Booting Debian from USB

[astudent]

I'm trying to boot Debian from a USB flash drive on my Asus WL500gP. Does anyone know if I'm attempting the impossible? I've search high and low in this and other forums and haven't found any details on doing this successfully. If I missed something obvious, please tell me - I'll gladly accept feeling stupid in exchange for an answer :)

According to this site: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianWRT
Under the "What Works Now" section, you can use Oleg's firmware to "actually boot Debian".

I followed the directions on http://wl500g.dyndns.org/ under the "Root file system on the external USB drive" section, with the exception of step 2. I did fdisk, and format the drive for ext3, but didn't copy Oleg's root fs like this:
# copy everything
tar cvO -C / .version bin/ etc/ lib/ sbin/ usr/ www/ var/ | tar x -C /mnt
# create required dirs
mkdir -p /mnt/tmp && mkdir -p /mnt/dev && mkdir -p /mnt/proc && mkdir -p /mnt/mnt

Instead, I copied a working Debian system onto the drive using the instructions here: http://wiki.wl500g.info/index.php/Debian%20Distribution
Specifically I did this:
#

1.1 Steps on PC with Debian (sarge)

* Create debian-distro directory on PC which will contain the distribution.
* cdebootstrap -amipsel sarge debian-distro http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian
* That will fail after a while leaving you with a skeleton.
* Copy entire directory tree to the Asus harddisk, e.g. /tmp/harddisk/distributions/debian.

#

1.2 Steps on Asus

* ssh to your Asus device
* change to debian directory ? where is debian directory? , e.g. /tmp/harddisk/distributions/debian?
* create etc/fstab hosts resolv.conf apt/sources.list
*

chroot /tmp/harddisk/distributions/debian /bin/sh
o (The first three steps are only needed if you need swap space, wl500g needs it)
o mkdir /swap
o dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap/16Mb bs=1024 count=17000
o mkswap /swap/16Mb
o swapon /swap/16Mb
o mount -t proc none /proc
o mount -t devfs devfs /dev
o cd /var/cache/apt/archives/ (if there are no packages here, try also /var/cache/cdebootstrap/ and /var/cache/bootstrap)
o dpkg --force-all -i libc6*deb
o dpkg --force-all -i dpkg*deb
o dpkg --force-all -i libc6*deb
o dpkg -iGREB . (repeat this step until the number of errors have stabilized, most likely at zero)
o check remaining dpkg errors if any
o /usr/sbin/base-config
* you have now an entire Debian installation (incl. apt-get etc.)


Now I'm not sure if those directions were supposed to be for just setting up Debian to be used in a chroot jail, but I couldn't find any other instructions for setting it up so that's what I did.

I can mount the flash drive and chroot to it and run the Debian binaries just fine, including apt-get to download new packages (as a test I used apt-get to download lynx and it worked fine). However, what I'd REALLY like to do is not chroot it, but actually boot from it.

So I did this:
nvram set boot_dev="/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1"
nvram commit

and rebooted and watched as the router made the LED on my flash drive blink a lot (seemingly indicating that it was booting from the flash drive). But even after waiting for the activity light on the flash drive to settle down, I'm unable to get ping responses from the router.

So my question is: is the router not able to boot this Debian drive that I set up, or is maybe the problem just that the network isn't coming up right after it boots Debian?

[astudent]

I made some progress in figuring out what the problem is, although I haven't been able to fix it yet. I thought maybe some people would be interested to hear what I've found out so far.

Instead of continuing to stumble around in the dark I decided to try getting a console so that I could see some startup messages while the router boots.

To get a serial port, I basically did what is described in this thread:
http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=1993&highlight=add+serial

I didn't find any threads talking about adding a serial port to the 500gP, but it's basically the same as how that thread describes it for the 500gx. The main difference that I had to deal with was that there are no headers on the board for the UART on the 500gP so I had to solder those in myself. In the thread for the 500gx some people said they were able to add the serial port without even taking out all the screws on the casing - preserving their warranty sticker.... not possible with the 500gP. If you can solder in headers onto the PCB without removing all the screws then you must be a soldering god.

Anyway, once I got a serial port on UART0 and hooked up my computer, I was able to read the boot messages when it tries booting from my USB stick with Debian on it.


CFE version 1.0.37 for BCM947XX (32bit,SP,LE)
Build Date: ¤T 12¤ë 14 15:54:18 CST 2005 (root@localhost.localdomain)
Copyright (C) 2000,2001,2002,2003 Broadcom Corporation.

