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Seagate dockstar without using pogoplug12/31/2023 If the USB boot fails, the USB drive can just be mounted on another machine and get fixed.Īlthough it’s been desired by all that mtd0 should not be updated on every boot, there were discussions on whether the old U-Boot bootloader at mtd0 should just be updated. Some users have opted to configure the boot sequence such that it always tries the USB drive, but does not change the bootloader variables in mtd0. Because of technical limitations, the installed mtd3 chained bootloader cannot be made to boot back into the mtd1 kernel if it fails to boot the USB drive. However, the bootloader environment variables are themselves stored somewhere in mtd0, so this switching approach may potentially be a cause of your device getting bricked (if something fails in the update to mtd0). To accommodate a fallback to the original Pogoplug environment in case the USB drive fails to boot, a “switching” approach was made to the bootloader environment variables – that is, at each boot, the variables would be changed between booting the mtd1 kernel and booting a USB drive kernel. The installed mtd3 bootloader can then check for USB drives and boot the Linux kernel from there. In essence, the bootloader environment variables are changed to cause the mtd0 bootloader to chain to another bootloader that gets installed at mtd3. Hacking the DockStar to boot a different Linux system from a USB drive all stemmed from the instructions initially posted at. The remaining partition mtd3 (219 MB) is unused. The second partition mtd1 (4 MB) contains a Linux kernel image, and the third partition mtd2 (32 MB) contains a Linux jffs2 file system. The first partition mtd0 (1 MB) contains a very old U-Boot bootloader. The factory setting has the NAND flash memory set into four partitions. It has 4 USB ports, and unlike other Plug Computers, the ports are powered so you can attach regular USB thumb drives as well as higher-capacity portable drives. The DockStar has 128MB of RAM and 256MB of flash memory. I’m okay with Debian though, and Debian provides packages to this “armel” device even in their “squeeze” testing release. I would have wanted something that I could install Ubuntu on, but Ubuntu does not provide support for the ARM v5 architecture. What attracted me to this device was its size, its low price (compared to other Plug Computers), and support for a standard Linux Debian distribution. The content stays on your hard drive so there are no limits to capacity, resolution, or length, and you can use Pogoplug’s authorization features to turn access to your stuff on and off at any time.I bought a Seagate DockStar a couple of months ago. In separate Pogoplug-related news, the company has announced a new social networking feature that lets you publish photos and videos to Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. If you’ve got a FreeAgent Go and are intrigued by Pogoplug’s capabilities, this is the one to get. The DockStar looks sleeker than PogoPlug’s own bulky wallwart hardware and costs the same–$100. Here’s what Pogoplug’s service looks like in your browser (this image is a rerun from my earlier review): It uses PogoPlug’s service, letting you share folders or entire drives full of photos, videos, and other items across the Net–either to the world at large or to specific friends who you grant access. Presto–your FreeAgent is on the Internet, along with up to three other drives via the DockStar’s USB ports. Seagate seems to like the Pogoplug service, too: It’s announced DockStar, a dock for its FreeAgent Go portable hard drives that you connect to your router via a Gigabit Ethernet port. I said the best thing about it was the slick, simple service that let you get to your files from any browser. Posted by Harry McCracken on Septemat 6:34 pmĪ few months ago I reviewed Pogoplug, a gizmo that lets you connect USB drives directly to the Internet for access from anywhere.
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