&boot-installer-intro-net.xml; &boot-installer-intro-cd.xml; &boot-installer-intro-firmware.xml; There are three ways how to put the installer firmware into flash: Go to the administration section and choose the menu item Upgrade. You can then browse your disk for the installer image you have previously downloaded. Then press the Start Upgrade button, confirm, wait for a few minutes and confirm again. The system will then boot straight into the installer. You can use upslug2 from any Linux or Unix machine to upgrade the machine via the network. This software is packaged for Debian. First, you have to put your NSLU2 in upgrade mode: Disconnect any disks and/or devices from the USB ports. Power off the NSLU2 Press and hold the reset button (accessible through the small hole on the back just above the power input). Press and release the power button to power on the NSLU2. Wait for 10 seconds watching the ready/status LED. After 10 seconds it will change from amber to red. Immediately release the reset button. The NSLU2 ready/status LED will flash alternately red/green (there is a 1 second delay before the first green). The NSLU2 is now in upgrade mode. See the NSLU2-Linux pages if you have problems with this. Once your NSLU2 is in upgrade mode, you can flash the new image: sudo upslug2 -i di-nslu2.bin Note that the tool also shows the MAC address of your NSLU2, which may come in handy to configure your DHCP server. After the whole image has been written and verified, the system will automatically reboot. Make sure you connect your USB disk again now, otherwise the installer won't be able to find it. There is a tool for Windows to upgrade the firmware via the network. Due to limitations in the SS4000-E firmware, it unfortunately is not possible to boot the installer without the use of a serial port at this time. To boot the installer, you will need a serial nullmodem cable; a computer with a serial port A USB serial converter will also work. ; and a ribbon cable with a male DB9 connector at one end, and a 10-pin .1" IDC header at the other This cable is often found in older desktop machines with builtin 9-pin serial ports. . To boot the SS4000-E, first load the Debian-provided firmware image (ss4000e.pkg) through the SS4000-E's web interface (go to administration, then to firmware, and upload the image). Next, use your serial nullmodem cable and the ribbon cable to connect to the serial port of the SS4000-E, and reboot the machine. You need to use a serial terminal application to communicate with the machine; a good option on a Debian GNU/Linux is to use the cu program, in the package of the same name. Assuming the serial port on your computer is to be found on /dev/ttyS0, use the following command line: cu -lttyS0 -s115200 If using Windows, you may want to consider using the program hyperterminal. Use a baud rate of 115200, 8 bits word length, no stop bits, and one parity bit. When the machine boots, you will see the following line of output: No network interfaces found EM-7210 ver.T04 2005-12-12 (For ver.AA) == Executing boot script in 1.000 seconds - enter ^C to abort At this point, hit Control-C to interrupt the boot loader Note that you have only one second to do so; if you miss this window, just powercycle the machine and try again. . This will give you the RedBoot prompt. Enter the following command: fconfig boot_script_data RedBoot is now waiting for you to enter the boot script. Make sure to exactly enter the following script: fis load ramdisk.gz fis load zImage exec -c "console=ttyS0,115200 rw root=/dev/ram mem=256M@0xa0000000" -r 0x01800000 Finish the script with an empty line, and enter y at the prompt to update the non-volatile configuration. Finally, use reset to restart the system, and allow it to boot normally. The installer should now come up as normal. You can either install Debian through the serial port, or use an SSH client to connect through SSH. Note that it is not necessary to update the boot script after the installation. The system will be configured to take the root device from system configuration, rather than from the kernel command line. It will not do any harm to do so anyway, however.