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Debian 5.0 (Lenny) Released!

timtim — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:14:58 +0000

The new current stable version of Debian Linux 5.0 aka Lenny is available now from debian.org. This release adds official support for the HP MV2120 and various other Orion based NAS devices!

Debian 5.0 (lenny) Release Candidate Available

timtim — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:18:24 +0000

The first release candidate of Debian installer for Debian 5.0 (lenny) is now available with many improvements for NAS devices including the HP MV2120 and numerous other Orion based devices.

See Martins post at cyrius.com here for more information on the NAS support and other changes!

On the news / GPL violation alleged

mindbender — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:12:10 +0000

A while ago while searching for other NAS hacking communities I started to download and request GPL sources for various NAS devices (see gpl.nas-central.org). For those devices without available GPL sources and without any positive feedback from the the manufacturer (read my first post at the gpl-violations.org) lists I started to investigate if it is possible to disassemble the firmwares to proove a GPL violation.

With the help of gotnas I succeeded in creating a script for disassembling the firmware of the Hammer Myshare, a NAS also based on the Marvell Orion SoC. I uploaded the script to the nas-central.org downloadsection and posted instructions about how to disassemble the firmware and how to mount the initrd at the gpl-violations.org lists so it is easily possible to verify the GPL violations (read my second post at gpl-violations.org).

After a while when nothing happened I decided to notify the busybox developers (busybox.net) and linuxdevices.org about the posts and an article was featured instantly (NAS hackers allege GPL violation). A few days later the Software Freedom Law Center announced that it has filed two new copyright infringement lawsuits on behalf of the busybox developers Rob Landley and Erik Andersen against Bell Microproducts, Inc. & Super Micro Computer, Inc (SFLC Files Another Round of GPL Violation Lawsuits on Behalf of BusyBox Developers , linux-watch.com story).

Seems like it wasn`t wasted time

Detailed documentation available for the Marvell Orion ARM SoC`s

mindbender — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:47:05 +0000

Marvell released Datasheets / Functional Erratas / User Manuals which describe the 88F5182 (“Feroceon SoC for Networking Storage”) and the 88F5181 (“Feroceon SoC for High Performance Networking”) ARM SoC`s (former known as Marvell Orion ARM SoC`s) in great detail. Another nice move from Marvell after managing to get support for this SoC`s into the mainline kernel.

2.6.25 released – Support for Marvell Orion SoC`s now in the vanilla kernel

mindbender — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:40:00 +0000

Version 2.6.25 was released on the 16th April 2008. This means that the Marvell`s Feroceon micro-architecture and Orion-SoC`s are now officially supported by the mainline kernel.

Get the kernel sources at kernel.org.

This does not mean that many NAS devices are now automatically supported, but it means that the hard work was already done for most of them. If you own a NAS based on the Orion SoC and you want to add support for it in the vanilla kernel then start by reading the Orion_NAS_customisation_guide. As long as your box does not have any special totally unsupported feature then it should be possible to add support with little effort.