NasBerryPi

I’ve built the latest cut of OpenELEC.

Download from our DropBox, updating it is the same as normal for OpenELEC.

Let me know if there’s any issues.

As for the NasBerry…. we are working on it, behind the scene. It’s not going quickly I know, but day-to-day life has to take priority.

Here’s the latest build for OpenELEC.

The GZ has the relevant files so you don’t need to re-create the SD image (this is an upgrade in other words, have a look at the update guide for more info)

Strictly speaking you only need the Kernel and System files, if for some reason the updater does not pick up the update rename the files so they are KERNEL and SYSTEM (upercase)

Download the release (note : moved to dropbox to help with bandwidth)

—– EDIT

As some people have asked, and struggled to make the SD using the DD tools (probably due to slight differences in SD cards size/layout), here’s a quick rundown on how to make your own. (need a unix style system, not tried on MacOSX but should work with little mods)

Unpack the file somewhere

mkdir ~/OpenELEC  

mv ./OpenELEC-r11170-29-05-2012.tar.gz ~/OpenELEC

cd ~/OpenELEC

tar -zxvf OpenELEC-r11170-29-05-2012.tar.gz

Then follow this procedure to make your own SD natively (oh and my system mounts the SD card as /dev/sdb, yours might not so change appropriately, oh and you may have to either sudo su or add sudo to the start of the lines so your SuperUser)

1. parted -s /dev/sdb mklabel msdos (removes all partitions)
2. parted -s /dev/sdb unit cyl mkpart primary fat32 — 0 16
   parted -s /dev/sdb set 1 boot on (creates the Fat32 boot partition)
3. parted -s /dev/sdb unit cyl mkpart primary ext2 — 16 -2 (creates an extended partition with the remaining space)
4. mkfs.vfat -n System /dev/sdb1 
   mkfs.ext4 -L Storage /dev/sdb2 (puts the filesystems on the partitions)
5. partprobe (Get the local kernel to refresh the partinfo)
6. cp start.elf /media/System/
   cp bootcode.bin /media/System/
   cp loader.bin /media/System/
   cp SYSTEM /media/System/
   cp kernel.img /media/System/ (Assuming your SD has mounted as /Media/????, if not obviously replace the names)
7. echo “dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 root=/dev/ram0 rdinit=/init boot=/dev/mmcblk0p1 disk=/dev/mmcblk0p2 ssh debugging” > /media/System/cmdline.txt (this creates the boot parameter file, and has the debugging mode enabled CTRL-ALT-F3/CTRL-ALT-F1)

That should get you up and running, then you can use the standard OpenELEC update method afterwards.

And now back to NasBerry………

A new beta for OpenELEC has been released (info)

I’ll get a new build together in the morning for this, and put the needed files online after making sure it seems to work ok.

Whilst getting to grips with the RaspberryPI I’ve been having a play at building some operating systems.

A couple of people have asked me for this one, so here’s a DD image for it (can write it with Win32DiskImager)

Download OpenELEC-12-05-2012.img.zip - note : moved to DropBox for bandwidth reasons - (and write it in the same way you would any image (so in *nix use DD and in Windows use Win32DiskImager)

I’ve set it up so it (should) fit on a 1gb SD. But obviously use GParted or MiniTool (might) be able to extend the EXT4 second partition.

First boot will take a while (so be patient) after that it should work nicely. There is a bug with the IMDB plugin (ill look into it).

This version is using Eden (XBMC), but I’m looking at getting Frodo (XBMC) up and running.

Let me know if you need anything else.

SSH enabled
Username : root
Password : openelec

Quick how to for getting ArchLinux up and running on RaspberryPi.

Download the image from here

Download QEMU (from ubuntu/linux use package manger to install qemu and qemu-system) or windows download http://lassauge.free.fr/qemu/

unpack the image, and make sure the windows qemu is unpacked into the same folder.

Pull down the kernel http://www.smithae.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/zImage-devtmpfs (thanks to SmithAE his is better than mine) and pop in same folder as image

Windows command to launch

qemu-system-arm.exe -M versatilepb -cpu arm1136-r2 -hda archlinuxarm-01-03-2012.img -kernel zImage-devtmpfs -m 192 -append “root=/dev/sda2″ -vga std -net nic -net user –localtime

Linux / debian

qemu-system-arm.exe -M versatilepb -cpu arm1136-r2 -hda archlinuxarm-01-03-2012.img -kernel zImage-devtmpfs -m 192 -append “root=/dev/sda2″ -vga std -net nic -net user

once the QEMU image is up and running, login with root / root

first thing first,

1. pacman –Syu
2. pacman -S lxde xorg-xinit xf86-video-fbdev
3. xinit /usr/bin/lxsession

That should get LXDE up and running.

Next install yaourt using pacman –S yaourt

now test it out with Chromium doing the following. yaourt chromium-dev and when asked install package 1. If you get any issues you might have to edit the build and add ARM to the cpu support list.

That should get you started, I’ll update as we go.

UPDATE – Worth noting, the disk image has not got a lot of space. I would go through how to expand it, but it’s not super easy, and probably a little out of this post’s league. So let me know if you need the info or I may post the image.

Oh one last update, Kernel 3.2 - zImage-3.2.9. Seems to work fine, however no promises, and there’s still some missing modules, I’ll look into that. After some testing I’d stick with 3.1.9 for the moment.

We’ve set our GitHub up, so feel free to sign up.

There’s nothing in there at the moment (besides a README) but that’s where the project will live.

We are currently prototyping something, and when we are happy we will get it up onto github.

We are just experimenting with the best way to prototype, run on an x86 VM and port to ARM, or use QEMU to run ARM native? If you have any experience with either strategy then we would love to hear from you.

For now though, bare with us while we get upto speed, and if you have anything you can help with, then your more than welcome to email us

You might have noticed that we have got ourselves a nice, shiny, great looking new Logo!

Huge thanks to Julien Dutertre for the design, I’m sure we all agree it’s excellent.

It seems that the two suppliers (RS and Farnell) have struggled with traffic this morning! Farnell is still struggling now, although if your patient, and have a decent F5 key then you can still pre-order yours with them, and there’s always RS on Friday if your lucky.

Either way, let us know if you’ve got one coming and what your looking forward to using it for…. besides a NAS.

Oh and we have something exciting to announce as well soon, a sister site that will extend the functionality of NasBerryPi using, you guessed it, another RaspberryPi.

The other great news announced is that the Version A product will get a RAM bump as well, so it too get’s 256mb of Ram up from the 128Mb that it was originally having.

RaspberryPi have announced that two partners, RS and Farnell will sell the hardware.

Seems that neither of the company’s realised the demand they would get, and the sites are basically down.

Direct(ish) links are RS and Farnell and orders are limited to 1pp.

06:00 tomorrow morning seems to be the time to get you name down for a RasberryPi.

I would recommend being up early, and being ready to press F5 a fair bit.

Oh before you go and ask questions on the post, instead rather pop to the FAQ and Wiki