Re: [iPAQ] [LONG] Linux Install = Nightmare

> I tied but I don't understand a lot. I am a complete newbie in Linux and
> iPAQ.

Hrm... well...I'll do my best below, but I'll also be honest with you. Linux
for iPAQ is a new thing. It's still in the early and experimental stages.
It's nifty as a concept, but still a bit shaky on the ground. In short: it's
not (yet) for everyone, altho' it's making very rapid strides, IMO.

To your questions.

First of all, for any part of the procedure where all you're using your
desktop machine for is as a dumb terminal, it doesn't matter whether your
desktop is running Windows or Linux. So, anywhere an instruction suggests
'HyperTerminal', you can pretty safely substitute 'minicom', and vice versa.
It's only when you start actually *running* PPP that you're most likely to
want to be in Linux on the desktop (altho', as several people have mentioned
here, you *can* run a PPP daemon under Windows).

> ****PPPHowto IPAQ Side<http://www.handhelds.org/z/wiki/PPPHowto>
> Q1: At this stage my ipaq was booting using windows hyperterminal.
> Should I stop doing that and make it boot on Linux ?

You don't have to, immediately, since at this stage, you still need to be
using straight serial, rather than PPP, to get things setup, and
Hyperterminal is as good or as bad a place to do that as any.

If you do choose to flip over to Linux, you need to do the following to set
up minicom to be maximally useful:

* Become root (or use sudo) and run 'minicom -s'

* Minicom's 'command' character is CTRL-A. Type CTRL-a o (that is, CTRL-a,
  followed by the letter 'o'). You'll get a menu.
  
* Cursor down to 'Serial Port Setup' and hit ENTER

* The serial device should have defaulted to '/dev/ttyS0' (aka COM1). If
  you're iPAQ cradle is connected to COM2, hit 'a' and edit this entry to
  read '/dev/ttyS1'
  
* You want Bps/Par/Bits to read 115200 8N1. If it doesn't already, hit 'e'
  to get the dialog box to change it.

* You want neither Hardware nor Software flow control. If either of these
  say 'Yes', hit the appropriate letter to toggle them.
  
When you're done, hit ENTER to leave Serial Port Settings. Everything else
should be fine out of the box, so now you want to save these settings as
your default. There should be an option on the menu, 'Save setup as dfl'.
Cursor down and hit ENTER.

When it's saved, hit ESC to get out options mode, and then hit CTRL-a x to
leave Minicom.

Now, stop being root and just type 'minicom'. If you hit return, you should
see your iPAQ's prompt.

> Q3: Supposing that I am using a teminal, for adding a new pp user (the root
> user), the following command should be enter in the terminal windows isn't
> it ?

I'm not sure I understand your question, but: the commands in question
should be entered on your iPAQ, so either via HyperTerminal or via minicom,
while logged in to the iPAQ as root. You should be able to simply cut and
paste the commands in question at the shell prompt.

> Q4: This could be done under windows or Linux without difference isn't it ?

Yes. A terminal program is a terminal program :-)

> Q5: To make these changes permanent, apply them to the /etc directory in the
> cramfs image on the host and then flash the new cramfs image to your iPAQ.

This part of the instructions is out of date. If you used
'task-bootstrap.jffs', then anything you add or change (or delete, for that
matter) in the root filesystem (any of / /usr /etc /lib /bin /sbin, to name
a few, but not /tmp, which points to a ramdisk) will be committed to the
Flash File System. This also means, however, that you need to be very
careful. Once you have everything more or less the way you want it, I
strongly recommend making a backup to your desktop machine with rsync. That
way, you can experiment to your heart's content, and easily restore
everything just by starting over and reloading your 'known-good' system.

> Q6: (ColinMarquardt adds: I got reminded that having no ppp compression is
> probably a good idea with ssh connections. Add a "nodeflate" and a
> "nobsdcomp" to the options file for that. I didn't try yet to see if it
> makes a difference.) Has it been try by anybody ? Do I need to do that ?

*Shrug* I don't think I've done it yet, and it hasn't killed me.

> ****PPPHowto PC Side<http://www.handhelds.org/z/wiki/PPPHowto>
> Q7: [...]
> 192.168.1.100:192.168.1.101
> What is the host IP? the iPAQ IP ???

.100 is the address your host will have; .101 the iPAQ.

Once pppd is up and running, if you say 'ifconfig -a' on either side, you
should see a 'ppp0' device with the address.

> Q8: Note: if your console is full of LCP EchoRep messages, your pppd is in
> debug mode. Check the /etc/ppp/options file on your desktop computer to
> remove the debug line.
> How ?

vi. emacs. Any text editor will do. But you're running RedHat 7.1 out of the
box, so you probably don't have to worry about this.

> Q9: (I like to add the IP addresses to my /etc/hosts file so I can simply
> type ipaq rather than 192.168.1.101). Where should I do that on the PC isn't
> it ???

Yes. On the PC, while it's running Linux. There's no reason why you can't do
something similar on the iPAQ as well, however.

