ARMedslack on the DNS-323

http://www.armedslack.org/

ARMedslack is a port of the Slackware® Linux distribution to the ARM architecture.

IMPORTANT:

1. Currently, the kernel only works on DNS-323 rev A1
2. This HOWTO assumes that you have configured two separate disks. If you're running RAID, you're on your own.

Telnet into your DNS-323, and download ARMedslack packages from the slackware.pl mirror:

# mkdir -p /mnt/HD_a2/home/armedslack
# cd /mnt/HD_a2/home/armedslack
# rsync -avP inreto.de::dns323/armedslack/get-armedslack.sh .
# ./get-armedslack.sh

Get kernel and ramdisks:

# cd /ffp/boot
# rsync -avP inreto.de::dns323/armedslack/ramdisks .

Boot the installer ramdisk:

# cd /ffp/boot/ramdisks
# ./installer.sh

As usual, wait a few seconds, open a new telnet session and login as root (no password required). If you cannot establish a new connection within a minute or two, the loader might have failed due to memory fragmentation. Reboot your box and retry.

We install to a 'linux' directory on /dev/sda2, and set the ROOT environment variable for installpkg:

# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
# mkdir -p /mnt/linux
# export ROOT=/mnt/linux

We're going to chroot to /mnt/linux later for the main package installation. Make sure we can access the packages, then:

# mkdir -p /mnt/linux/old
# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/linux/old

Some packages (e.g. sysvinit) need to know that we're installing Slackware:

# touch /etc/slack-installer

We first unpack the package tools to get the installpkg utility:

# cd /mnt/linux
# tar xzf /mnt/linux/old/home/armedslack/armedslack-current/slackware/a/pkgtools*.tgz
# rm -rf install

Next, we prepare the chroot by installing a few essential packages:

# cd /mnt/linux/old/home/armedslack/armedslack-current/slackware
# /mnt/linux/sbin/installpkg a/*.tgz

Ignore the warnings.

We can now mount the usual virtual filesystems and enter the chroot.

# cd /mnt/linux
# mount -t proc proc proc
# mount -t sysfs sysfs sys
# chroot . /bin/bash -ls

Ignore the 'cat' error.

Unset $ROOT now:

# unset ROOT

Ready to install ARMedslack packages. First, properly reinstall the a series:

# cd /old/home/armedslack/armedslack-current/slackware
# upgradepkg --reinstall a/*.tgz

Continue with:

# installpkg ap/*.tgz d/*.tgz l/*.tgz n/*.tgz tcl/*.tgz 

This takes a while and installs about 2GB.

Finally, remove the following packages which are specific to a different hardware platform:

# removepkg kernel-modules kernel_versatile

We start with the network config:

# cd
# netconfig

Next, activate the telnet or ssh server:

For telnet, enable telnet via inetd:

# sed -i '/^#telnet/ s@^#@@' /etc/inetd.conf
# chmod a+x /etc/rc.d/rc.inetd

Double check with:

# grep telnet /etc/inetd.conf 
telnet  stream  tcp     nowait  root    /usr/sbin/tcpd  in.telnetd

To activate the ssh server:

# chmod a+x /etc/rc.d/rc.sshd

Now, set a root password:

# passwd

To allow root login over telnet/serial, change /etc/securetty:

# sed -i '/^#[pt]/ s/#//' /etc/securetty

Pick your timezone:

# rm /etc/localtime
# ln /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin /etc/localtime

Next, we adjust the boot files. Since the DNS-323 is headless, we don't need the standard virtual consoles:

# sed -i 's@^c@#&@' /etc/inittab

But we want the serial console. The following sed command removes the comment character from the 's1' entry:

# sed -i '/^#s1:/ s@#@@' /etc/inittab

We also need to disable automatic filesystem checks at boot. We do this by simply replacing /sbin/fsck with /bin/true in rc.S:

# sed -i 's@/sbin/fsck@/bin/true@' /etc/rc.d/rc.S

Also, rc.S will complain if the root filesystem is mounted read-write. Make it continue with:

# sed -i '/read junk/d' /etc/rc.d/rc.S

By default, ARMedslack starts a number of services that we don't need on the DNS-323. To disable them, do:

# cd /etc/rc.d
# chmod a-x rc.acpid rc.alsa rc.pcmcia rc.wireless rc.yp.new
# rm rc.modules-* rc.font.new

Get the inital /etc/fstab:

# cd /etc
# rsync -avP inreto.de::dns323/armedslack/etc/fstab .

It looks like this:

# cat fstab
/dev/sda1       swap            swap    defaults        0       0

sysfs           /sys            sysfs   defaults        0       0
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
devpts          /dev/pts        devpts  mode=0620       0       0
tmpfs           /dev/shm        tmpfs   defaults        0       0

Finally, exit the chroot, and reboot into the firmware:

# reboot

Start slackware with:

# cd /ffp/boot/ramdisks
# ./linux.sh

Because SSH keys are generated during the initial boot, it takes a few minutes.

The linux initramfs will search paritions for linux/sbin/init, and if found, chroot and exec sbin/init.