Initializing Arena
Initializing Devices.
et0: Broadcom BCM47xx 10/100 Mbps Ethernet Controller 3.90.23.0
rndis0: Broadcom USB RNDIS Network Adapter (P-t-P)
CPU type 0x29006: 264MHz
Total memory: 33554432 KBytes

Total memory used by CFE: 0x80800000 - 0x8089B590 (636304)
Initialized Data: 0x80831700 - 0x80833DE0 (9952)
BSS Area: 0x80833DE0 - 0x80835590 (6064)
Local Heap: 0x80835590 - 0x80899590 (409600)
Stack Area: 0x80899590 - 0x8089B590 (8192)
Text (code) segment: 0x80800000 - 0x80831700 (202496)
Boot area (physical): 0x0089C000 - 0x008DC000
Relocation Factor: I:00000000 - D:00000000

Device eth0: hwaddr 00-17-31-D6-3C-DD, ipaddr 10.84.0.220, mask 255.255.255.0
gateway not set, nameserver not set
Null Rescue Flag.
Loader:raw Filesys:raw Dev:flash0.os File: Options:(null)
Loading: .. 3560 bytes read
Entry at 0x80001000
Closing network.
Starting program at 0x80001000
cpu probe
prom init
cpu report
CPU revision is: 00029006
Primary instruction cache 16kb, linesize 16 bytes (2 ways)
Primary data cache 16kb, linesize 16 bytes (2 ways)
Linux version 2.4.20 (root@omnibook) (gcc version 3.2.3 with Broadcom modifications) #46
Thu May 25 22:40:57 MSD 2006
Setting the PFC value as 0x15
Determined physical RAM map:
memory: 02000000 @ 00000000 (usable)
On node 0 totalpages: 8192
zone(0): 8192 pages.
zone(1): 0 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
Kernel command line: root=/dev/mtdblock2 noinitrd init=/linuxrc console=ttyS0,115200
CPU: BCM4704 rev 9 at 264 MHz
Calibrating delay loop... 263.78 BogoMIPS
Memory: 30068k/32768k available (1776k kernel code, 2700k reserved, 248k data, 72k init,
0k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Checking for 'wait' instruction... unavailable.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
PCI: Fixing up bus 0
PCI: Fixing up bridge
PCI: Fixing up bus 1
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
devfs: v1.12c (20020818) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
devfs: boot_options: 0x1
NTFS driver v1.1.22 [Flags: R/O]
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI enabled
ttyS00 at 0xb8000300 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0xb8000400 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
HDLC line discipline: version $Revision$, maxframe=4096
N_HDLC line discipline registered.
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
PPP Deflate Compression module registered
PPP BSD Compression module registered
MPPE/MPPC encryption/compression module registered
Amd/Fujitsu Extended Query Table v1.3 at 0x0040
number of CFI chips: 1
Flash device: 0x800000 at 0x1c000000
Physically mapped flash: squashfs filesystem found at block 945
Creating 5 MTD partitions on "Physically mapped flash":
0x00000000-0x00040000 : "pmon"
0x00040000-0x003e0000 : "linux"
0x000ec55c-0x003e0000 : "rootfs"
0x007f0000-0x00800000 : "nvram"
0x003e0000-0x007f0000 : "config"
sflash: found no supported devices
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
IP: routing cache hash table of 512 buckets, 4Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 2048 bind 4096)
ip_conntrack version 2.1 (256 buckets, 2048 max) - 344 bytes per conntrack
ip_conntrack_pptp version 1.9 loaded
ip_nat_pptp version 1.5 loaded
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
ipt_time loading
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
IPv6 v0.8 for NET4.0
IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling driver
NET4: Ethernet Bridge 008 for NET4.0
802.1Q VLAN Support v1.7 Ben Greear <greearb@candelatech.com>
All bugs added by David S. Miller <davem@redhat.com>
FAT: bogus logical sector size 60672
FAT: bogus logical sector size 60672
NTFS: Unable to set blocksize 512.
VFS: Mounted root (squashfs filesystem) readonly.
Mounted devfs on /dev
Freeing unused kernel memory: 72k freed
Algorithmics/MIPS FPU Emulator v1.5
insmod: ide-mod.o: no module by that name found
Using /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/usb/usbcore.o
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
insmod: usb-ohci.o: no module by that name found
Using /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/usb/host/ehci-hcd.o
PCI: Enabling device 01:03.2 (0000 -> 0002)
ehci_hcd 01:03.2: PCI device 1106:3104
ehci_hcd 01:03.2: irq 2, pci mem c0025000
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
PCI: 01:03.2 PCI cache line size set incorrectly (0 bytes) by BIOS/FW, correcting to 32
ehci_hcd 01:03.2: USB 2.0 enabled, EHCI 1.00, driver 2003-Dec-29/2.4
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 4 ports detected
Using /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/usb/host/usb-uhci.o
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 00:43:25 May 25 2006
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
PCI: Enabling device 01:03.0 (0000 -> 0001)
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0x100, IRQ 2
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
PCI: Enabling device 01:03.1 (0000 -> 0001)
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0x120, IRQ 2
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
hub.c: new USB device 01:03.2-1, assigned address 2
usb.c: USB device 2 (vend/prod 0xc76/0x5) is not claimed by any active driver.
Using /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_mod.o
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
Using /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/scsi/sd_mod.o
Using /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/usb/storage/usb-storage.o
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
usb.c: registered new driver usb-storage
scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Vendor: 3SYSTEM Model: USB FLASH DISK Rev: 1.00
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
SCSI device sda: 512000 512-byte hdwr sectors (262 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
Partition check:
/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1
USB Mass Storage support registered.
EXT3-fs: INFO: recovery required on readonly filesystem.
EXT3-fs: write access will be enabled during recovery.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: recovery complete.
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
INIT: version 2.86 booting
/etc/init.d/rcS: line 57: 34 Segmentation fault $i start
/etc/init.d/rcS: line 57: 50 Segmentation fault $i start
/etc/init.d/rcS: line 57: 51 Segmentation fault ( trap - INT QUIT TSTP; set start
; . $i )
Activating swap.
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on sd(8,1), internal journal
/etc/init.d/rcS: line 57: 56 Segmentation fault ( trap - INT QUIT TSTP; set start
; . $i )

