How To Install LINUX on an iPAQ

Installing Linux on an IPAQ is not very difficult because of the good documentation about how this is done on the web. The main website to visit is: 
 

http://www.handhelds.org
 

This website provides very good documentation and step by step on how to install Linux. 
 

http://www.handhelds.org directs you to a Linux distribution called Familiar. Familiar distribution currently supports Compaq IPAQ. The Familiar distribution is a well known project and is progressing rapidly. 
 

I chose Familiar Linux to put on the IPAQ because of two main reasons:
 

• Our department at GSU currently has about twenty COMPAQ 3850 IPAQS. They all have WINCE on them. (The IPAQs come with the  WINCE operating system)

• When trying to install Linux on your IPAQ if something goes wrong, your IPAQ can become a brick (unbootable and not functioning) However, this is very rare. (I have installed Linux on 2 IPAQs and everything went fine.) Good news is COMPAQ has kindly accepted to fix those IPAQ and restore WINCE on them. 

But how do we pass this bootldr to the IPAQ? 
 

The answer is; we will use ActiveSync to pass it. ActiveSync is a program that enables passing a file from a computer desktop to the IPAQ or vice versa. 
 

To see the Big Picture of what we will do during the whole installation process, I am listing the main steps in the following. (We will ignore the details at this moment. They are already documented very well in the links above.) 
 

Steps:

      Start-up: 

1. First, all we have is an IPAQ with WINCE on it, a computer, with WINDOWS on it and we have ACTIVESync cd and we have a cradle. We will use the cradle to connect the IPAQ to the desktop computer. 
2. Install the Active Sync program to the desktop, 
3. Connect the IPAQ to the computer using the cradle 
4. Get the latest bootldr files from the www.handhelds.org

1. Pass the bootldr files to the IPAQ using the Active Sync Program
2. Run the .exe file on the IPAQ
3. Follow the instructions on that  .exe file 
4. Bootldr is installed!! 

Mid Stage: 

Installing the bootldr was the riskiest part of the process. Once that is completed, we can go ahead and install the Linux kernel!
 

1. Go to http://familiar.handhelds.org 

 
2. Click on the latest distribution you want to install 
You can get the latest distribution and instructions for it are here: 

http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.6.1/install/install.html
 
 

3. Download the Bootstrap Root Image Familiar v0.6 bootstrap.jffs2 to the desktop. This is necessary to get the basic requirements for getting the handheld booting, and on the network.
Now how do have we pass this Familiar v0.6 bootstrap.jffs2 file to the IPAQ? 

 

We can not use Active Sync anymore because Active Sync will only work with a windows IPAQ. It will not recognize the Linux IPAQ. 
 

How do we pass the files in this case? 
 

The answer is easy. We will use a terminal emulator. We will use the HyperTerminal on the Windows desktop. Using the HyperTerminal we will be able to transfer files from the desktop to the IPAQ. 
 
 

4. So, open a HyperTerminal connection with these settings:

 
• 115200 
• 8N1 serial configuration 
• no flow control
• no hardware handshaking. 
5. After that is done you will see a boot prompt 

 

 

boot>

enter   partition reset  (we type these commands through the HyperTerminal using the desktop pc's keyboard) 
 

6. at the "boot>" prompt 

 

Enter: 

    load root 
 
 
 
 

7. Transfer the v0.6 bootstrap.jffs2 file from your desktop to the IPAQ through HyperTerminal z modem ; the Transferring the file will take about 30 minutes. It is a big file. 
8. Then at the  boot> prompt 

Last Steps: 

1. At the login: prompt
Username:root
Passwd: rootme 
2. Then, you should install some packages from the Internet. If you have a wireless card it is very easy. You just use a command called ipkg. Ipkg downloads the packages from the Internet. 
First you might want to install task-complete package. It will provide an X environment and will install very useful packages for you. Task-complete is a collection of many useful packages

 
 
 
 

Ipkg install task-complete 
 
 

Ipkg upgrade, ipkg list, ipkg update are various commands to get list update and upgrade your packages. 
 
 

Ipkg install vim: install vi editor for example. 
 
 
 
 

3. Then,  run root/postinst. it configures the IPAQ for you..
4. Use ActiveSync or network to copy bootldr and BootBlaster to the iPAQ under PocketPC

 
 

Now you have an IPAQ with Linux on it. : )
 
 
 
 

Some very important points: 
 
 

5. When you are following a link, sometimes the links are not updated. The link might tell you that it will take you to the latest familiar distribution installation instructions, however it might take you to an earlier one. 
6. The documentation in the below links provide enough and and very good detailed information  about installing Linux on an IPAQ. 
7. When rebooting the IPAQ try to do both hard reboot and soft reboot together. Sometimes doing only once of them doesn't load the new kernel image.

Reference: 
 
 

1) www.handhelds.org

2) http://familiar.handhelds.org

3) http://www.cfar.umd.edu/~arvind/linuxonipaq.htm (very good documentation!) 

4) http://www.hp.com/country/us/eng/prodserv/handheld.html (this is to get the latest spec of a particular IPAQ, COMPAQ'S website) 

5) http://ipkgfind.handhelds.org/ (This finds package for you)