gklimo

DreamerI90, I suspect the hardware is still good and the data on the internal mSATA is somehow corrupted. If my suspicion is true, you may be able to resurrect your Polisy Pro hardware and use it for other purposes as I did. If that's of interest, please see the link that follows.

This is a long post. My apologies in advance. If you prefer to read the short version, I've provided a quick summary of successful steps used at the end. The long version provides some additional context you'll likely need. The Long Version After many (actually too many) attempts, I finally managed to repurpose my Polisy Pro hardware. It now has a fully functional instance of Debian 12.10.0 installed. It boots off the internal mSATA and runs great. It's fully accessible from both the serial port and via SSH. It was quite an experience figuring things out. One obvious challenge is the Polisy hardware is headless and doesn't have any type of direct video capability. Until SSH is up and running, all system interaction must be performed by way of the serial port using a terminal session. While I'm a fairly competent Linux user who's installed and actively uses numerous Linux instances, I normally don't go as deep as I had to with this effort. I tried to document of all of the steps as I performed them so I could reproduce the installation if necessary. I was also hoping to share the specific steps with others if I was successful. I've yet to find any information on this topic and figured others might also want to reuse their Polisy hardware. Unfortunately, my attempts at documenting all of the steps that worked was quickly derailed due to lack of consistent time combined with the large number of trial-and-error attempts involved. What I can provide is somewhat of a high-level overview of what I did to get Debian 12 running on my old Polisy hardware. What follows combined with some web searching should get you up and running. It's very likely highly savvy Linux experts might look at my approach and say there was a much better way to accomplish the same thing. Regardless, this worked for me and hope it will be useful to others. From what I can tell, the Polisy hardware is actually a PC Engines APU2, which is now end-of-life. From what I can also tell, it "appears" the APU2 BIOS used by Universal Devices for Polisy might be customized. As you'll see further down, the BIOS used with Polisy resulted in many trial and error attempts to get Debian running. High-Level Installation Steps I personally used a Windows PC with Putty configured for a serial port connection between the PC and the serial port on the APU2. NOTE: A Null Modem RS-232 serial cable, or a straight through serial cable along with a Null Modem Adapter MUST be used between the PC and the APU2. A USB to Serial Port Adapter with a Null Modem Adapter can be used if your computer doesn't have a serial port. If preferred, terminal emulation applications other than Putty can be used. I normally use SecureCRT but had only Putty on the PC involved. What's important is to configure a Baud Rate of 115200 using No Parity, 8 Data Bits, 1 Stop Bit and No Flow Control (if flow control is configurable). I downloaded a copy of the "debian-12.10.0-amd64-netinst.iso" from https://www.debian.org I then used Rufus https://rufus.ie on the Windows PC to configure a bootable USB Flash Drive based on the Debian installation ISO. When Rufus was complete, I accessed the resulting FAT32 USB Flash Drive using Windows Explorer to manually modify its grub.cfg file. This is necessary to perform the Debian installation using a serial port based terminal session. I configured the grub.cfg file to ignore looking for video hardware and to redirect all interaction to the APU2 serial port. On my Windows PC, the grub.cfg file was F:\boot\grub\grub.cfg The following contains the entries I placed at the very top of my grub.cfg file. These entries were the result of much trial and error. set timeout=10 serial --speed=115200 --unit=0 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1 terminal_input serial terminal_output serial # Debian Installer with Serial Port Support Menu Choice menuentry "Debian 12.10.0 Installer with Serial Terminal (amd64)" --hotkey=l { linux /live/vmlinuz-6.8.12-amd64 quiet findiso=${iso_path} console=ttyS0,115200n8 nomodeset video=off nmi_watchdog=0 noapic initrd /live/initrd.img-6.8.12-amd64 I connected an Ethernet cable to the APU2, inserted the USB Flash drive into one of its USB ports and connected the Null Modem serial cable to its serial port. Putty was configured as mentioned and with the session loaded and opened. Upon applying power, the APU2 presented my Debian installation menu within the Putty serial port session as defined in the grub.cfg . At that point I assumed the rest of the process would be easy. Unfortunately, I was very wrong. I proceeded to install Debian using the serial port connection. But at this point, only the Rufus configured USB Flash Drive I booted the APU2 with was configured for serial port use. The Debian Operating System being installed on the mSATA is not yet configured for serial port interaction. Even if the Debian installation was considered valid by the APU2, rebooting the APU2 would provide no serial port output. That said, I tried using a preseed.cfg file on the USB Flash Drive to preconfigure