< a lot more sementation faults, trimmed out because of space limitation in post >

INIT: Id "4" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: Id "6" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: Id "5" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: Id "3" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: Id "1" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: Id "2" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: no more processes left in this runlevel


After that last message the system just hangs there. After 5 minutes it repeats the messages at the end that start with "INIT", but that's all.

So, we can see that it started booting from the USB stick, but kept getting "segmentation fault", which may have led to the hang up at the end. Another time when I tried booting I got something slightly different. Instead of a bunch of "segmentation fault" messages, I got a bunch of "bus error" messages.

Both of these messages seemed to indicate to me that maybe there was something wrong with my USB stick, so I tried the whole process again with an external USB harddrive instead. Unfortunately I got the same thing.

Any suggestions?

[tron1]

I also try to put Debian on my wl-hdd. So this looks quite interestining to me.

What 'bout the kernel? Is it from Debian or is it that from Asus/Oleg?

I guess there are some problems with the usb driver

[astudent]

The past several weeks I've been taking a break from trying to get this to work, but it was just a break - I haven't given up completely yet.

I feel like I do need to post an update as to what I've been able to get working so far because my past post was somewhat misleading...

I said that I was able to get Debian working properly in a chroot jail and that I could use apt-get to install packages. That is true, but I had posted that before trying to use Debian from within that chroot jail for a while.

I got to a point where I was going to give up on trying to get it to boot and just use it from the chroot jail, but after installing a few packages with apt-get, I started getting those same "bus error" and "segmentation fault" messages that I would get when trying to boot! I would get them whenever I tried running any command, including just "ls". Sooo, I can't say that I've gotten it working 100% from chrooting it, since the amount of time that it works is limited. I'm not sure if it's really a time issue or if it's the result of installing certain packages with apt-get. :confused:

I'll post more info as I figure it out. If there's anyone out there who has gotten debian to run successfully on their asus router, please post here and let me know. In particular, I'd be interested in the exact model of router that you're using, as well as the steps you took in getting debian to run.

[eset]

I am also going downt his path...did you have any luck? I am running debian within chroot. I followed this:
http://wpkg.org/index.php/Running_Debian_on_ASUS_WL-500G_deluxe#Downloads

but i couldnt get the custom 2.6 firmware to boot so i am stuck with the chroot...eeek...


eset

[astudent]

Thanks for the link - I tried the firmware and base system that was provided there, but STILL got a ton of bus errors! I'm starting to think that my router is just broken. :(

I think if I didn't get the bus errors than everything would be working fine because the router did manage to boot up, but it's certainly not usable with all the bus error's that it got.

