Running Ubuntu on AS-604T (or any other Linux distro)

[mafredri]

Greetings,

I've been wanting to breath some new life into my old AS-604T (running an up-to-date kernel, among other things). As such, I've been playing around with it and figured out how to run Ubuntu on it, quite successfully.

I'm curious how much interest there might be from others for doing the same? I might try to write some blog posts about the process.

Currently I'm working on writing a control-program for the LCD (LCM) and LEDs on the front panel (and drive enclosure). I still haven't figured out the drive enclosure LEDs, but I can control the front panel LEDs and the LCD (+buttons).

The LCD control program should would work on ADM as well, if that's of interest to anyone.

Unfortunately I've not been able to enable video output over HDMI during boot, nor have I been able to enable USB-keyboard (for boot selection). However, I've figured out the boot process, and when the default ASUSTOR bootloader is disabled, a USB drive can be used to boot up the system. This way, you can just swap the USB-drive depending on if you want to boot e.g. Ubuntu or the ASUSTOR firmware.

Anyway, that's it for now.


Cheers,
Mathias

[snoopy]

interesting, how to disable the asustor bootloader, I just connected the USB serial cable to the AS-608T serial port.

[mafredri]

Hi snoopy, I have a repository with notes from when I was doing this. They're not very well organized, but may help you:

https://github.com/mafredri/asustor_as-6xxt

You might especially want to take a look at: https://github.com/mafredri/asustor_as- ... er/boot.md

[snoopy]

Thanks, very informative.

the NAS files transfer speed variation is quite large (just internal harddisk file copy, it is not networking issue), start from >100MB/s, and then suddenly drop alot, and resume transfer again, quite unsteady, I want to try different OS, to see whether it is hardware or software issue.

Is it just rename the Linux distro EFI/boot/BOOTX64.EFI to asloader.efi ? I did try removed the USB DOM, and plug in the Linux USB stick, but it cannot boot.
It just keep looping, looking for bootable device

Code: Select all

[AS] DevicePath=PCiRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1A, 0x7)/USB(0x0, 0x0)/USB(0x0,0x0) (0/6) (Order=0 Loop=27)
[AS] DevicePath=PCiRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1A, 0x7)/Sata(0xFF,0xFF,0xFF) (1/6) (Order=1 Loop=27)
[AS] DevicePath=PCiRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1A, 0x7)/USB(0x0, 0x0)/USB(0x2,0x0) (2/6) (Order=2 Loop=27)
[AS] DevicePath=PCiRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1A, 0x7)/USB(0x0, 0x0)/USB(0x3,0x0) (3/6) (Order=3 Loop=27)
[AS] DevicePath=PCiRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1A, 0x7)/USB(0x0, 0x0)/USB(0x0,0x0) (4/6) (Order=4 Loop=27)
[AS] DevicePath=PCiRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1A, 0x7)/USB(0x0, 0x0)/USB(0x1,0x0) (5/6) (Order=5 Loop=27)
[AS] DevicePath=PCiRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1A, 0x7)/USB(0x0, 0x0)/USB(0x0,0x0) (0/6) (Order=0 Loop=28)
...
[AS] DevicePath=PCiRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1A, 0x7)/USB(0x0, 0x0)/USB(0x0,0x0) (0/6) (Order=0 Loop=33)
...


I want to ask how to rename back the asloader.efi.disabled to asloader.efi, if I do not have a customized bootable USB, I am afraid I have to take out the USB DOM and clone it in another linux computer first.

[mafredri]

Have you formatted your usb stick as exfat / vfat / fat32? If you place asloader.efi (either original or bootx64) on a fat partition inside boot (/boot/asloader.efi), it should detect it just fine.

[snoopy]

Have you formatted your usb stick as exfat / vfat / fat32? If you place asloader.efi (either original or bootx64) on a fat partition inside boot (/boot/asloader.efi), it should detect it just fine.

thanks for your help

technical support send me a small test program to test the NAS many years ago.

If my memory is correct

power on + holding the "front Panel USB Port Button" will boot from the USB 2.0 port (Pci(0x1A, 0x7) is USB2 EHCI Controller #2), (do not need to touch the USB DOM)
the program will blinking the Front Panel LED.

the bootable LED blinking test program files hierarchy

Code: Select all

EFI/boot/startup.nsh
boot/TwinkleLed.efi
boot/asloader.efi


startup.nsh

Code: Select all

fs0:
cd boot
TwinkleLed

fs1:
cd boot
TwinkleLed

fs2:
cd boot
TwinkleLed

fs3:
cd boot
TwinkleLed

fs4:
cd boot
TwinkleLed

fs5:
cd boot
TwinkleLed


the trick is place the asloader.efi in the /boot directory

thanks again

[mafredri]

power on + holding the "front Panel USB Port Button" will boot from the USB 2.0 port (Pci(0x1A, 0x7) is USB2 EHCI Controller #2), (do not need to touch the USB DOM)

Oh, that's amazing information, thanks! With this I dare to write custom grub EFI onto USB DOM and can still recover in case of trouble, fantastic.

Glad I could help you as well ^_^.

[snoopy]

power on + holding the "front Panel USB Port Button" will boot from the USB 2.0 port (Pci(0x1A, 0x7) is USB2 EHCI Controller #2), (do not need to touch the USB DOM)

Oh, that's amazing information, thanks! With this I dare to write custom grub EFI onto USB DOM and can still recover in case of trouble, fantastic.

Glad I could help you as well ^_^.

for safety reason, I would removed the USB DOM, once boot up other OS, the USB DOM is no longer hidden, I am afraid I would accidentally deleted the files

[mafredri]

for safety reason, I would removed the USB DOM, once boot up other OS, the USB DOM is no longer hidden, I am afraid I would accidentally deleted the files

I have backups, if you're ever in trouble .

[snoopy]

for safety reason, I would removed the USB DOM, once boot up other OS, the USB DOM is no longer hidden, I am afraid I would accidentally deleted the files

I have backups, if you're ever in trouble .

I have two AS-608T attached the asustor_check program