There are a bunch of posts around here, but a word of warning: the toolchain referenced is all much older than what you'll currently find in modern Linux distributions. This is a source of problems all over. I just bricked my last Dreamplug trying to upgrade uboot (a prerequisite to try and install a recent Debian), and openocd nowadays doesn't seem to work properly with these old boards, so to the skip it goes.

The whole plug scene seems to have been swept away by the Raspberry Pi. These forums are dead.

Hi all!

A bit quiet this forum, isn't it?

I've seen what looks like a new version for Mirabox, you can find it at

ftp://downloads.globalscaletechnologies.com/Downloads/Mirabox

anyone knows about it?

Hello,

I have a pretty old DP with lenny on it, I figured it's high time to put something more up-to-date on it but as I see the "latest" SD images available are from 2011.
What's the proper way of getting something from nowadays onto DP, without jtag?

Thanks

NewIt supply the Dreamplug with Squeeze (Debian 6) or Wheezy (Debian 7). When I asked,
they had "no plans" to supply it with a more modern version of Debian.

This describes the main steps (and pitfalls) in getting Debian 8 (Jessie, now Oldstable)
to install and run on a Dreamplug. First, some words of advice:

(a) A working JTAG is essential.

(b) A reasonably modern U-boot is required to boot Jessie.  The default U-boot that comes
    with the Dreamplug won't do. You will need at least U-boot 2014.10. A nice bonus of
    installing a modern U-boot is that it comes with eSata support, so it is possible to
    boot directly from an eSata disk. The debian archives have a U-boot that worked for
    me: search for "Debian U-boot armel". You will need the u-boot.kwb file.

(c) Backup your boot environment; installing a new U-Boot will overwrite it. You will need
    at least the definitions of ethaddr and eth1addr along with other mods you may want to
    preserve.

(d) Backup the boot partition of the internal SD card. It may be overwritten. This isn't
    a problem if you intend to install Jessie onto it, but may cause problems if you
    install somewhere else.
   
(e) The Debian-arm mailing list is a valuable source of information. If you hit a problem
    it is often possible to search the archives, discover that other people have had the
    same problem and how they solved it.

(f) (Mac specific): From Mavericks onwards, it is essentially impossible to use the JTAG
    interface without weakening the System Integrity Protection or disabling it
    altogether.

    The reason is that the standard Apple drivers do not recognise the Vendor Id and
    Product Id of the JTAG, so they don't load when you plug it in. You can get it to work
    by modifying the Info.plist file but it won't load unless you sign the modified driver
    with a "Kext signing certificate" ($99 per year) or disable the Kext signing checks of
    SIP.  The standard mac driver provided by FTDI also requires modification (FTDI say I
    should contact "the vendor" and see if they provide an updated driver). It would be
    very nice if Globalscale provided a signed driver for their hardware, but I'm not
    holding my breath.

    A workaround is to install Jessie inside a VM and then use the JTAG from there. This
    gives experience with the "network install" and also provides a useful platform to
    create the network install SD card that you'll use to install on your Dreamplug.

(g) Learn how to use U-boot: you'll probably be spending quite a bit of time staring at
    the Marvell>> command prompt. It's worth reading part 5 of the Denx manual (search for
    "U-boot manual"; it's the first hit).

(h) If you're planning to use eSata, having the disk in an enclosure that can also use USB
    is very useful.

The big picture is

(1) Prepare a "network install" SD card.
(2) Install a modern U-boot onto your Dreamplug.
(3) Use the prepared card to install Jessie onto your Dreamplug.
(4) Fix up the new boot environment.

(1) I created the card on my Jessie VM by using FDISK to clear the partition table and
    then created  a 500M boot partition and another partition that took the rest of the
    space. I used mkfs.fat to initialise the boot partition and mkfs.ext3 to format the
    second partition.  Then I copied the uImage and uInitrd files plus the u-boot.kwb
    files onto the boot partition. The following has some useful tips.
        http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/install

    Ignore the advice in the debian installation manual about "unpacking the media install
    tarball": there isn't one for armel (A documentation bug has been reported).

