debian-installer rc1 for NSLU2 available

RC1 of debian-installer has support for the Linksys NSLU2 again. This version almost fully supports the NSLU2: there is RTC and beeper support and a kernel will automatically be written to flash during the installation (and after each kernel upgrade).

NSLU2 specific changes since the last officially supported version (beta 2):

• We switched the kernel from 2.6.15 to 2.6.17: This kernels has most modules enabled that users requested, and now also has RTC and beeper support.
• We now use APEX as a 2nd stage boot loader, i.e. RedBoot loads APEX which then loads the Linux kernel. This allows us to work around the NSLU2's limitation of 1 MB for the kernel. This in turn has allowed us to switch from the nslu2 specific kernel to a generic ixp4xx kernel. (Implemented by Marc Singer, Rod Whitby and me). Because of this change, people who installed Debian using debian-installer beta 2 (released in March) need to upgrade manually.
• Kernels are now automatically written to flash memory. This makes automatic upgrades to newer kernels now possible. (Initially implemented by Joey Hess and since improved by me)

Plans for the future:

• 2.6.18-4 and higher feature the new GPL Ethernet driver written by Christian Hohnstaedt. (Integrated by Michael-Luke Jones for NSLU2-Linux and tested for Debian by Gordon Farquharson and me)
• 2.6.18-4 and higher have LED support.
• nslu2-utils has been substantially updated in unstable (thanks, Joey Hess).

In summary:

• If you want to install Debian on a fresh NSLU2, please follow installation instructions.
• If you want to upgrade your Debian system installed with beta 2 (released in March) to a modern kernel, please follow the upgrade instructions to upgrade to 2.6.17 and the new flash layout.