Ubuntu 9.04 – NSLU2

The first release of Ubuntu for ARM architecture, Ubuntu 9.04 is working great on NSLU2. So far I’ve had running NFS, dhcp3, bluetooth (setup as a PAN AP), WiFi, CUPS, lirc (using the “linux input layer” drivers), wpa_supplicant, mjpg-streamer, mpd. Also successfully cross-compiled and loaded modules: autofs, gpsca, and rt73usb (for my WiFi dongle).

The installation took almost 6-8 hours on a 256kbps DSL connection, external USB flash. Most of it seems to be processing. In many instances during the installation it looked like it was frozen — progress bar stays at the same % mark for sometimes even an hour. Also towards the end when it says installation is completed, it gives an impression that it’s hung: there’s just a blue screen with a blinking prompt at the last line. It stays like that about 20min, and then returns back, prompting you for setting hardware clock. After that, it’s done, reboots.

First thing I did to avoid going through that agonizingly long process again, is backup the filesystem and the NSLU2 internal flash image.