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NetBSD Running On An iOpener Without IDE HD

Posted by Nik on from the NP:-An-XFree86-4-download dept.

Elwood writes "Andrew Gillham has booted NetBSD/i386 -current on his Netpliance i-opener. He did this without opening the case and without using a 2.5" IDE hard drive." Read on for details.

The steps involved (using a normal keyboard) are:

  1. Get to a root shell, via 'ESC 4' and fast typing.
  2. Bring up PPP to a NetBSD machine. Having a PBX helps
  3. Backup the 16MB of flash, with the following: 
    # cat /dev/hd0 | gzip -9 > hd0.gz
# ftp 
ftp> put hd0.gz
  4. Replace flash with NetBSD image, by ftping compressed file. 
    # gzip -d -c file_name.gz | cat > /dev/hd0
  5. Wait a few seconds, yank the power to prevent QNX updating flash.
  6. Reboot under NetBSD, enjoy.

Full details are available at the main NetBSD Changes page.

1 of 11 comments (clear)

  1. More info & Changes by Fas+Attarac · · Score: 4

    Most of the attention out there at modifying i-openers has been towards Linux, but a lot of the information is applicable to any x86 operating system, really. *NIX systems are just easier to install and get working, since the hardware setup is weird.

    i-opener-linux.net and a FAQ.