Very Cheap (10 EUR) LCD Monitor for the Stora

As I've already written on the OpenStora forum some time ago, I have followed bastel's guide to add a very cheap lcd pictureframe as status display using lcd4linux to my stora. I plan to eventually integrate this in the front panel of the case and connect it to usb internally. The display is currently available for 10 € at PEARL

Controlling the fan of the netgear stora

I recently bought a netgear stora. I like the small form-factor of the device and also the fact that it can be hacked easily and you can put a plain vanilla debian on it. While the fan is not nearly as noisy as the fan of the dns-230 which I owned previously, I still got annoyed. I figured that the two hdds (WD EARS 2TB) don't produce much heat anyway so I decided turn off the fan. This has worked for me for more than two weeks now, and the stora never gets much warmer than room temperature (even under heavy load).

HOWEVER, I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY WHATSOEVER IF YOUR HARDDISKS GET FRIED OR YOUR HOUSE BURNS DOWN IN THE PROCESS

Here is, how you can control the fan (you must have debian installed on the stora):

1. log in as root
2. install ic2-tools:
   root@pico:~# apt-get install i2c-tools
3. create two scripts to start and stop the fan:
   echo "i2cset -y 0 0x1b 0x04 0x0b" >/usr/bin/fan_off
   
4. echo "i2cset -y 0 0x1b 0x04 0x0a" >/usr/bin/fan_on
   chmod +x /usr/bin/fan_off
   
5. chmod +x /usr/bin/fan_on
6. you can now switch on/off the fan using the commando sudo fan_on / sudo fan_off
7. enjoy the silence :-)