(2) is the scariest part. Get this wrong and you may end up with a brick, but the cyrius
    site above has very clear instructions. Afterwards, on my dreamplug, U-boot displays
    the following warning:
        Warning: your board does not use generic board.Please read
        doc/README.generic-board and take action. Boards not
        upgraded by the late 2014 may break or be removed.
    Potentially worrying. Some searching reveals that this "bug" has been fixed in a 2016
    version of U-boot. I decided to stick with the 2014.10 version which, apart from the
    warning, works just fine.

(3) To boot the network installer, you need to load the uImage and uInitrd files into
    memory and boot them. Your previous practice with the new U-boot will come in very
    handy at this point.

NB. There is a lot of advice telling you that you also need a dtb file to boot a Jessie
    kernel. Ignore it. If you do follow it, you may find that your installer kernel panics
    with   "Unable to mount root on an unknown block (0,0)".
    A mail topic from the debian-arm mail archive (Oct 2014: "Dreamplug-Jessie troubles")
    explains the problem. TL;DR just use two boot parameters and ignore the dtb file.

    The Network install can take quite a long time (hours) if you install onto the
    internal SD, but it's quicker if you are using a faster device. After the initial
    choices of which device and how to partition it, there isn't much interaction so it's
    possible to leave it chattering away through the JTAG serial port for as long as it
    takes. There's a point about half way through where you are asked to choose extra
    packages to load (GUI etc.) but that's about it.

    At the end, rather than finishing the installation, it's worth dropping in to a shell
    to see if the boot files are actually where the installer says they are.

    I installed onto an eSata disk. Most of the boot partition was there but the crucial
    uImage and uInitrd files were missing. This mail from debian-arm (Oct 2013 "Debian 7.0
    on Dreamplug basic installation and booting external sd card") explains: Basically the
    files have been put on /dev/sda, which is usually the internal SD card, rather than
    the target media.  Given this mail is about the _previous_ version of Debian to Jessie
    and it still does this, my guess is that the Debian developers don't want to fix it;
    the later messages of the thread imply that it's hard/impossible to get this right on
    every machine.

    If you can't see uImage and uInitrd in your boot partition (it's mounted in
    /Target/boot) then you may need to mount /dev/sda1 and copy the files from there.
    Check the creation date, it should be very recent. You might also want to restore the
    old files (which now have .bak extensions).

    I actually installed Jessie twice: once onto an eSata disk and once onto the internal
    SD card. A GUI-less install fits comfortably onto a 2GB card. I did this because of
    previous experience with booting from eSata, but it turns out not to be neccessary.

(4) The ability of U-boot 2014.10 to load from eSata devices makes a multi-boot
    environment much easier to produce than previously (which involved making a custom
    initramfs and using disk labels to pick the correct root). here is the boot
    environment I'm using. Note that I'm still using labels, but the initramfs is not
    customised. With this environment the Dreamplug first attempts to boot from the
    external SD card, then the eSata device and finally from the internal SD card. The
    delay caused by two failed attempts (fatload and ext2load) to boot from the external
    SD card makes the eSata boot slower but, for me, the extra flexibility is worth it.
   
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marvell>> printenv
addr_ftd=0x6c00000
addr_kernel=0x6400000
addr_ramfs=0x6800000
baudrate=115200
boot_debian=run initialise; $(load) $(addr_kernel) uImage; $(load) $(addr_ramfs) uInitrd; bootm $(addr_kernel) $(addr_ramfs)
boot_eSata=setenv bootargs $(x_bootargs_console) $(x_bootargs_eSata); setenv load ext2load ide 0:1; run boot_debian
boot_sda=setenv bootargs $(x_bootargs_console) $(x_bootargs_sda); setenv load ext2load usb 0:1; run boot_debian
boot_sdb=run fatboot_sdb; run ext2boot_sdb
bootcmd=run boot_sdb; run boot_eSata; run boot_sda
bootdelay=3
clear_kernel_memory=echo Clearing memory; mw $(addr_kernel) 0x0 0xc00000
eth1addr=F0:AD:4E:00:7B:B4
ethact=egiga0
ethaddr=F0:AD:4E:00:7B:B3
ext2boot_sdb=setenv bootargs $(x_bootargs_console) $(x_bootargs_sdb); setenv load ext2load usb 1:1; run boot_debian
fatboot_sdb=setenv bootargs $(x_bootargs_console) $(x_bootargs_sdb); setenv load fatload usb 1:1; run boot_debian
initialise=run clear_kernel_memory; usb start; ide reset
stderr=serial
stdin=serial
stdout=serial
x_bootargs_console=console=ttyS0,115200
x_bootargs_eSata=root=LABEL=dp-rootfs1
x_bootargs_sda=root=LABEL=dp-rootfs4
x_bootargs_sdb=root=/dev/sdb2

