KOWHeigel
High Gear of Your Soul
This guide should be good to go now. However use at your own risk.
Why a Pogoplug?
(1) Although a little harder to find now these are cheap. In fact, they are cheaper than a Raspberry Pi when you consider that for a Pi you need to buy a powersupply and a case.
(2) gigabit ethernet
(3) 4 USB ports
(4) low power plug device (like all plugs) This can't be overstated. Plug devices rock. They use like virtually no power. Can be left on 24/7. Small form factor. Awesome!
(5) Seems kind of hard to brick these things. If you do, most bricks can be recovered from. There is even a way to access the FTDI serial port in the plug with a little DIY skill. I will admit I wish these had direct serial port access like my sheevaplug but for some reason plug manufacturers seem to be moving away from that?
(6) The best reason IMHO is that there appear to be zero USB latency/resource issues that exist with the Pi. I can play Hi-Res material with absolutely zero issues using squeezelite. I could not do this with the Pi. I got MPD to play Hi-Res on my Pi but not 100% of the time. Even with the firmware update the Pi wasn't able to play Hi-Res perfectly. The pogoplug seems perfectly suited as a squeezelite device. Did I mention it's cheap?
______________
This thread will probably be a work in progress for a little bit. My goal is to create a thread like BadassBob did with the Raspberry Pi.
Things you will need:
(1) A pogoplug E02 (pink or gray). The other versions will not work with this tutorial. I think these are getting harder to come buy but I did find some at pretty cheap prices still on ebay.
(2) A USB dac and appropriate USB cable. I am using the Schiit Modi and it works flawlessly. I also have a HRT Music Streamer II that I have used with linux for the past couple of years with zero issues. Many USB dacs work natively on linux with zero need for specific drivers, etc. There are a few rare birds that don't so make sure you google your model to see if others have had success.
(3) flash drive or USB harddrive.
(4) Digital Music
(5) The other parts of a hi-fi system. Amp, pre-amp, speakers. The Pogoplug will become your "source."
Most, if not all, of my information has come from two places (big thanks to the archlinux arm project and to the author of the qnology blog):
http://blog.qnology.com/2013/03/tutorial-pogoplug-e02-with-arch-linux.html
http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv5/pogoplug-v2-pinkgray
This guide utilizes Archlinux Arm as the distro. You can do this with Debian (and other) variants if you so choose. I like archlinux, as I learned linux on Gentoo, and archlinux is probably the closest pre-built package based distro to Gentoo. Archlinux has a powerful package manager (pacman) and a very good community both on the forums and in wiki's. I am not nearly as up to date on linux stuff now as I was (no time!) but I have a pretty good working linux knowledge base from using it for the past 10 years. I am not a computer programmer just a guy who likes computers.
Installing Archlinux
(1) Plug in an ethernet cord to your pogoplug and turn on the device. You will need to find the IP address that your router gave it. You can usually find the ip address by going to your router's web management page (i.e 192.168.1.1) and looking at something like a DHCP table. I have a lot of internet connected devices at my house so I get a lot of entries. I "know" most of mine offhand because I have lot's of linux devices that I SSH too. If you can't figure out what one is your plug by just looking you may (I can) click on the mac address (in your routers web management page under a DHCP table) and it should look up the manufacturer. It will say something like "cloud engine" in the description. That is your plug.
(2) you then need to SSH into your device. If you have a linux box then it's really simple:
where 192.168.1.5 is the actual IP address of your plug
If you use windows you need to use a program called putty . Putty is fairly self-explanatory for SSH. Just type in the IP address of yoru plug. Make sure the port is at 22 and that the SSH radial button is selected.
DEFAULT login for pogoplug should be root/ceadmin
Now that you have logged in you need to do the following: (lines that start with ** are simply telling/explaining what a given command is doing)
Now you need to Plug in USB Flash Drive or Hard Drive and you need to connect to the back bottom USB port.
Another way to think about this would be this. Do you plan on having your music files stored and served to your pogoplug from a USB harddrive attached to the plug? or are your music files somewhere else? (my files are all being served by a sheevaplug via NFS from my basement) If you are going to have your music files stored on a USB harddrive attached to the pogoplug then you should create two partitions on that drive. If not, then I would use a cheap flash drive and have only one partition. The real point here is, use one drive not multiple, as multiple sometimes causes confusion when U-boot attempts to boot.
