1/ Who are we?

The Debonaras project (http://www.debonaras.org - Debian On NAS And Routers And Stuff) is a group of Linux developers, most of whom come from the NSLU2-Linux project (http://www.nslu2-linux.org), who have created the beginnings (2500+ stable packages built so far for armeb and uploaded to http://ftp.debonaras.org/debian/) of an armeb port of Debian targeted at consumer devices (such as the Linksys NSLU2 or Synology DS101) with large attached storage (e.g. the ability to attach a USB hard disk).  The first target device is the Linksys NSLU2, and we have had big-endian arm Debian running on that device (and building armeb Debian packages) for about a month now.

2/ What are our plans?

Our plan is to compile at least 95% of Debian for armeb, to produce an armeb debian-installer port, to put in place a set of buildd machines that can keep up with unstable, to have a number of our core team members become Debian Developers (we have two applications waiting for an AM to be assigned) and then gain enough Debian Developer support to put forward a proposal for an official armeb Debian port.  In essence, we plan to meet the requirements set out in http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/08/msg00009.html and then hope to be assimilated by Debian.

3/ What is the potential user base for an armeb port of Debian?

The NSLU2-Linux project has over 4300 subscribers on the mailing list, attracts over 30000 hits on the http://www.nslu2-linux.org website per day, has provided over 12000 custom firmware downloads in the last three months, and manages two package download systems (one for the vendor-firmware-compatible 2.4 kernel custom firmware, and the other for the OpenEmbedded-based 2.6 kernel custom firmware) which serve up 400Gb/month of package downloads from four mirrors across the world).  Every one of those 12000 custom firmware downloads is a potential user of an armeb Debian port, just for the single NSLU2 device.

4/ Why do we want to port Debian to big-endian ARM?

The NSLU2 bootloader starts the kernel in big-endian mode, and the on-board ethernet driver modules currently also run in big-endian mode.  A number of our developers have other reasons (related to networking performance of other ixp-based non-consumer devices) for requiring an armeb port.

5/ How does this relate to Emdebian?

We are in contact with a number of Debian Developers from debian-arm, and have discussed our plans with Wookey from Emdebian.  We believe that Debonaras targets a different set of devices from Emdebian (Debonaras intends to provide a full port of Debian targeting devices with large attached storage).

6/ Why are we announcing this now?

We are not looking for publicity (please don't post this to slashdot).  We do want to make the Debian developer community aware of what we are doing.  We are looking for help from interested Debian Developers to get a buildd system up and running and building the rest of the Debian packages from source for armeb.

7/ How do I install Debian on an NSLU2 today?

See http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/DebianSlug/OpenDebianSlug

-- Debonaras and NSLU2-Linux core team.