[Voyage-linux] Re: Installing freedos - updating ALIX BIOS

[Mike]

so, here's one idea for ya
i'm using gparted and dd overall, i wiped all the partitions on the cf disk
and then dd'd the freedos3 image to it. HOWEVER  it does not include the
alix2.bin so rather than patching the image from the start, i just added it
into the rite dir. (somewhere in /etc/, sorry, my ram ain't what it used to
be ;)
anyway after mounting the disk wherever, you have to browse into it to
place the file. i didn't have to do any chowning or anything so it was
pretty straight forward... it was just realizing i had the wrong bios.
in my case, when i was booting from the freedos3 image on my cf, it was
explicitly stated that alix2.bin could not be found.
unless everyone else wants to hear this conversation, please reply
privately, Edwin


On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:50:49 -0500, Edwin Whitelaw
<Edwin.Whitelaw at nrvunwired.net> wrote:
> Mike,
> 
> Could you elaborate a bit on how you got freedos and the ALIX bios
> update to work?
> 
> I've got an old 64M CF and a bunch of newer 256 and up.  Trying to use
> the 64M.
> 
> In Linux, fdisk /dev/sdm and created a Linux (ext2) partition made
> bootable
> 
> The dd looks like it completes without error with:
> 
> d2300:/u1/nrvu-shared/ALIX# dd if=freedos_alixupdate_0.99.img of=/dev/sdm
> 16065+0 records in
> 16065+0 records out
> 8225280 bytes (8.2 MB) copied, 16.4155 seconds, 501 kB/s
> 
> After the dd, fdisk shows:
> 
> Disk /dev/sdm: 64 MB, 64094720 bytes
> 243 heads, 49 sectors/track, 10 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 11907 * 512 = 6096384 bytes
> 
>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sdm1   *           1           3       15648+   6  FAT16
> Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
>      phys=(0, 1, 1) logical=(0, 1, 15)
> Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
>      phys=(1, 242, 49) logical=(2, 153, 49)
> 
> 
> mount /dev/sdm1 /mnt/cf
> 
> and mount | grep sdm shows
> 
> /dev/sdm1 on /mnt/cf type vfat (rw)
> 
> However, trying to boot yields:
> 
> PC Engines ALIX.3 v0.98
> 640 KB Base Memory
> 261120 KB Extended Memory
> 
> 01F0 Master 848A SanDisk SDCFB-64
> Phys C/H/S 978/4/32 Log C/H/S 978/4/32
> .Error!.
> 
> Can you see where I've erred?  Obviously being able to update the BIOS
> is a necessary thing so I would appreciate anyone's suggestion on where
> I've gone wrong with this approach or perhaps a better way to do it
> altogether.  When I last update BIOS on the WRAPs I used XMODEM over
> serial connection to write the BIOS.  Is that still possible?
> 
> TIA,
> 
> Edwin
>> K, so here we go.
>> I have an Alix3c2 also experienced the lockup problem.
>> What i did was i put freedos3 from the pcengines site on my CF after
> formatting
>> it to ext2 then dd'ing the image file to the disk. Additionally had to
> browse
>> the directories (i like dolphin) and include the alix2.bin file!!! --
> can be
>> obtained from the .99 bios .zip
>> after running the flashupdate i was able to boot voyage flawlessly.
>> now, on to adding the rite packages ;)
>>
>> Please addmyself to the list as well.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Voyage-linux mailing list
>> Voyage-linux at list.voyage.hk
>> http://list.voyage.hk/mailman/listinfo/voyage-linux
>>
> 
> --
> <=+=+=+==+=+=+==+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=>
> Edwin Whitelaw, P.E.
> New River Valley Unwired, LLC
> 2200 Lonesome Dove Dr
> Christiansburg, VA 24073
> 540-239-0318
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