Debian on QNAP TS-11x/TS-21x/TS-41x users: go make a backup

I recently discovered that there are two variants of the recovery mode used on QNAP TS-11x/TS-21x (and possible TS-41x) devices and that one has a different behaviour than what my documentation claims. While this issue should hopefully affect few users (but please take a moment and check if you're affected), it has implications to all Debian users on TS-11x/TS-21x. My install guide originally told users to create backup of some mtd partitions only but from now on you need a copy of all partitions in order to use the recovery mode. Therefore, please take a moment now to create a backup of the remaining partitions:

cat /dev/mtdblock0 > mtd0
cat /dev/mtdblock4 > mtd4
cat /dev/mtdblock5 > mtd5

(You should have copies of mtd1, mtd2 and mtd3 already if you following my guide.)

Make sure to copy the files to another machine and add them to your backup.

New devices from QNAP: TS-110, TS-210 and TS-410

When I visited Taiwan last week to talk about Debian at a conference on smartbooks, I used the opportunity to meet up with the folks from QNAP. It was really nice to meet many of my contacts at QNAP in person. We talked about their roadmap and existing products and I found out that they had just released a number of new devices that may be of interest to Debian users.

I really like the hardware from QNAP but one downside of their high quality is also that the devices are fairly expensive. Last week they introduced a number of lower cost alternatives: in addition to the TS-119 and TS-219, you now have the TS-110 and TS-210. They feature a 800 MHz CPU (instead of 1.2 GHz on the TS-119/TS-219), 256 MB (instead of 512 MB) and have a plastic case (as a result of which, the TS-110 now has a fan unlike the TS-119). Similarly, in addition to the TS-419 and TS-419U, you now have a TS-410 and TS-410U.

Since the TS-110/TS-210 and TS-119/TS-219 are compatible, the Debian installer will work out of the box.

Debian installer for QNAP TS-119, TS-219 and TS-219P available

The Debian installer for QNAP TS-119, TS-219 and TS-219P devices (based on Marvell's 1.2 GHz Kirkwood chip) is now available, together with installation instructions. The installer is still under development and it will install Debian testing, which is also under development. However, I think it's working pretty well. If you try the installer, please send me feedback.

Initial thoughts on the new QNAP TS-219P

QNAP has announced a new device earlier this month, the QNAP TS-219P. The specs are very similar to the TS-219 (1.2 GHz Kirkwood CPU, 512 MB RAM and 16 MB flash) but the device is smaller and has some other advantages.

What I like about the new TS-219P:

• The device is more compact and looks really nice.
• The fan is less noisy than the one in the TS-209 and TS-219.
• There are two eSATA ports.

What I don't like so much:

• The device only has one Ethernet. I'd really like to see two Ethernet ports.
• The serial connector cannot easily be accessed through the SATA slot, something that was possible with the TS-209.

Since the TS-219 and TS-219P are quite similar, Debian and the installer will work without any problems. I updated my QNAP page to document the QNAP TS-219P, including some pictures of the new device.

First successful installation on QNAP TS-219

I performed the first successful installation of Debian on the QNAP TS-219 using the Debian installer today. Everything is in place now but the Linux 2.6.29 kernel has to move to testing so installations will work.

Update on QNAP TS-119/TS-219 kernel support

I mentioned a few weeks ago that initial kernel support for the QNAP TS-119 and TS-219 Turbo NAS got accepted for 2.6.30 but that there were some issues left. Here's an update:

• SATA: Kirkwood uses a different SATA PHY and the Orion settings weren't quite right, leading to the timeouts I saw. As it turns out, Saeed Bishara from Marvell had a patch for this already and it will be in 2.6.30-rc6.
• Flash: writing to flash is now possible thanks to a patch from Peter Horton that has been merged into 2.6.30-rc5.
• Parsing the MAC address: Thomas Reitmayr created a patch to parse the MAC address from flash but the kernel people thought this should be done in userspace. I haven't looked into this yet... maybe the best solution is to document that the MAC address will change.
• SATA lights: Thomas Reitmayr created a patch to fix this issue.

The SATA and flash fixes are already in our 2.6.29 kernel.

Debian 5.0 (lenny) tar ball for QNAP TS-119 and TS-219

Since the installer isn't quite ready yet, I created a tar ball containing Debian lenny for the QNAP TS-119 and TS-219 along with some installation instructions. The QNAP firmware is used to partition the hard drive and unpack the tar ball, so Debian can be installed without having to put the hard drive into another machine.

Kernel support for QNAP TS-119 and TS-219 Turbo NAS in 2.6.30

My patch for initial kernel support for the QNAP TS-119 and TS-219 Turbo NAS got accepted and will be in 2.6.30. I can run Debian on a USB disk without any problems but there are some issues left (some severe, some cosmetic):

• SATA: there are long timeouts when initializing the disk. In most cases, the disk is eventually recognized but it can take quite some time. I've no idea why those timeouts happen.
• Flash: I can read from flash just fine but writing doesn't work.
• Parsing the MAC address: even though a MAC address is set in u-boot, the QNAP firmware stores the real MAC address in flash (similar to the TS-109 and TS-209). The TS-109/TS-209 code to read the MAC address doesn't work because the flash on the TS-219 is connected in a different way (SPI).
• SATA lights: the activity light doesn't work.

Unfortunately, I've no idea how to resolve these issues. However, the QNAP TS-119 and TS-219 have started shipping so hopefully someone else will investigate these issues.

Debian support for QNAP TS-119 and TS-219 Turbo NAS coming

I received a sample of QNAP's new TS-219 Turbo NAS today. The TS-119 and TS-219 devices are an upgrade to QNAP's TS-109 and TS-209 devices and were announced earlier this month at CeBIT. The new TS-219 uses the same robust case as the TS-209 but offers much more performance:

• Marvell Kirkwood 6281 at 1.2 GHz (instead of Orion 5182 at 500 MHz)
• 512 MB RAM (instead of 128 or 256 MB)
• 16 MB flash (instead of 8 MB)

The numbers I've seen about the Kirkwood CPU suggest that the TS-219 will indeed give a very significant performance boost. So far, the TS-219 looks very nice. My only complaint is that QNAP didn't export the second Ethernet port the Kirkwood chip offers, but I suspect this is because they wanted to stay as close to the original design of the TS-209 as possible.

In any case, the TS-219 is a nice machine and I look forward to porting Debian to it. As a first step, this means getting the mainline kernel to run on the device and adding a kernel for Kirkwood to the archive (the latter is needed for a number of other devices based on Kirkwood anyway). Hopefully, the remaining porting work and integration into the Debian installer should be fairly straightforward given that the TS-209 is already supported in Debian. I'm sure I'll find out as I dig into the details...

I'll give periodic updates of my progress. In the meantime, I've created an image gallery of the TS-219.