At this point this guide will focus on those of you who plan on storing your music locally (i.e. attached to the plug) on a USB harddrive. I think this is probably the majority of folks. If you have your files somewhere else the same basic principles apply you will just have one partition instead of two, and you will need a way to access those file remotes (i.e. NFS or samba) I can, and may, edit this tutorial at some point to describe accessing remote files but there any many variables to this kind of setup. If anyone has any specific questions I will do my best to answer them. Beware that my windows knowledge is very limited as I don't use it so if you are storing your music files on a windows box I probably can't help you.
REMINDER: You should now have your drive attached to the plug. Bottom USB port. BEWARE: The next step will destroy ALL DATA on your drive. You should be using a drive with no data that you want to keep on it
Huge thanks to AK member greenmark59 who graciously sent me (at his own expense) a pogoplug E02 because he knew I was interested in trying out the unit. This was a complete act of kindness and generosity and is one of the reasons why I love AK.
Why a Pogoplug?
(1) Although a little harder to find now these are cheap. In fact, they are cheaper than a Raspberry Pi when you consider that for a Pi you need to buy a powersupply and a case.
(2) gigabit ethernet
(3) 4 USB ports
(4) low power plug device (like all plugs) This can't be overstated. Plug devices rock. They use like virtually no power. Can be left on 24/7. Small form factor. Awesome!
(5) Seems kind of hard to brick these things. If you do, most bricks can be recovered from. There is even a way to access the FTDI serial port in the plug with a little DIY skill. I will admit I wish these had direct serial port access like my sheevaplug but for some reason plug manufacturers seem to be moving away from that?
(6) The best reason IMHO is that there appear to be zero USB latency/resource issues that exist with the Pi. I can play Hi-Res material with absolutely zero issues using squeezelite. I could not do this with the Pi. I got MPD to play Hi-Res on my Pi but not 100% of the time. Even with the firmware update the Pi wasn't able to play Hi-Res perfectly. The pogoplug seems perfectly suited as a squeezelite device. Did I mention it's cheap?
______________
This thread will probably be a work in progress for a little bit. My goal is to create a thread like BadassBob did with the Raspberry Pi.
Things you will need:
(1) A pogoplug E02 (pink or gray). The other versions will not work with this tutorial. I think these are getting harder to come buy but I did find some at pretty cheap prices still on ebay.
(2) A USB dac and appropriate USB cable. I am using the Schiit Modi and it works flawlessly. I also have a HRT Music Streamer II that I have used with linux for the past couple of years with zero issues. Many USB dacs work natively on linux with zero need for specific drivers, etc. There are a few rare birds that don't so make sure you google your model to see if others have had success.
(3) flash drive or USB harddrive.
(4) Digital Music
(5) The other parts of a hi-fi system. Amp, pre-amp, speakers. The Pogoplug will become your "source."
Most, if not all, of my information has come from two places (big thanks to the archlinux arm project and to the author of the qnology blog):
http://blog.qnology.com/2013/03/tutorial-pogoplug-e02-with-arch-linux.html
http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv5/pogoplug-v2-pinkgray
This guide utilizes Archlinux Arm as the distro. You can do this with Debian (and other) variants if you so choose. I like archlinux, as I learned linux on Gentoo, and archlinux is probably the closest pre-built package based distro to Gentoo. Archlinux has a powerful package manager (pacman) and a very good community both on the forums and in wiki's. I am not nearly as up to date on linux stuff now as I was (no time!) but I have a pretty good working linux knowledge base from using it for the past 10 years. I am not a computer programmer just a guy who likes computers.
Installing Archlinux
(1) Plug in an ethernet cord to your pogoplug and turn on the device. You will need to find the IP address that your router gave it. You can usually find the ip address by going to your router's web management page (i.e 192.168.1.1) and looking at something like a DHCP table. I have a lot of internet connected devices at my house so I get a lot of entries. I "know" most of mine offhand because I have lot's of linux devices that I SSH too. If you can't figure out what one is your plug by just looking you may (I can) click on the mac address (in your routers web management page under a DHCP table) and it should look up the manufacturer. It will say something like "cloud engine" in the description. That is your plug.
