Flashing an HP 2140 with free software

cafuego — Wed, 13 May 2009 01:04:44 +0000

When I flashed the Mini 2140 yesterday I used a Windows laptop to create a bootable flash drive with the BIOS utility and update on it.

I didn't really need to use a non-free operating system, as HP provide a tiny bootable ISO image with FreeDOS, but using that means wasting a CD-R. It's not that those are expensive, but they do end up in landfill.

Instead, I'd like to be able to simply use a USB key. I found some help on the FreeDOS wiki and I thought I'd document the steps I followed on Ubuntu.

0) Prequisites

You will need to install the syslinux and cabextract packages and obtain a copy of mkbootfat. The latter was not packaged, so I created source and binary packages for Intrepid and Jaunty. You will also need to download some FreeDOS files and the ROMPaq update executable from the HP website. Download the FreeDOS bootable media file, not the Windows HPQFlash one.

Finally, you will need a USB key. It will be erased during this process, so make sure you backup any data it currently contains.

1) Preparation

Create a directory that you will work from and cd into it. Then create a directory that will eventually be the root filesystem on the USB key.

$ mkdir 2140
$ cd 2140
2140$ mkdir rootfs

Install syslinux and cabextract

2140$ sudo aptitude install syslinux cabextract

Download and install mkbootfat:

2140$ wget -c http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/pool/jaunty-cafuego/makebootfat/makebootfat_1.4-0cafuego0_i386.deb
2140$ sudo dpkg -i makebootfat_1.4-0cafuego0_i386.deb

Download the required FreeDOS files:

2140$ wget -c http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.0/pkgs/kernels.zip
2140$ wget -c http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.0/pkgs/commandx.zip
2140$ wget -c http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.0/pkgs/unstablx.zip

Extract command.com from commandx.zip to the rootfs directory:

2140$ unzip -d rootfs -j commandx.zip bin/command.com

Extract kernel.sys from unstablx.zip to the rootfs directory:

2140$ unzip -d rootfs -j unstablx.zip bin/kernel.sys

Extract the required files from kernels.zip to the current directory:

2140$ unzip -j kernels.zip source/ukernel/boot/fat12.bin source/ukernel/boot/fat16.bin source/ukernel/boot/fat32lba.bin

Copy mbr.bin from the syslinux package to the current directory

2140$ cp /usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin .

Now extract the BIOS update you downloaded from HP via cabextract and copy the update files to the rootfs directory:

2140$ cabextract sp43583.exe
2140$ cp Rompaq/68DGU.BIN rootfs
2140$ cp Rompaq/config.sys rootfs
2140$ cp Rompaq/gpl2.txt rootfs
2140$ cp Rompaq/Rompaq.exe rootfs

Note that my download was called sp43583.exe, yours may be named differently.

2) Create the Boot Device

Insert your USB key and check the output of dmesg to see what its device name is.

2140$ dmesg
[    9.348395] usb-storage: device scan complete
[    9.349611] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Imation  Imation USB      PMAP PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[    9.351075] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 996864 512-byte hardware sectors: (510 MB/486 MiB)
[    9.351694] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[    9.351706] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
[    9.351715] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[    9.353699] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 996864 512-byte hardware sectors: (510 MB/486 MiB)
[    9.354319] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[    9.354330] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
[    9.354340] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[    9.354354]  sdb: sdb1
[    9.355653] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
[    9.355767] sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0

Mine is /dev/sdb. It has one partition on it currently. I will delete this and blank the MBR on the USB key via dd:

2140$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1

This will write zeroes to the first sector of the USB key, which is where both its master boot record and partition map live.

Warning: This process essentially wipes the USB key. Make sure the data on it is backed up and that you are using the correct device name.

Unplug and replug the USB key to ensure the kernel is no longer using the old partition map. After plugging it back in, recheck the device file name. It should not have changed, but it may have.

Finally, use makebootfat to make this device bootable and copy the rootfs to it:

2140$ sudo makebootfat -o /dev/sdb -E 255 -1 fat12.bin -2 fat16.bin -3 fat32lba.bin -m mbr.bin rootfs

You should now have a bootable USB key with the BIOS update tools on it.

3) Profit

Boot your Mini 2140 using the key you just created. After a short moment, the Rompaq utility should start and you can upgrade your BIOS.

Caveats

makebootfat appears to be somewhat temperamental with regards to USB keys and BIOSes. This HOWTO works fine if I run all commands on the Mini 2140, but if I create the boot device on my workstation, the result is not bootable. I've only tried it with a single old USB key though.

I strongly suggest crossing your fingers when executing each step.

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HP 2140 Linux Oops

cafuego — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:05:20 +0000

Kattekrab has been lusting after a netbook for ages. Her old laptop, a G4 iBook, just isn't cutting the mustard anymore and Ubuntu even dropped PPC support some time ago. It runs Debian just fine, but even then because it's PPC there are issues with Java and there is no Flash or Acrobat*.

Last weekend we decided to put our free** Rudd money into the economy and went shopping.

Ever since my Dell disintegrated in the early naughties I've had HP laptops and loved them. During 2008 I used a small HP laptop that was donated for linux.conf.au (the 2009 team used and loved it last year). Thank you HP!

Late last year I got a new laptop, an HP 6730b, and am loving that too.

It should come as no surprise then that the netbook we chose was also a Hewlett Packard.

After having played with various netbooks at several retail outlets Kattekrab decided she wanted a mini 1000, on account of having a decently sized keyboard. Unfortunately neither these nor the 2133 appeared to be available anywhere, so instead she went with an HP Mini 2140.

It has a 1.6GHz Atom chip, 2GB of RAM, a 160GB sata harddisk and Broadcom 43xx based wifi.

This machine ship with Windows XP preinstalled and a Vista "upgrade" on DVD, so we downloaded the Ubuntu netbook remix image and stuck that on a USB key.

After showing the normal Ubuntu pre-install menu, the machine then reliably hard locked each time it started the kernel.

Oops.

After a bunch of Googling and a set of misleading hints about turning the system fan on or off, booting with acpi disabled and varioius scary irq options enabled, I finally stumbled across the right answer.

The machine ships with the BIOS set to support dual core CPUs and upon booting this causes the kernel to try and run SMP based routines. However, the Atom is a single core CPU, and the whole thing falls over in a heap as soon as the kernel tries this trick.

The fix is simple: Hit F10 at bootup, go into System Configuration > Device Configurations and set Dual Core CPU to Disable.

Save the new setup and reboot. Hurray, Linux works!

And it works perfectly. All devices are detected and work just fine, from the camera to the SD card reader. However, you do need to grab and install some non-free*** firmware files for the wifi chip.

* Yes, these are non-free and there are free alternatives. I know. However, the free alternatives don't always work particularly well and sometimes don't include features the user needs.
** As in beer.
*** As in speech.

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Cafuego - mini 2140

Flashing an HP 2140 with free software

0) Prequisites

1) Preparation

2) Create the Boot Device

3) Profit

Caveats

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HP 2140 Linux Oops

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