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Clio on Linux - how to?

BIGRED Page Icon Posted 2009-04-09 1:16 AM
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Hi everyone.

I had posted in another thread my Internet issues as it relates to secure sites. Being that I seem to have hit a dead end dealing with the problem directly - the thought came why not Linux?

I have done a fair amount of searching, reading and trying over the last couple of days, but I am not getting it or I got it and it isn't working. I have tried playing with DSL, Puppy and NETBSD.

The Clio has 32 megs of ROM, 32 of Ram and I have added a 128 meg CF.

I can see no way to boot to the CF. It starts right up in CE

If I could get specific instructions - that will be awesome. If not, I would appreciate some direction and suggestions to help to get Linux running.

Thanks in advance,
BR
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mscdex Page Icon Posted 2009-04-09 1:57 AM
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I've gotten netbsd running on an mp780 which is also MIPS-based. It worked pretty well for the limited hardware in my opinion. What steps did you try when trying to install it?
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BIGRED Page Icon Posted 2009-04-09 8:50 AM
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I used Unetbootin to take all the iso's to the cf.
I have tried using activesync to take DSL embedded to the cf.
I have tried to get Qemu to start - (trying to run a virtual)

In all cases CE boots.

BR
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BIGRED Page Icon Posted 2009-04-09 11:32 AM
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and.... I get confused when trying to follow the instructions. On the one had the sysinst is explained while those files are not available for download. HPCBoot is available and I have yet to find clear instructions on using it.

Thanks for any help!
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mscdex Page Icon Posted 2009-04-09 8:14 PM
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Quote
BIGRED - 2009-04-09 11:32 AM

and.... I get confused when trying to follow the instructions. On the one had the sysinst is explained while those files are not available for download. HPCBoot is available and I have yet to find clear instructions on using it.

Thanks for any help!


hpcboot.exe along with netbsd.gz is what you will need initially to start the installation. IIRC you can actually re-partition your CF card during installation, so that you wouldn't have to do it on a desktop PC. Although, I'm not sure if you can easily resize the FAT partition containing hpcboot.exe and netbsd.gz. If worst comes to worst I think what you'd have to do is re-copy those two files back to the newly resized FAT partition if they ended up getting corrupted during resize. I didn't have this problem because the mobilepros have a built-in persistent storage area, which is where I copied those two files and so I used the entire CF for netbsd (and swap).

I didn't think to create a howto when I was doing it, but there wasn't too many steps to it if I remember right. If I can find free time this weekend, I'll start from scratch again on my MP and write a little tutorial. One last thing to remember is that the netbsd installation will work best if you have a supported network (wired or wireless) card. That way you can have it download what it needs and/or what you want to install, without having to have some way of transferring the package sets manually.

There was a couple caveats I do remember though.....

One of them was a wireless card driver "issue." The card I was using was an orinoco gold wifi card, and for some reason (even though it is supported) the netbsd installer either didn't pick it up automatically or didn't configure it correctly, so I had to configure it manually using modprobe and then ifconfig, route, and editing /etc/resolv.conf. Not that big of a deal, since once netbsd is installed you can make these changes and have them saved permanently and not worry about it anymore.

Secondly, there was an issue with the console and/or keyboard becoming messed up after exiting X. I do not know if this is a MP-specific issue or not, but it essentially required a reboot to fix it. This means rebooting and going back through CE to launch hpcboot to get back to your permanent netbsd installation. Perhaps someone more knowledgable about bsd or linux could fix the problem if it's not device or hardware-specific.
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BIGRED Page Icon Posted 2009-04-10 6:35 PM
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I would appreciate any help. After stumbling around - I found that hpcboot would not work. That pbsdboot did work with 4.0.1.

I was able to get it to boot. I could not get it to find the host for the FTP or HTTP downloads. With 32 megs or ROM and RAM ea, I first copied the NetBSD files from the Internet to the 2 gig card (using a desktop computer), then as you did copied them a folder on Clio. In one of the tries, the files vanished from the folder on the computer. So it would seem that I need to run the files from the CF. Assuming I can and should be using pbsdboot - then I am good till the time of trying to connect to download the files.

Thanks again,
BR
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