How to upgrade the firmware w/o a bootable disk image.

[Ralph Siemsen]

On Sat, Dec 25, 2004 at 10:24:12PM -0800, dave pratt wrote:

> So I have a really old netwinder which will not boot
> the newer (post 2.0 kernel) images because cannot pass
> the options to the kernel correctly. The drive
> currently has a fresh image on it that is based on one
> of the 2.2 series kernels... Is there an easy way for
> me to upgrade the netrom? I've tried looking every
> where on google and have been unable to come up with
> an old disk image which with a 2.0 series kernel...

Other that JTAG, the only way to upgrade the firmware is to boot up far
enoug that you can run the "flashwrite" utility.  It has been a long while
but I suspect you will want the 990121 kernel (or earlier)

http://netwinder.osuosl.org/pub/netwinder/kernel/old-kernels/nwkernbin-990121.tar.gz

You can get this kernel to boot either via netboot (ethernet), by serial
download, or by getting it on the hard drive somehow (eg. other PC).

See also the "firmware compatibility guide":
http://netwinder.osuosl.org/users/r/ralphs/public_html/compat.html

-R