Amahi Plug Edition

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Supported devices

Requirements

You'll need:

  • A storage device, of 2GB or more, that your plug computer can boot from.
  • The latest Amahi rootfs from http://dl.amahi.org/marvell/ - look for the latest file named amahi-marvell-*.tar.bz2
  • This script to copy the above rootfs into your storage device. Important: you will have to modify this script to suit your device, as it obliterates the content of it.

Known issues

For a list of working / not working apps for plug computers, see Apps page. Also, please check (and file) any issues in the Amahi bug tracker project for the Plug port

Quick Overview

There are three major steps in getting things going

Step 1: Download and extract the Amahi rootfs image into an empty USB hard drive, USB flash drive, or SD card (depending on what your device supports), formatted as ext3.

Step 2: Boot your device using the drive or card you created in step 1.

Step 3: Install Amahi, by loading http://plug_ip:2000 and entering the install code you got when you created your Amahi profile.

Detailed Installation Instructions

Step 1: Prepare your boot device

Connect your boot device (USB hard drive, USB flash drive, or SD card) into a working Linux machine (you can use your plug computer!)

If needed, partition your device to create a partition you'll use to boot. No need to format it.

If a swap partition is desired (highly recommended for the PogoPlug & DockStar), create a second partition on your storage device, between 512MB and 2GB (depending on how big your storage device is), and format it as Linux Swap.

Example partitioning depending on your boot device type & size:

2GB Flash Drive
or SD Card 		8GB Flash Drive
or SD Card 		16GB Flash Drive
or SD Card 		USB Hard Drive
(40+ GB)
2GB, unformatted 512MB, Linux Swap
7.5GB, unformatted 		1GB, Linux Swap
15GB, unformatted 		2GB, Linux Swap
The rest, unformatted

Download the Amahi rootfs file and create-clean-f12-disk.sh script into your Linux machine. Don't store them on the storage device you want to use on your plug computer.
Edit the create-amahi-f12-plug-disk.sh script:

  • Change the first line, the one that says partition="..." to point to the partition you want to use to boot your plug computer.
    If you're not sure, ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/ and see if you can find it there.
  • Change the second line, if needed. It should contain the name of the Amahi rootfs file you downloaded. Example: rootfs="amahi-marvell-0.9.tar.bz2"
  • Comment (add a # character at the beginning of) the two following lines, the ones that say echo "Please edit this script... and exit 0.

Big Warning! Putting the wrong partitions in this script will completely erase those partitions! Be careful what partitions you target!

Run the create-amahi-f12-plug-disk.sh script: 

     sh create-clean-f12-disk.sh

Step 2: Boot your plug

Boot the plug computer with your newly created drive/card attached. Give it a few minutes to boot, and it will be ready for the Amahi installation.

If you need help getting your plug computer to boot from USB or SD, instead of the on-board Flash memory, see our Marvell Plug Computer Booting page.

Step 3: Install Amahi

Note that for this step to work correctly, your plug computer needs to have access to Internet. Maybe you can just SSH into it, and ping www.amahi.org to make sure it works.

Find the plug computer IP address (check your router DHCP logs or DHCP server), and launch the Amahi installer by visiting http://plug_computer_ip:2000

(Use nmap or ping -b to find new devices on your LAN, if you can't find your plug computer IP address on your DHCP server.)

It will ask for an install code. That code can be obtained by creating an Amahi profile here: https://www.amahi.org/user (you'll need to create an account first, if you don't already have one).

Enjoy

After it reboots, access your HDA by logging in at http://plug_computer_ip

   Username: admin
   Password: amahi

The root password is: amahi
(Change it!)

If all seems to work, you can now disable your old DHCP server, and let your plug computer act as your new DHCP server.
You'll need to renew the IP address of your client computers, once your old DHCP server is disabled.
You'll then be able to access the Amahi dashboard at http://hda, and your installed apps using http://app_name

If you created a swap partition while partitioning your storage device, you might need to tell Amahi to use that partition for swap space. You'll need to change /dev/sda2 for the real path to your swap partition. SSH into your Amahi server, and execute the following: 

mkswap /dev/sda2
swapon -a

Note: On the SheevaPlug, the onboard NAND flash is called /dev/mtdblock2. You might want to use it as a swap partition, as it would be faster than your SD card or USB drive.

Customize and Extend

If you need customizations for your device, you can install the ARM cross compilation toolset to compile things like the kernel, multimedia libraries, etc. etc.

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