ROM Upgrade
From Parvi - Open source software and patches
WARNING!!!!
By doing this you are voiding your warranty with Sun Microsystems, if you haven't done so already.
You can completely kill your RaQ or Qube by doing this! I am not responsible if you do, but I'll take credit if works.
Contents |
Introduction
In order to boot newer kernels (2.4.x and 2.6.x) you need to update your RaQ or Qube's ROM image. Done right you can minimize the danger of paperweighting your system. First thing's first, it's much easier if you have a booted system. If you're system does not boot to an OS you can still update the ROM, but it is much more difficult and the possibility of disaster is greatly increased. You can refer another howto for instructions on how to proceeded without a bootable OS.
Getting Started
For those of us with a bootable, you will need to download the flashtool to your system. You will also need a ROM image which are available via the Cobalt ROM project on SourceForge. If you don't know which image size you need, skip down to where you backup the current ROM image and look at the resulting file's size.
Backing Up
It's a good idea to back up your system's current ROM image to compare later on. To backup your system's ROM image, issue the following command:
# ./flashtool -r > backup.rom
Make sure this succeeds! If it doesn't, do not proceed any further as you cannot verify the newly burned image was burned correctly, which could result in a dead system!
Writing The New ROM Image
For documentation purposes my ROM image file is named new_image.rom, be sure to substitute this for the name of the image you downloaded. Ok. Let's get burning!
# ./flashtool -w new_image.rom
Checking for Success
If your write failed, you're ok, it should not have committed to memory. If your write succeeded, we want to double check it wrote correctly.
# ./flashtool -r > new.rom # cmp new.rom new_image.rom
If the compare comes back without noise, go ahead and breathe you're done. If it said the two different, try writing new_image.rom again, compare again. If your write just failed, go ahead and try it again. If it fails yet again, write your backup and compare by doing:
# ./flashtool -w backup.rom # ./flashtool -r > new.rom # cmp new.rom backup.rom
If any of this fails, do not restart your system! This is critical! While I've never seen a write of a backup fail, it is possible. If it did fail, it could indicate a bad chip or some other issue beyond the scope of this howto.