.51 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway 192.168.0.230 # dns-* options are implemented by the resolvconf package, if installed dns-nameservers 192.168.0.230 dns-search example.org use the tools Slug51local:~# iwlist wlan0 scan wlan0 Scan completed : Cell 01 - Address: 00:0C:41:17:FE:4B ESSID:"225" Mode:Managed Channel:3 Encryption key:off Bit Rates:130 Mb/s now try to connect - - - iwconfig wlan0 essid any or iwconfig wlan0 essid "225" Slug51local:~# ping 192.168.0.50 PING 192.168.0.50 (192.168.0.50) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 192.168.0.50: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=18.5 ms IT WORKS!!! also see this

Adding a USB to rs232 converter serial port It is not possible to use the second rs232 on the Slug CPU (it not fully wired and there are no pins to solder to as on the Sweex router ) - so I bought a USB to serial converter from here It uses a FTDI chip and Debian has the FTDI drivers built into the kernel. It has blue diodes that flash on activity - useful to prove it is working. When I plug it in I see - Slug51local:~# usb 1-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 5 usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice ftdi_sio 1-2:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected drivers/usb/serial/ftdi_sio.c: Detected FT232BM usb 1-2: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0 So from the ttyS0 serial port or a ssh terminal you can write - echo "hello slug">/dev/ttyUSB0 and see the output on the USB/rs232 converter output. The default serial speed is 9600 Baud but you can change it with stty - Slug51local:~# stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 115200 Confirm the setting - Slug51local:~# stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 speed 115200 baud; line = 0; -brkint -imaxbel For linking to an external device you need "raw" mode such that each character sent is immediately handled. If you set "cooked" you only see the preceeding characters when a RETURN character is sent. In ttyS0 I set - Slug51local:~# /dev/ttyUSB0 115200 raw then Slug51local:~# cat /dev/ttyUSB0 ght5ew Where each of the characters above "ght5ew" that are entered into the USB/rs232 adapter on /dev/ttyUSB0 are processed by the Slug one by one as they are typed.

Two GPIO lines for external equipment control?
Control two of the Slug LEDs - 1 for on, 0 for off - D9=disk2 - D10=disk1
echo 1 > /sys/class/leds/disk-1/brightness
echo 0 > /sys/class/leds/disk-1/brightness
echo 1 > /sys/class/leds/disk-2/brightness
echo 0 > /sys/class/leds/disk-2/brightness

Panic - My Debian Slug stopped booting at "Setting the system clock"
Fix - I removed the lithium battery cell for a few minutes - then when I typed "date" I saw the correct date and time - so it had restarted and reset OK.