When I first starting using the Seagate DockStar I thought it was a cool little device. After a few weeks I happened to notice an entire online
community around moding this device and installing Linux. A few different distributions can be installed. I wanted to find one which was
well used and support. Currently I run the entire system via a 8GB USB Drive which is about 17% full. So, beyond the $30 device itself, you don't need
much else.
It all starts with the
Debian install.
The support community around this can be found at
this site.
The above two links are by for the most important, and is here you should start reading. Personally I found it helpful to make a few tweeks to the
system.
1. Assign static IP.
I don't want the IP address to change for the DockStar. Rather, like my main server, I want it to just be fixed. I have segmented my local network
into two parts, one with fixed IPs for Printer/Servers/Access points, and the second for just general computers/devices. So the first thing to do is
get a specific IP assiged. This is done in Debian by editing the /etc/network/interfaces files. Here is an example of what it needs to look like:
auto lo eth0
iface lo inet loopback
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.0.156
gateway 192.168.0.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.0.0
broadcast 192.168.0.255
This will assign the DockStar the address 192.168.0.156 which will NEVER change. Thus you can use this address to ssh(via putty) into the device.
2. Setup other helpful stuff(Timezone/Apache/Java/ftp)
Depending on how you wish to use the DockStar, you might want to install some if not all the following.
configure timezone:
dpkg-reconfigure tzdata (command, generates a console gui type interface to select city)
Apache(most used webserver on the internet):
apt-get install apache2
/var/www has site
/etc/init.d/apache2
Java:
apt-get install openjdk-6-jdk
ftp(needed to transfer files to or from the dockstar):
apt-get install vsftpd
apt-get install ftp
3. Get an X Windows desktop up and running.
First you will need to install cygwin on windows and some software on Linux. Get Cygwin from here.
Install some xwindows desktop on Debian.
apt-get install aptitude
aptitude update
aptitude install xfce4
aptitude install xfce4-goodies
Get ready to rock, you will need to do this each time you want to start the xdesktop.
- connect with putty in X11 forwarding mode
(Connection/SSH/X11 have: Have Enable X11 forwarding checked, X display location set to [ip of main computer you did the ssh from]
- local in cygwin on windows then issue x startup: XWin -screen 0 1600x1200 (large blank window will show up)
- on dockstar in putty window issue xstartup: startxfce4
Finally some general device status:
root@debian:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
Processor : Feroceon 88FR131 rev 1 (v5l)
BogoMIPS : 1192.75
Features : swp half thumb fastmult edsp
CPU implementer : 0x56
CPU architecture: 5TE
CPU variant : 0x2
CPU part : 0x131
CPU revision : 1
Hardware : Marvell SheevaPlug Reference Board
Revision : 0000
Serial : 0000000000000000
root@debian:~# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 125732 84484 41248 0 1264 67044
-/+ buffers/cache: 16176 109556
Swap: 604792 2040 602752
root@debian:~# uname -a
Linux debian 2.6.32-5-kirkwood #1 Thu Aug 26 03:31:56 UTC 2010 armv5tel GNU/Linux