What firmware are you using to chroot to debian?
Have you ever gotten any of these "Bus error" warnings?
Are you using the asus premium or deluxe model?

If you're trying to use an external USB harddrive instead of a USB stick that may be the reason why you aren't able to boot with that openwrt firmware given in the link - when I tried that firmware with my external usb harddrive it wouldn't detect it (oleg's firmware does), but it would detect my usb flash drive.

Below is a paste of what I got from my serial console while booting the router with the firmware and base system provided in the link.

Waiting 10sec before mounting root device...
Vendor: 3SYSTEM Model: USB FLASH DISK Rev: 1.00
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
SCSI device sda: 512000 512-byte hdwr sectors (262 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 512000 512-byte hdwr sectors (262 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
sda: sda1 sda2
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sda
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 132k freed
Algorithmics/MIPS FPU Emulator v1.5
INIT: version 2.86 booting
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 118 Bus error $@
Setting hostname to 'asus-debian'...done.
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 129 Bus error $@
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 132 Bus error $@
* Files under mount point '/dev/shm' will be hidden.
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 151 Bus error $@
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 168 Bus error $@
/etc/rcS.d/S10checkroot.sh: line 22: 175 Bus error ( [ "$PASS" != 0 ] && [ "$PASS" != ""
/etc/rcS.d/S10checkroot.sh: line 22: 176 Bus error ( [ "$FSTYPE" = "nfs" ] || [ "$FSTYPE
4" ] )
Activating swap:swapon on /dev/sda2
Adding 11584k swap on /dev/sda2. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:11584k
.
/etc/rcS.d/S10checkroot.sh: line 22: 182 Bus error which on_ac_power >/dev/null 2>&1
EXT3 (no)acl options not supported
EXT3 (no)user_xattr options not supported
EXT3 FS on sda1, internal journal
* Cannot initialize /etc/mtab.
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 172 Bus error $@
/etc/rcS.d/S12mtab.sh: line 143: 195 Bus error /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh start
* Cannot initialize /etc/mtab.
/lib/init/mount-functions.sh: line 23: 209 Bus error which selinuxenabled >/dev/null 2>&
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 193 Bus error $@
Setting the system clock..
Cannot access the Hardware Clock via any known method.
Use the --debug option to see the details of our search for an access method.
Cannot access the Hardware Clock via any known method.
Use the --debug option to see the details of our search for an access method.
System Clock set. Local time: Sat Jan 1 00:00:20 UTC 2000.
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 236 Bus error $@
Cleaning up ifupdown....
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 242 Bus error $@
Loading modules...
/etc/rcS.d/S20module-init-tools: line 52: 255 Done(1) grep '^[^#]' $MODULES_FILE
256 Bus error | while read module args; do
[ "$module" ] || continue; if [ "$VERBOSE" != no ]; then
echo " $module"; modprobe $module $args || true;
else
modprobe $module $args >/dev/null 2>&1 || true;
fi;
done
All modules loaded.
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 253 Bus error $@
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 258 Bus error $@
Setting the system clock again..
Cannot access the Hardware Clock via any known method.
Use the --debug option to see the details of our search for an access method.
System Clock set. Local time: Sat Jan 1 00:00:22 UTC 2000.
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 265 Bus error $@
/etc/rcS.d/S30checkfs.sh: line 60: 272 Bus error which on_ac_power >/dev/null 2>&1
Will now check all file systems.
fsck 1.39-WIP (31-Dec-2005)
Checking all file systems.
Done checking file systems.
A log is being saved in /var/log/fsck/checkfs if that location is writable.
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 271 Bus error $@
/etc/rcS.d/S30procps.sh: line 22: 278 Bus error which sysctl >/dev/null
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 277 Bus error $@
Will now mount local filesystems:.
Will now activate swapfile swap:done.
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 285 Bus error $@
/etc/init.d/bootclean: line 161: 299 Bus error which find >/dev/null 2>&1
/etc/rcS.d/S36mountall-bootclean.sh: line 13: 298 Bus error /etc/init.d/bootclean
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 297 Bus error $@
Setting up networking.../etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 303 Bus error $@
Configuring network interfaces...ifup: failed to open statefile /etc/network/run/ifstate: No such file o
ory
/etc/rcS.d/S40networking: line 72: 311 Bus error ifup -a
failed.
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 310 Bus error $@
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 320 Bus error $@
/etc/init.d/bootclean: line 161: 326 Bus error which find >/dev/null 2>&1
/etc/rcS.d/S46mountnfs-bootclean.sh: line 13: 325 Bus error /etc/init.d/bootclean
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 324 Bus error $@
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 330 Bus error $@
sed: can't read /etc/ntp.conf: No such file or directory
Running ntpdate to synchronize clockError : Temporary failure in name resolution
Error : Temporary failure in name resolution
Error : Temporary failure in name resolution
Error : Temporary failure in name resolution
/etc/rcS.d/S51ntpdate: line 15: 340 Bus error /usr/sbin/ntpdate -b -s $NTPOPTIONS $NTPSE
.
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 336 Bus error $@
/etc/rcS.d/S55bootmisc.sh: line 16: 347 Bus error chgrp utmp /var/run/utmp
/etc/rcS.d/S55bootmisc.sh: line 16: 350 Bus error which dmesg >/dev/null 2>&1
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 344 Bus error $@
Initializing random number generator...done.
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 352 Bus error $@
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 364 Bus error $@
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 368 Bus error $@
INIT: Entering runlevel: 2
Starting system log daemon: syslogd/etc/rc2.d/S10sysklogd: line 14: 378 Bus error chown
/dev/xconsole
/etc/rc2.d/S10sysklogd: line 58: 379 Segmentation fault start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec
-- $SYSLOGD
.
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 376 Bus error $@
Starting kernel log daemon: klogd.
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 384 Bus error $@
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 390 Bus error $@
/etc/rc2.d/S20ssh: line 7: 392 Bus error ( /usr/sbin/sshd -\? 2>&1 | grep -q OpenSSH ) 2
ll
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 391 Bus error $@
Starting periodic command scheduler....
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 401 Bus error $@
Running local boot scripts (/etc/rc.local)/etc/rc2.d/S99rc.local: line 16: 412 Bus error
.local
.
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 411 Bus error $@
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 417 Bus error $@
/etc/rc2.d/S99stop-bootlogd: line 17: 419 Bus error /etc/init.d/bootlogd stop
/etc/init.d/rc: line 77: 418 Bus error $@