the Debian instance being installed. The preseed.cfg file clearly worked as the preconfigured inputs and responses I defined were automatically bypassed during the installation process. However, for some unknown reason, I still could not get the APU2 to boot on Debian after completing the installation. I fully expected there would be no serial port output. But I also expected the APU2 would still be able to boot Debian off the mSATA. Unfortunately, it did not. I then used a copy of Finnix https://www.finnix.org installed on another bootable USB Flash Drive. Finnix is a lightweight Live Linux environment that would allow me to manually modify some of the Debian files and associated Debian configuration now residing on the mSATA. I modified the grub.cfg file for serial port output on the bootable Finnix USB Flash Drive as done for the Debain installer USB. Doing so enabled serial port interaction with Finnix. Regardless of the many modifications made from within Finnix, and the many subsequent booting attempts, serial port output was never received and there was no sign of APU2 life. It was at this point where most of my trial-and-error attempts took place. I then started to consider the BIOS as a possible issue. Based on available APU2 information, I read I should be able to access a coreboot boot menu by pressing the F10 key during the boot process. But all attempts pressing F10 failed to do anything when the serial output was observed. When running dmidecode -s bios-version it reported v1.1.3 and not a PC Engines coreboot version. As a result, I assumed the Polisy hardware might be using a specific BIOS for Polisy running on FreeBSD. So, I took a chance and decided to flash the BIOS with a different version. While this is somewhat of a risk based on my assumption, I exhausted all other options and decided to proceed. I downloaded PC Engines coreboot for APU2 v4.19.0.1 from https://pcengines.github.io/#mr-63 and used flashrom to create a backup the existing BIOS. I then flashed the APU2 using the apu2_v4.19.0.1.rom file. I read that power must be fully removed after flashing and then reapplied. When plugging the APU2 back in, a coreboot SeaBios message was presented, and it offered pressing F10 to access the boot menu. Success? Not so fast. Even with these positive results, I still could not get Debian as installed to function and boot the APU2 from the mSATA. So, I decided to take a completely different approach. That being to install Debian 12.10.0 on a completely different 64-bit computer. That alternate computer is equipped with video hardware. It would allow me to visually install Debian and configure it as necessary for use on the APU2. So, I used a second old PC I had laying around. Once Debian 12.10.0 was installed and working on that PC, I configured SSH, Grub for serial port interaction along with other desired settings. I then created a complete disk image of this working system and restored that image onto the mSATA using an mSATA to USB adapter I have. I previously used that adapter to create complete backup disk images of Polisy. I'd typically create a full backup system image of the mSATA before or after a Polisy upgrade. NOTE: Keep in mind the Polisy mSATA is only 32GB. When installing Debian on the alternate computer, you should install it onto an appropriately sized partition. That will avoid having to resize things after the fact. In my case, I used TeraByte for Linux disk imaging software to create the image from the old PC. I then restored that image onto the APU2's mSATA using the USB adapter. Any other disk imaging application you might prefer should work as long as it supports a Linux file system. I then installed the mSATA containing the restored image into the APU2 and applied power. I was very happy to see Debian 12.10.0 boot messages presented within the Putty serial port session. I was then able to log in over the serial port and SSH was also functional. I did some further minor tweaking of Debian on the APU2 such as enabling the Wi-Fi on the Polisy Pro. While my Polisy / APU2 hardware is connected to my network via Ethernet, I decided to get the Wi-Fi hardware working in the event I ever wanted to use it. Overall, I was very glad my Polisy Pro repurpose attempt was finally successful and complete. It can now be used to host desired applications. The Short Version For those interested, the following provides a simple summary of the steps and process that worked for me. Create a bootable USB Flash Drive that contains Finnix (or an alternate Live Linux instance of your choice) and configure its grub.cfg file for serial port interaction Boot the Polisy (APU2) hardware on the USB Flash Drive and reflash the system with the PC Engines coreboot BIOS Install Debian on an alternate 64-bit computer and configure it for serial port interaction, SSH, etc. Create a complete disk image of the alternate computer used Restore the disk image created onto the APU2 mSATA using a USB to mSATA adapter Boot the Polisy (APU2) hardware with the mSATA installed Enjoy your repurposed system

Guy, thanks for the suggestion and information. I've been unsuccessful as of yet but continue to pursue as time permits. I'll update this post once I figure out what specifically needs to be done. I suspect others might want to repurpose their Polisy hardware as well.