Environment size: 1200/4092 bytes
Marvell>>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whilst I was doing this, Jessie changed from stable to Oldstable. The new stable is
Stretch (debian 9). I suspect that the same installation process, with the same pitfalls,
will apply to the new release, but I haven't tried it.

Don

I performed this trick on two of my Sheevaplugs and although it is quite a process, it work and saved my plugs. Thanks! 

Since I upgraded my PC(s) to W 10, the JTAG driver can not be installed/found. I manually point to the directory CDM 2.04.16_SHEEVA where the drivers are unpacked, and I also hav run CDM20824_Setup.exe, but it doesn't work on any of my W10 machines. My old PC with W7 runs the JTAG interface OK, but it is about to collapse. Does anyone know wheter there is a different approach for W10?

Hi,

I am using the Debian Wheezy images with wifi client included in kernel v3.4.4 image on a 0901 dreamplug.

I wanted to add a usb modem ( for caller id ) and I need to recompile the driver for the platform.  Unfortunately, I have difficulty getting the source headers.

Do you still have the kernel sources and headers for that kernel please?

Thank you very much for your help.

After last night's thunderstorm that took out the electricity supply in my area, one of my TP2's failed to come up again. It looks like the internal power supply module failed - probably with a severe mains surge. Whilst I have not looked deeply at the PSU, I suspected it was that since there was no disk activity and no LEDs showing.

Obviously I disconnected the TP2 from the main supply. After much difficulty removing the little setscrews under the rear rubber feet (are they Bristol screws - I couldn't get a good alan key to work) and thus the top case, it was easy to slip the internal PSU out. The larger front ones under the disk drive were easy.

I did some rudimentary checks with a multi-meter and it seemed that the phase (line) fuse was intact (There is no fuse in the Neutral). It seemed that the Bridge rectifier was giving me odd readings but as i don't have a circuit diagram for the PSU that may be OK. So to cut my losses, I decided to discard the PSU and use something else. I thought about using a disused Sheevaplug PSU but that won't fit.

I decided to use a 5V 2.5A wall wart I have in stock. I unsoldered the TP2 PSU from the PCB (take care, there are some very small capacitors between the supply points) with a 40W iron. Cleaned the PTH holes with a solder sucker. I then prepared the wires of the wall wart, tinning them and making sure they would fit the holes. Making sure I had the correct polarity ('+' marked on the board and a stripe on the wall wart's cable), I soldered the wall wart in place. I should have made provision for the power cable before soldering, but that didn't matter too much. I tested the board and disk drive before putting the case back together and all seemed well. I had to cut a small slot in the case for the power wire - I chose to bring the cable out through the empty PSU cavity.

I put the case back together using new crosshead screws rather than the originals to save bother in the future. For neatness, I also put back the 2 pin mains block since it does not have any protruding prongs which might have been dangerous. I did not put a mains wire in to the socket, unnecessary but would not be a bother. Ideally, the 2Pin socket should be blanked off as a reminder.

This might have been a bit of a Kludge but I doubt if spare parts a re available anywhere. This is the first failure of my TP2's in quite a few years and must have been due to the abnormal power surge caused by lightning.

Thanks ursus.
I decided to follow:
https://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/uboot-upgrade/
https://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/install/
and it worked flawlessly.

Try with DD comand with linux machine. You can find many threads about this