Circumstances of Debian-SH in Japan

この前書いたのを英訳してみた。後半にいくほどめんどくさくなって表現が変だけど、もうめんどくさいから、これで出そうと思っている。
Hi all,

Because it may seldom be known, I report the circumstances of Debian-sh in Japan.

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In Japan, "dodes project"[1] was ported sid version at summer of 2002.
After that, there was a long blank.
Excluding the activity of commercial business, the Debian community was quiet.
It will be because the convenient hardware which carried SH has been lost.
[1] http://debian.dodes.org/index.en.html (English)

At "iohack project"[2], developer hacks little by little to use LAN-iCN[3] and LAN-iCN2[4] which are a CF boot ROM SH3-Linux system. However, that seldom progressed, because of ROM based system and no kernel source. Moreover, it was not focus to Debian.
[2] http://sourceforge.jp/projects/iohack/
[3] http://www.iodata.jp/prod/storage/option/2002/lan-icn/ (Japanese)
[4] http://www.iodata.jp/prod/network/fileserver/2003/landisk/ (Japanese)

LANDISK[5] which is the NAS hardware which carried "SH4/266MHz" was shipped in November, 2003. Reconstruction by the community progressed little by little.
[5] http://www.iodata.jp/prod/storage/hdd/2005/hdl-u/ (Japanese)
The reconstruction which extends a serial port at LANDISK, and reconstruction of sh-lilo which can perform kernel selection at the boot time were exhibited by Mr. Hosobuchi in April, 2004. The ground of kernel hack was ready.
kernel2.4 source code was distributed by the maker at October, 2004. iohack project redistributed this kernel archives.
I wrote short report to "UNIX USER" Magazine in October, 2004[6]. The part of contents are about Debianize of LANDISK, using the result of a dodes project, the result of hacks in a community, and the redistributed kernel source.
[6] http://www.unixuser.jp/magazine/2004/200411.html (Japanese)
Mr. iWA(IWAMURO Motonori) was released Sarge transport, based on gcc-3.0.4/glibc-2.2.5 from dodes project in November, 2004. And the repository was distributed in the iohack project[7].
[7] http://iohack.sourceforge.jp/debian/
Proprietary kernel driver for LANDISK hardware was hacked by Mr. kogiidena, and kernel 2.6 came up by him. This kernel patch was unified to kernel source by the linux-sh project. Now we can use kernel 2.6.16. Moreover, added kernel selection by flashing power switch to sh-lilo by him[8]. We can select kernel without console.
Mr. kogiidena transported Sarge based on Mr. iWA's result, and kernel2.6. This is called "debian26" [9]. However, that is based on gcc-4.0.2-2/glibc-2.3.5-8, somewhat newer than sarge. "debian26" is mirrored in the iohack project [10].
[8] http://eggplant.ddo.jp/www/pukiwiki/index.php?cmd=read&page=landisk-tools (Japanese)
[9] http://eggplant.ddo.jp/www/pukiwiki/index.php?linux%20and%20tools%20for%20LANDISK%28SH4%29 (English)
[10] http://iohack.sourceforge.jp/kogiidena/debian26/
"LAN Tank", which based on LANDISK hardware, shipped market at June, 2005. And that is one of my work. ;-)

  • CPU: SH4 266MHz(7751R)
  • SDRAM: 64MB
  • NIC: 10/100Base-T (RTL8139CL + EEPROM 93C46)
  • IDE: UDMA133 PATA (ACARD ATP865)
  • USB: USB2.0 TypeA Conn x2 (NEC D720101GJ)

It's bare bone kit product. The case can embark two 3.5-inch PATA HDDs. The OS is Debian based on iWA's version. The server functionality allows usage of: Music server for iTunes, Video server for Network Media Player products, WebDAV fileserver, Telnet, ftp, and mDNS. The price will be around $120. There was already shipped over 5,000 sets to Japanese and other country market. I think LAN Tank contributed to increasing the user and developer of debian-sh.
[11] http://supertank.iodata.jp/products/sotohdlwu/ (Japanese)
Based on Mr. kogiidena's result, many packages are made by Mr. Ebihara [12]. Generation of a package is automated using pbuilder. there is mainly sh3 targeted. He also designs and sells the board of SH3 [13] and SH4 [14] in his own company.
[12] http://www.si-linux.co.jp/pub/debian-sh/dists/sarge/
[13] http://www.si-linux.co.jp/product/cat709/ (Japanese)
[14] http://www.si-linux.co.jp/product/cat760/ (Japanese)
Mr. kogiidena is also transported Etch system [15], and now he seek for host server for his packages.
[15] http://eggplant.ddo.jp/www/pukiwiki/index.php?cmd=read&page=etch (Japanese)
Although there was posted already in this ML, the transport of sid by Mr. Iwamatu was started using LAN Tank[16]. I heard that he carry LAN Tank to debconf6.
[16] http://www.nigauri.org/~iwamatsu/debian/superh/packages/
Regrettably, sale of SH based LANDISK was ended in Japan. Now, it replaced to ARM CPU. Although "LAN Tank" is still sold, it is not known when it finishes. But in the United States, UHDL-160U and UHDL-300U is still sold. In the Europe market, PLEXTOR to PX-EH25L[19] and PX-EH40L[20] are sold.
[17] http://www.iodata.com/products/products.php?cat=HNP&sc=HDL&ts=2&tsc=15&sc=HDL&pId=UHDL-160U (English)
[18] http://www.iodata.com/products/products.php?cat=HNP&sc=HDL&ts=2&tsc=15&sc=HDL&pId=UHDL-300U (English)
[19] http://www.plextor-europe.com/products/px-eh25l.asp?choice=PX-EH25L (English)
[20] http://www.plextor-europe.com/products/px-eh40l.asp?choice=PX-EH40L (English)
There is still sold USL-5P in the same LANDISK series, using SH4 [21]. Although there is no IDE, it starts from CF and the environment which sets a USB drive to rootfs has some which I made. Even if this puts in AC adaptor, it is convenient to hack by carrying around in about the same size as Paperback, since it is very compact.
[21] http://www.iodata.jp/prod/storage/hdd/2004/usl-5p/ (Japanese)

I think that LANDISK becomes a reliable base platform of debian for the time being. Because, there was shipped over 100,000 sets to market.

Best,