I recently migrated from a Polisy Pro to eisy | home. Everything is working great. Since I no longer use the Polisy for IoX, I'd like to repurpose the Polisy hardware by installing Debian. From what I can tell, Polisy uses PC Engines hardware. I've found some reference information on how to install Debian on a PC Engines platform. It involves invoking installation commands over the serial port and a USB thumb drive containing Debian. Unfortunately, I've been unsuccessful at communicating with the system over the serial port using Putty, SecureCRT, etc. I've tried a straight through RS232 cable, a null modem cable, every possible baud rate, etc. I've rebooted and reset the system many times without luck. Still no serial communications or prompt of any kind over my confirmed working PC based serial port. I've since restored a previous mSATA SSD disk image I created prior to my attempts. Polisy is currently back to its original state and can be accessed on my network. Has anybody been successful at repurposing Polisy hardware? If so, I'd appreciate pointing me in the right direction. Thanks!

FYI; I noticed the same 2-hour difference in the PG3x v3.2.10 logs and performed a subsequent full reboot of my Polisy. The PG3x log time stamps are still 2-hours earlier than the system time displayed within the Admin Console.

Agree, ZMatter is probably the best way to go. But was hoping I could continue to use what already worked on Polisy. I purchased the Zooz stick based on it being the suggested compatible brand. Thanks

Correct on both. Both the Firmware and UI on the Help | About screen report IoX v5.5.5. I was sure to delete the Java cache after each firmware update prior to accessing IoX Launcher. I also did not select the Migrate to ZMatter button observed prior to restoring the backup from the ISY994i. I assume it's no longer visible since Polisy is no longer detecting the Zooz Z-Wave stick.

I'm a long time ISY user with many INSTEON devices and some Z-Wave. The ISY994i-IR-PRO I've used has a Z-Wave 500 Series Module within. I also have a Polisy PRO (5200), currently running IoX v5.5.5. My Polisy was mainly used to host Node Servers for the ISY994i. But it also had a Zooz USB 700 Series Z-Wave Plus S2 Stick ZST10 700 installed. IoX on Polisy supported a handful of Z-Wave devices by way of the Zooz Z-Wave USB stick. The Zooz stick worked fine on Polisy with IoX v5.5.x until I fully migrated my ISY994i to Polisy. Today, I migrated my ISY994i-IR-PRO configuration to ISY on Polisy. A current backup from my ISY994i was created. A new Serial PLM was connected to Polisy. So Polisy now had the new Serial PLM along with the Zooz USB 700 Series Z-Wave Plus S2 Stick ZST10 700 already plugged in. I removed power from the ISY994i and unplugged its PLM from the AC outlet. I then restored the current ISY994i backup to Polisy, checked both the INSTEON Support and Z-Wave Support check boxes, and instructed IoX to Restore Modem (PLM). All INSTEON devices and IoX programs appear to be working fine. However, none of the Z-Wave devices that previously worked with IoX on Polisy function. When selecting the Z-Wave menu, it states "ZMatter Z-Wave not responding". I also noticed the Migrate to Zmatter button on the Configuration tab is no longer visible. It previously was. I've rebooted Polisy several times, including removing and restoring power. I've also unplugged and re-plugged the Zooz USB Z-Wave stick, etc. with no change. I even installed a short USB extension cable to make sure the Zooz USB stick is properly connected. I've viewed and monitored /var/isy/FILES/LOG/debug.log, but didn't see anything that seems to be related. I'll likely purchase a ZMatter board for Polisy at some point, but just not yet. For now, I'm hoping this Zooz Z-Wave stick issue can be resolved. I look forward to a response. Thanks