Debian GNU/Linux testing/unstable asus-debian ttyS0

asus-debian login:

[mangoo]

Now, you can run Debian on both WL-500G Deluxe and WL-500G Premium - I corrected the firmware on http://wpkg.org/index.php/Running_Debian_on_ASUS_WL-500G_deluxe

[MMCM]

mangoo: Your approach to debian looks very interesting, since I am currently building my WL-500gx with OpenWrt Kamikaze 2.6 kernel, and there are some problems with it...

Does debian on a 2.6 kernel support the bcm43xx driver? Is it working?
Compared to OpenWrt: http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=7842

If everything is stable with debian, I'd switch immediatly :-)

[mangoo]

mangoo: Your approach to debian looks very interesting, since I am currently building my WL-500gx with OpenWrt Kamikaze 2.6 kernel, and there are some problems with it...

Does debian on a 2.6 kernel support the bcm43xx driver? Is it working?
Compared to OpenWrt: http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=7842

If everything is stable with debian, I'd switch immediatly :-)

Actually, I started that thread...

Kernel panics on wl-500g deluxe, and does not panic on wl-500g premium.

[MMCM]

Actually, I started that thread...


I know that :-)

But what's the difference (that matters) between the gx and gp?

[astudent]

Latest update:

This whole time I had been using my WL-500gPremium with the 32MB RAM expansion trick:
nvram set sdram_init=0x0008
nvram set sdram_ncdl=0
nvram commit
reboot


After finding out that the "Bus error" messages that I kept getting were probably coming from the kernel trying to use memory that didn't exist, I decided to set the memory back to just using 16MB:
nvram set sdram_init=0x000b
nvram set sdram_ncdl=0
nvram commit
reboot


And ever since doing that I haven't gotten a single "Bus error" message again - everything has been working quite well (except for the fact that I'm now running on just 16MB :( )


1.) What do these values that I'm setting to sdram_init mean exactly!? I found http://wl500g.dyndns.org/sdram.html , but does that apply to the WL500gP?

2.) Has anyone else had trouble after enabling the full 32MB on their premium box?

3.) Is it possible that there could be something physically wrong with one of the chips on my board?

4.) I don't remember ever changing my sdram_config. It's currently set to 0x0062 - what's everyone else's set to?