Linksys NSLU2
About the NSLU2
The Linksys NSLU2 is a lovely little NAS storage server with 2 USB ports and an Ethernet LAN port. You can attach two USB hard drives to it and connect it to your network, and use it as a file server.
Or you can download alternative firmware, run a customised version of Linux on it, and use it as a mail server, a torrent server, a print server, a web server, and more.
It supports NTFS, USB hubs, and flash drives. It’s silent, draws no more than 10W of power, runs at 266MHz, and is the size of two Weetabix.
And it’s known as a Slug.
Full details, including the data sheet, user guide and firmware, can be found over at the Linksys website, and some information is available at Wikipedia.
The NSLU2 is now discontinued, but don’t let that put you off – this will only really affect you if you need to return your Slug for replacement under warranty. Flashing your firmware voids the warranty (as does making hardware modifications, which a lot of users seem to do), so its discontinuation seems hardly relevant.
Opinion seems to be divided on this issue, with a few differing viewpoints given on Paul Hutchinson’s blog. Regardless, I predict the NSLU2 will maintain a cult following of users and developers for quite some time.
Where to buy
These things aren’t particularly easy to get hold of in the UK at a decent price, but LambdaTek has them available at around £70, although at dwindling stock levels.
Or, if you’re in the market for a second-hand Slug, I have a spare for which I cannot find a use; I’m more than happy to consider offers on it. It’s the 266MHz version (as opposed to the 133MHz version) and has a UK power supply. For use outside the UK, a travel adapter should be fine since the power supply is auto-switching, or a generic 5V-2A power supply would do the trick.
The Linksys NSLU2 is no longer available – it seems all retailers have run down their stocks. You might be lucky on eBay, but if you don’t own one already I recommend you find an alternative.
Finding more help
The NSLU2 community is at www.nslu2-linux.org, where there’s a LOT of information. However, it’s a community built on voluntary user contribution, so the information is sometimes incomplete, outdated, or otherwise inaccurate. There’s also a lot of information about the available packages out there on the Internet, but it doesn’t necessarily relate to the NSLU2 and often assumes you will be using packages that simply aren’t available to you.
The Unslung firmware is the first custom firmware that most users try. The binary download, which also contains all the information you need to get started, can be found at www.slug-firmware.net.
Getting the Unslung firmware up and running on my Slug was relatively easy. However, finding the information I needed to configure certain software packages proved more difficult, even though the actual installation of each package was quite simple.
In order to document my Slug’s configuration and to provide a reference point to others, I have created step-by-step NSLU2 instructions for the following tasks:
[...] this theme, my NSLU2 articles currently look like they were formatted by a 4-year-old, so I might get round to fixing them, [...]
[...] never really had any cause to write large posts using WordPress, except for my NSLU2 articles – and even then the built-in WYSIWYG editor was good enough, albeit a little clunky and requiring [...]
[...] some people come back. In fact, most people do. And the most popular pages are actually the NSLU2 pages which describe how to configure a very small, low-power Linux server based on a Linksys [...]
Did you ever sell the spare Slug ? I’m after one at the moment
Ben
No, it’s still sitting around in my box of spares!
Would you consider parting with it ? and if so how much ? I’ve been looking on ebay and people are wanting more than the price of a new one for a used one, and its getting quite frustrating….
Ben
I’ve sent you an email