FreeBSD on old Fujitsu Siemens Activy 300

M

morl

I have been studying FreeBSD (and computer systems in general) for some weeks now and have used it very successfully as a desktop system, but I also explored the handbook and learned some really interesting stuff that got me hooked to set up a mini-lab in my room to be able to try some of this in a more realistic scenario.
I would like to turn my main powerful machine (now a rather boring desktop) into a headless server and get some old boxes for testing things like PXE booting, serving X clients etc.

I have this old media center machine which sat in the basement for some years and I would like to make it useful, if that is at all possible. I don't know much about the machine but here is some of the information I managed to gather:

From the "Device Manager" in currently installed Windows NT Embedded :PP
Code: 
Fujitsu Siemens Activy 300
CPU: Intel Mobile Pentium 3 Coppermine (Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 6)
RAM: 64 MB
NIC: National Semiconductor DP83815 10/100 MacPhyter3v
IDE disk: Fujitsu MPG3409 AT (40-60 GB I think)
GFX: Intergraphics Systems CyberPro5000 4 MB
If there is anything else you would like to know about the hardware, tell me and I will do my best to wait for it to boot this NT beast.
I have found the network card on the list of supported hardware and sis(4) driver should work with it. I naively guess that disk should work and I'm not that interested in getting the graphics working but it would be nice to have this option too.

I naively burnt a copy of FreeBSD10-i386 to a CD and tried to boot the machine but it just passed through to boot from the hard disk. CD boots fine on my other machine.
Doing some searching I've found a German site that describes this model (in German). I don't understand many of the things said there but I did understand this ones:
Die Activy 300 bootet CD-ISOs nur, wenn diese eine spezielle Signatur tragen.
Click to expand...
Says that Activy will not boot from the CD unless special signature is present in the boot image. It links to this page, which describes how to burn a Linux image with this signature. Unfortunately I don't understand what exactly is being done there. What is this signature anyway? Why is it needed? What are all the switches used with mkisofs() and why are they needed? Does anything else need to be done before FreeBSD can boot?

Selbst mit dem aktuellsten BIOS (V4.06 R1.09) kann die Activy 300 keinen Kernel über der 512MB-Grenze hinaus booten. Eine Partitionierung mit separater /boot Partition ist erforderlich. Siehe grub-error-guide
Click to expand...
Also sounds problematic. Links to this. Any tips on that?

To sum it all up, is it possible to get this machine to run FreeBSD? I'm not interested in any of the special hardware on this machine nor do I want to use it for what it was intended (as a home multimedia server or something), I just want to get a nice console prompt for the start. :beer

P.S. I have only the best to say about FreeBSD, it has been the most enlightening experience to use it, learn about it and learn with it! §e
 
It's great to hear enthusiasm like this. Too often we get bogged down in problems and forget to step back and admire just how cool some of this stuff really is.

That machine may not be able to netboot without an added ROM for the network card. Possibly easier to find a newer network card, assuming it has PCI slots. No idea about the CD signature. The easiest way to get FreeBSD on it might be moving the hard drive to another machine and installing FreeBSD, then moving the drive back.

As an alternative, you can set up VirtualBox VMs on the host system and netboot them. The virtual network card must be set to bridged mode for the VM and only one of the emulated cards supports netboot, but it works like real hardware. Well, it netboots a bit slower than real hardware, but that is minor.
 
Moving the hard drive to some other machine and installing FreeBSD from there sounds like the "easiest" solution and I just opened my main machine's case to find a single PATA connector; sitting there, lonely, longing for some traffic, but the data never comes... :(

I was pleasantly surprised to find that this machine supports netbooting. It lists PXE and BootP in BIOS boot options.

Running virtual machines is a great thing but I really want to have a physical environment for some things, even if I don't gain anything by doing it and even if I lose some options. More so, I don't have much experience with a real hardware, drivers etc., and I think that setting up and having to manage my lab with heterogeneous and somewhat limited equipment will help me to get to grips with this stuff.
Also, when my friends come over they are going to be much more impressed with a stack of loud machines with lots of wiring than if I show them 3 VM windows. I'm joking, I don't have any friends!

What will happen next:
I'm going to install FreeBSD on the hard drive from another computer and try to boot from it, just to see if it will run at all. Then, if all goes well, I'm going to set up a boot image server and try to netboot from it.

Oh, and by the way, did I select the appropriate sub-forum for this thread?
 
When using another machine as an "install host", I suggest disconnecting that machines actual hard drive to avoid overwriting it.

Yes, this seems to be the right forum. There is often some squishiness is choosing an appropriate one.
 
I've pulled out the hard disk from this machine and proceeded to install it in my other machine but then I noticed my power supply doesn't provide any 4-pin peripheral power connectors. I've searched for a SATA-to-4-pin cable converter in my motherboard box but there is only 4-pin-to-SATA and some other to-SATA converters. So for now, disk swapping solution is not an option.
 
