Installing QNX 6.1.0 on a laptop

QNX Newsgroups (Archives) qdn.public.qnxrtp.installation
1

Can someone tell me how to install QNX 6.1.0 on a laptop. Its a Sharp A250.
The CDROM drive that I have isn’t bootable but I can boot from floppy. I
downloaded the 6.1.0 small release ISO and burned a CD which boots OK on my
desktop PC.

2

Sure. It does not matter what you boot from - floppy or CD. The way CD boot
works, it emulates the floppy anyway.
Just create boot floppy using their utility on your PC (it is on the CD). It
will be the same image that is on CD, so just boot from floppy with CD
installed.

“Roy McDougall” <roymcd@internode.on.net> wrote in message
news:bncrlt$3do$1@inn.qnx.com…

Can someone tell me how to install QNX 6.1.0 on a laptop. Its a Sharp
A250.
The CDROM drive that I have isn’t bootable but I can boot from floppy. I
downloaded the 6.1.0 small release ISO and burned a CD which boots OK on
my
desktop PC.

3

I used the create floppy option from the CD after loading the CD in Windows
XP. I put the floppy and CD into the laptop and boot. The floppy starts
loading and logs -

Deteced EIDE. Scanning for devices.
No QMX 6.1 or greater filesystems available to mount.

and stops. It doesn’t appear to access the CD drive. The CD drive is on a
PCMCIA card - I thought that QNX would be flexible enough to deal with this.


“Igor Kovalenko” <kovalenko@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:bnd47n$8kv$1@inn.qnx.com…

Sure. It does not matter what you boot from - floppy or CD. The way CD
boot
works, it emulates the floppy anyway.
Just create boot floppy using their utility on your PC (it is on the CD).
It
will be the same image that is on CD, so just boot from floppy with CD
installed.

“Roy McDougall” <> roymcd@internode.on.net> > wrote in message
news:bncrlt$3do$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …
Can someone tell me how to install QNX 6.1.0 on a laptop. Its a Sharp
A250.
The CDROM drive that I have isn’t bootable but I can boot from floppy.
I
downloaded the 6.1.0 small release ISO and burned a CD which boots OK on
my
desktop PC.
\

4

roymcd@internode.on.net sed in <bnd8n8$cbg$1@inn.qnx.com>:

and stops. It doesn’t appear to access the CD drive. The CD drive is on a
PCMCIA card - I thought that QNX would be flexible enough to deal with this.

Unfortunately no.

For starters, you can install from Windoze after creating a FAT partition.
(You need to have a dedicated partition anyway)

kabe

5

I was hoping i wouldn’t have to install windows. Oh well. I’ll give it a
go.
<kabe@sra-tohoku.co.jp> wrote in message news:bndtll$p5q$1@inn.qnx.com…

roymcd@internode.on.net > sed in <bnd8n8$cbg$> 1@inn.qnx.com> >:

and stops. It doesn’t appear to access the CD drive. The CD drive is
on a
PCMCIA card - I thought that QNX would be flexible enough to deal with
this.

Unfortunately no.

For starters, you can install from Windoze after creating a FAT partition.
(You need to have a dedicated partition anyway)

kabe

6

<kabe@sra-tohoku.co.jp> wrote in message news:bndtll$p5q$1@inn.qnx.com…

roymcd@internode.on.net > sed in <bnd8n8$cbg$> 1@inn.qnx.com> >:

and stops. It doesn’t appear to access the CD drive. The CD drive is
on a
PCMCIA card - I thought that QNX would be flexible enough to deal with
this.

Unfortunately no.

QNX can access a CF card in PCMCIA slot (using adapter) through EIDE driver.
Which means hypothetically it could access CDROM attached to PCMCIA slot, so
long a the interface (the PCMCIA card) is standard IDE.

It requires feeding ioport and irq to the eide driver manually, which is why
the installer (being rather dumb thing) can’t do it.

For an adventurous soul, it would not be too hard to come up with a custom
installer. All it has to do is start the CD & HD drivers properly, create a
partition and then copy few files into it (.ifs, .qfs, .boot) and make that
partition bootable somehow (either by writing QNX loader, or using one you
already have). All that can be done by a shell script written in a lazy
afternoon.

– igor

7

Igor Kovalenko <kovalenko@attbi.com> wrote:


IK > For an adventurous soul, it would not be too hard to come up with a custom
IK > installer. All it has to do is start the CD & HD drivers properly, create a
IK > partition and then copy few files into it (.ifs, .qfs, .boot) and make that
IK > partition bootable somehow (either by writing QNX loader, or using one you
IK > already have). All that can be done by a shell script written in a lazy
IK > afternoon.

IK > – igor

Thank you Igor. Let us know when it’s done.

JK ;~}

The approach I take is to install QNX onto another system that you can
install to, and then create a custom boot floppy to boot your laptop
computer. Of course that requires that you are able to make a custom
OS. But I think everyone got that with 6.1.

Good luck.

8

kovalenko@attbi.com sed in <bnh49u$4g$1@inn.qnx.com>:

QNX can access a CF card in PCMCIA slot (using adapter) through EIDE driver.
Which means hypothetically it could access CDROM attached to PCMCIA slot, so
long a the interface (the PCMCIA card) is standard IDE.

CF can be seen as plain IDE drive if

  • the card knows about “True IDE Mode” (CF mandatory; PCMCIA depends)
  • the laptop knows about “True IDE Mode” and connects the bus and irqs

I bet PCMCIA CDROMs aren’t based on True IDEs (tho there could be a
IDE<->PCMCIA converter chip inside to use cheap IDE CDROM drives),
so it isn’t accessible without an appropriate driver.

Nevertheless you have to use some other OS (Windowze, Linux, whatever)
to first access the CDROM drive itself.

kabe