(2) you then need to SSH into your device. If you have a linux box then it's really simple:
Code:
ssh -p 22 root@192.168.1.5
where 192.168.1.5 is the actual IP address of your plug
If you use windows you need to use a program called putty . Putty is fairly self-explanatory for SSH. Just type in the IP address of yoru plug. Make sure the port is at 22 and that the SSH radial button is selected.
DEFAULT login for pogoplug should be root/ceadmin
Now that you have logged in you need to do the following: (lines that start with ** are simply telling/explaining what a given command is doing)
Code:
** Stop the Pogoplug software
killall hbwd
** Install UBoot [this allows us to boot a linux distro other than the proprietary software that comes with the pogoplug by default
cd /tmp
wget http://jeff.doozan.com/debian/uboot/install_uboot_mtd0.sh
chmod +x install_uboot_mtd0.sh
./install_uboot_mtd0.sh
**Would you like to disable the Pogoplug services? [Y/n]
**n - to keep original Pogoplug software
**when booting without USB drives attached
**y - if you're not planning on ever using the stock
**Pogoplug software again
** I have chosen to hit n. I think this keeps the pogoplug software on the nand in case you ever want to revert back
Now you need to Plug in USB Flash Drive or Hard Drive and you need to connect to the back bottom USB port.
If you plan to setup the Pogoplug as NAS using SAMBA with a hard drive, my recommendation would be to install ALARM directly on the hard drive and skip using a USB flash drive. This will avoid some potential boot up issues. To do this, create two partition, a small 4GB partition for ALARM and the rest for data.
Another way to think about this would be this. Do you plan on having your music files stored and served to your pogoplug from a USB harddrive attached to the plug? or are your music files somewhere else? (my files are all being served by a sheevaplug via NFS from my basement) If you are going to have your music files stored on a USB harddrive attached to the pogoplug then you should create two partitions on that drive. If not, then I would use a cheap flash drive and have only one partition. The real point here is, use one drive not multiple, as multiple sometimes causes confusion when U-boot attempts to boot.
At this point this guide will focus on those of you who plan on storing your music locally (i.e. attached to the plug) on a USB harddrive. I think this is probably the majority of folks. If you have your files somewhere else the same basic principles apply you will just have one partition instead of two, and you will need a way to access those file remotes (i.e. NFS or samba) I can, and may, edit this tutorial at some point to describe accessing remote files but there any many variables to this kind of setup. If anyone has any specific questions I will do my best to answer them. Beware that my windows knowledge is very limited as I don't use it so if you are storing your music files on a windows box I probably can't help you.
REMINDER: You should now have your drive attached to the plug. Bottom USB port. BEWARE: The next step will destroy ALL DATA on your drive. You should be using a drive with no data that you want to keep on it
Code:
** this command fires up the disc partitioning program
/sbin/fdisk /dev/sda
## type o to erase all partitions
## type n to make a new partition
## type p for a primary partition
## type 1 to create the first partition
## hit enter to start at default
## type +4G to make the partition 4 Gig (this is where archlinux arm will be installed. The rest will be for your date (music)
## type n to make a enw partition
## type p for a primary partition
## type 2 to create the second partition
## hit enter to start at next default
## hit enter to fill rest of disc with second partition
## hit w to make this changes permanent and write to disc
Code:
**Format USB drive
cd /tmp
wget http://archlinuxarm.org/os/pogoplug/mke2fs
chmod 755 mke2fs
**format and label partition
./mke2fs -L ROOTFS -j /dev/sda1
** format data partition
./mke2fs -j /dev/sda2
** mount usb drive
mkdir -p /tmp/usb
mount /dev/sda1 /tmp/usb
Code:
** Download and install Arch Linux ARM (aka ALARM):
cd /tmp/usb
wget http://archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-armv5te-latest.tar.gz
** this next command may take a while
tar -xzvf ArchLinuxARM-armv5te-*.tar.gz
rm ArchLinuxARM-armv5te-*.tar.gz
** this next command may also take a whiile
sync
cd ..
umount /tmp/usb
/usr/sbin/reboot
## the second time I did the install this command was not there. ldatlof said just plain old reboot (without the /usr/sbin) worked for him but I couldn't find reboot at all. So I just unplugged the pogoplug and plugged it back in. This should be fine as all data was written to disk with the sync command
Huge thanks to AK member greenmark59 who graciously sent me (at his own expense) a pogoplug E02 because he knew I was interested in trying out the unit. This was a complete act of kindness and generosity and is one of the reasons why I love AK.
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