| Warning! This will erase everything you have save on your handheld!
Alright, first of all, this is strictly for MobilePro 780 users only. I cannot assure you that this will help you if you do not use a MobilePro 780. Second, I am assuming that you have a computer running Linux, my flavor is Ubuntu. You will also need for your MP 780 and computer to be connect to a hub or router. I use a 2Wire router which has wifi so I can connect my MP 780 with a wireless pcmia card (Cisco Aironet series). You must have your computer connected to the router also, my computer uses a CAT5 cable to the router. You will need a cf card, mine is 512 mbs, I haven't tried it on any other card, but 512 is not big enough to do a full installation, but big enough for custom. Now that we all know what we need, let's get onto installiong NetBSD on your MP 780. You will need to get the installation files of the NetBSD server, here is the link ftp://ftp2.us.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-3.1/hpcmips/installation/. You will need to get hpcboot.exe, netbsd.gz, netbsd.symbols.gz, and pbsdboot.exe. Copy these files onto your cf card that is formatted to fat16 (it should show up on your MP 780 as Storage Card2). When you copy in Ubuntu make sure you right click your storage device and press eject, if you don't Ubuntu does not actually right to the disk. Now that you have these files copied to the disk place it in your MP. Open up hpcboot. Stay on the kernel tab, you will not need to go to Option or Console. Change the kernel path to \Storage Card2\. Then change the device from NEC MC-CS11 to NEC MobilePro 780. Now press boot. You might get a screen pop up that says “No symbol and/or string table in binary,” don't worry about it, press OK. The press Yes when it says Push YES to boot. Press enter for a: Installation messages in English, or whatever language you speak. Press enter on a: Install NetBSD to hard disk. Then press Yes to continue. Press enter on Hit enter to continue. Press b for b: Custom installation. Change Compiler Tools, Games, Online Manual Pages, Miscellaneous to No by hitting enter on each one. Then hit Install selected sets. Then you will see sectors [63] hit enter then enter again. Edit the MBR partition table. I changed the FAT16 partition size to 16 mbs, and and then changed b to NetBSD 472 mbs, or however many mbs you have left. Make sure when you create the NetBSD partition press install so is says Yes. Press Partition table OK. Then press Set sizes of NetBSD partitions. I changed the swap size to 0 and put all of the memory in /. This way you don't have to worry about space in the other folders. Press Accept partition sizes. Then enter on Partition sizes ok. Hit enter again on naming the NetBSD disk. Press Yes on continuing. Hit enter to continue. Hit enter again. Press enter for Progress bar. Then go down to FTP in Select medium. Press enter when it asks which device to use. Enter again on Network media type. Press yes on Perform DHCP autoconfiguration?. Press enter on Your DNS domain. Press enter again on Your host name:. Press no for Perform Ipv6 autoconfig. Press yes for OK. When it ask What directory shall I use for ftp? just press enter. Then go to g to Get Distribution. Now sit back and let it download and install itself. Alright, if you are going to use the network you've been using regularly, pres yes on the Is the network information you...? Press yes to delete the NetBSD sets, these files are just going to take up space. Hit enter to continue. Change the time and what not. On password cipher go to do not change. Press no when it asks to change root password. Press enter on /bin/sh. Hit enter to continue. Now reset your MP 780. When it reboots go to Storage Card2 and open up pbsdboot. Kernel name will be /netbsd. Make sure the Frame Buffer is set to Mobile Pro 780 and press boot. Alright, let it boot up. Remember, these instructions are for Mobile Pro 780 connected to a network with a computer running Ubuntu. I can't make promises on other Linux distros. Now, login as root. You should not have to enter a password since we declined it earlier. Find the IP Address of your Ubuntu box by typing “ip addr” in the terminal. Type in startx on your MP. This will start the X-11 window system. Now, when X-11 is up type in the terminal “ssh -X -C -l *.*.*.*” *.*.*.* being the IP address of your Ubuntu box. now you should be logged in as root on your desktop's terminal. You can open up programs by simply typing, dillo, gaim, firefox, mozilla, xmms, gedit... etc. I would recommend only opening one program at a time, for the MP 780 does not have that much memory on it to run multiple apps. To install applications on your Ubuntu box, just open Synaptic Package Manager under System - Administrator - Synaptic Package Manager. |
| Are there any self contined Linux OS for the Mobile Pro 780? I would like to play some minor games, listen to some mosic, maybe even watch a low res CODEC movie. This system you have, is it dependent on another computer, or can the Mobile Pro 780 run on its own after all the install and configuration is set? Thanks
-Alex |