The reverse SATA to Molex adapters are very rare. Do you have a USB-to-IDE adapter, maybe? I have one of those with an external Molex power supply. If I was desperate, I might try a separate ATX power supply with Molex connectors just for the drive. A single drive might not put enough load on a supply to get it to start, though.

Of course, you could always buy or order an adapter. My problem with that is that, generally, I want it now. :)
 
Nah, I don't have any of those things and I'm almost certain not to find them in local "computer stores" that sell TV's and digital cameras...

I don't have any old power supplies but the problem of starting one without enough load is easily taken care of with a jumper cable or with the pliers and a bit of wire twisting. ;)
However, you gave me a push towards the idea of using the old machine for power supply but connect the data cable to "install host". Sounds hackish enough? :PP
 
I meant that a single hard drive might not draw enough current for a switching power supply to operate, they can be touchy about that. But yes, desperate measures for desperate times. :)
 
morl said:
However, you gave me a push towards the idea of using the old machine for power supply but connect the data cable to "install host". Sounds hackish enough? :PP
Click to expand...

I did exactly that and it worked great!
FreeBSD10-i386 successfully boots on this machine now! It boots up lightening fast, almost as fast as my 15 years newer "gaming" machine. :PP

However I have an issue with it.
Machine reboots after some random time. It also happened on Windows NT that was previously installed but I quietly hoped that would go away with a fresh OS. Do you have any suggestions about what could be the cause of this? To me, it seems like a hardware problem but I'm no expert...
 
Take a flashlight and inspect the motherboard. Look for capacitors that have bulged. Problem ones are usually near the processor. If you can see inside the power supply, look there also.

If you don't see any obvious problems, remove and reseat the RAM.
 
What a wonderful project. I really hope you can get it working.

I don't suppose the rebooting is occuring when the processor is under load? It may well be thermal paste on the heatsink in need of reapplying. Coppermine processors don't run especially hot, but it might have a very small heatsink due to space considerations.

Completely random rebooting points to RAM, PSU or motherboard faults. I don't suppose you can swap the RAM out at all?
 
I have reseated the RAM, inspected the capacitors and inspected the motherboard traces as best as I know;
I've pulled out the hard disk, CD-ROM and unplugged various peripherals that are not needed, but the rebooting still persist.

When I pulled out the processor, heat-sink and the processor were stuck/glued together very firmly so I guess that thermal paste is in for a change, but I don't have any more of it around so that will have to wait the next week. I sure hope that the problem is due to overheating but nothing gets hot really... :\

I've set up a PXE server and when the machine starts to load the kernel, after about a minute of loading, it restarts. I get a feeling that it does not restart randomly in this case but at a specific point which leads me to think that there might be a memory problem after all.
There is only one memory slot on the motherboard and I only have one stick of matching RAM. It will be very hard to find replacement stick but I could try.
 
The German site you quoted is telling you how to recreate the .iso image with the necessary 'signature' needed to boot on that machine. First you mount the .iso image, then you extract everything into a directory on your disk, then when you rebuild it, you use the 'incantation' described there to rebuild it with the 'ACTIVY' as the publisher.
Code: 
Thus the Activy 300 can boot from a CD, it must carry a particular signature. To burn the bootable CD with this signature, just a few simple steps.
Treat image under Linux

In the following, it is assumed that you already have a bootable ISO image, and the / mnt / altesiso and / mnt / neuesiso exist.

 mount-o loop bootcd.iso / mnt / altesiso /
 cp-a / mnt / altesiso / * / mnt / neuesiso /
 cd / mnt / neuesiso /
 mkisofs-publisher ACTIVY-f-R-b isolinux / isolinux.bin-c isolinux / boot.cat-no-emul-boot-boot-load-size 4-boot-info-table-o Activy.iso / mnt / neuesiso /

The directories / mnt / altesiso and / mnt / neuesiso can be deleted afterwards.

The burning and bootable ISO image with the Activy then exists under the name Activy.iso.
Specific commands

Some distributions or BootCDs need special options for mkisofs:
Crux

 mkisofs-R-l-publisher ACTIVY-L-J-V CRUX CRUX-A-b boot / isolinux / isolinux.bin \
 -C boot / isolinux / isolinux.boot-no-emul-boot-boot-load-size 4-boot-info-table \
 -O / tmp/crux-2.1.Activy.iso / mnt / neuesiso /

If you want to read it for yourself try Google Translate
https://translate.google.co.uk/#de/en/
Hope that is of some help to you for your experiments. :)
 
bsdkeith said:
The German site you quoted is telling you how to recreate the .iso image with the necessary 'signature' needed to boot on that machine. First you mount the .iso image, then you extract everything into a directory on your disk, then when you rebuild it, you use the 'incantation' described there to rebuild it with the 'ACTIVY' as the publisher.

Hope that is of some help to you for your experiments. :)
Click to expand...

Thank you, but I don't care booting this machine from CD anymore, I've figured out network booting and it works great; therefore I once again managed to escape from learning exotic ways to burn a disc image. :stud
 
I'd guess they used the special signature to prevent booting of generic CDs on what is really a special-purpose machine.
 
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