> ****IPMasqHowto PC Side<http://www.handhelds.org/z/wiki/IPMasqHowto>
> Yes, I have a spare valid IP address for my handheld
> Q10: On the host, add the proxyarp option to the configuration file for the
> ppp connection for your handheld. My file /etc/ppp/peers/ipaq is now :
> [...]
> Is it right ???

Think so.

> Q11: On the handheld, you will also have to configure the network to route
> all traffic throught the ppp connection. This should do the trick: route add
> default ppp0, (a better solution might be to add the defaultroute option to
> /etc/ppp/options.
> HOW can I add the defaultroute to /etc/ppp/options ?

echo "defaultroute" >> /etc/ppp/options

(Note well '>>' not '>')

or use vi to edit the file.

> Q12: If everything is working a this stage, should I reboot the host and the
> iPAQ ?

Neither. Shouldn't be necessary. The PPP How To includes instructions for
firing up the PPP connection (on my machine, I go root and say 'pon ipaq',
but I think that's a Debianism; you're using RedHat, so your mileage will
vary).

Before you fire up PPP, make sure 'sshd' is running on the iPAQ -- it's
installed if you've done the ipkg install_pending, but in order to get it to
run, you need to generate keys. On the iPAQ (that is, via minicom), say the
following

ssh-keygen -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_key

When it prompts you for a passphrase -- JUST HIT ENTER.

Do this again for a DSA key:

ssh-keygen -d -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key

Again, you *want* a null passphrase, so just hit ENTER.

Now, say /etc/init.d/ssh start.

If everything else has gone right, you should now be ready to quit minicom
and never look at it again except in emergencies. At your iPAQ's prompt, say
'exit'. It should return to a login prompt. Now type 'CTRL-a x' to exit
minicom, and start up PPP as instructed in the HowTo.

If you're at all nervous about whether pppd is running succesfully, type
this at your host's shell:

ping 192.168.1.101 (or, if you've added it to /etc/hosts, ping ipaq).

You should see a march of 'ping' reports come back to you. If it just sits
there, pppd isn't working right.

If it worked, CTRL-c to end it, and now ssh into your iPAQ!

ssh root@ipaq

> Q13: At this stage may I go back to the install instructions
> http://familiar.handhelds.org/familiar/releases/v0.4/install/H3600/install.h
> tml
> and create /etc/resolv.conf and add one nameserver entry? What sshould I do
> for creating /etc/resolv.conf and add one nameserver entry? Wich nameserver
> ?

I just copied my desktop resolv.conf onto the iPAQ. Once routing works, the
iPAQ should have no trouble getting to any host on the Internet, so if name
resolution works for your desktop, it should work for your iPAQ.

From your host, you can type:

scp /etc/resolv.conf root@ipaq:/etc/resolv.conf

> Q14: Can I do now ipkg update ???

If you can't, it's not working right :-)

> Q15: I have a SanDisk compactFlash 64 MB memory module. What should I do to
> have familiar take this extension into account ???

I can't give you details on this one, because I don't have such a luxury yet
:-) But basically, a CF module can be made to appear to Linux like a
filesystem, so the summary of the procedure is to make sure it's formatted
in a way Linux can read, and then mount it as a filesystem at /mnt/hda or
some such.

> Q16: I have Stowaway keyboard for the Compaq iPAQ. I went to the Wikki
> Hardware Project page < http://www.handhelds.org/z/wiki/HardwareProjects/ >
> to see how to have it work with the iPAQ but I don't understand what I have
> to do.

First of all, make sure you ahve the h3600-stowaway package installed.

The trick is, when you want to use your keyboard, you will need to get the
program that's already monitoring the serial port out of the way. This
program is called 'getty', and another program, 'init', is responsible by
default for making sure it's *always* there - you can't just 'kill' it.

What you need to do is have two copies of your /etc/inittab file -- one
called /etc/inittab.kbd and one called /etc/inittab.getty.
/etc/inittab.getty should be exactly what's currently in inittab;
inittab.kbd should have the last line -- the one that spawns getty --
deleted or commented out.

You will need to write two scripts to change between the two modes. The
scripts can look something like this:

/sbin/gokbd:
modprobe h3600_stowaway # Loads the stowaway kernel driver
rm /etc/inittab # Get rid of the old 'tab
cp /etc/inittab.kbd /etc/inittab # Copy the 'kbd' version into place
telinit q # Restart init
sleep 1 # Give init a second to recover
start-stop-daemon --start --exec stowd # Start stowd

/sbin/goserial:
start-stop-daemon --stop --name stowd # Stop stowd
modprobe -r h3600_stowaway # Unload the kernel module
rm /etc/inittab # Get rid of the old 'tab
cp /etc/inittab.getty /etc/inittab # Copy the 'getty' version into place
telinit q # Restart init

In theory, it should be possible to place these actions in your blackbox or
gtk-menu menus; in practice, I've had no luck getting stowd to run properly
when I do this, so I just scribble at an rxvt window on the iPAQ when I want
to change back and forth.

Note well: You absolutely *must* 'goserial' before using PPP or minicom
again!

Mikey
Received on Thu Aug 16 09:45:00 2001