This realy works like a charm! Download and install this driver on the mac. Reboot the Mac. Now go to your ‘System Preferences’ and than ‘Network’. Now the Mac should say something about a new interface he found (en2 in my case). Add the just found port. Now it should appear as an Ethernet Adaptor. Choose it and change the IP configuration to manual and use these settings:

IP address: 192.168.0.200
subnetmask: 255.255.255.0
router: 192.168.0.200

Click the ‘apply’ button. Now to share the Internet connection you should go to the main preferences panel and click the ‘Sharing’ icon. Click the ‘internet’ tab and sat the ’share your internet connection’ to the device where your internet is connected to, in my case ‘Airport’ and set the ‘To computers using:’ to the ‘Ethernet Adaptor (en2)’. Hit start. Now your done. These settings are based on the standard settings of Opie 1.x. More info coming later.

Fun2readOnRobo - Robot news and reviews
http://www.onrobo.com
Slashdot - News for nerds
http://slashdot.org

Linux distro’s

Familiar Project - Linux on a PDA like my Compaq H3970.

http://familiar.handhelds.org/iPod-Linux Installer project - Linux on a Apple iPod.

http://ipodlinuxinstl.sourceforge.net
Debian project - Linux on a i368, PPC, etc.

http://ww.debian.org

Software Download Sites

VersionTracker - Rated MacOS X software!

http://www.versiontracker.comFreshmeat.net - Opensource projects. Best for GPLed Linux/MacOS X apps.

http://www.freshmeat.net

TuCows - Windows and Mac software
http://www.tucows.com

Weather info

weeronline.nl - Dutch local weather info
http://www.weeronline.nl
Weather.com - Global weather by the weather channel.
http://www.weather.com

Friends

Bokko.nl - Also a linux freak!
http://www.bokko.nl
Michiel Eeltink - my little brother…
http://www.michieleeltink.com

User manuals

ProFTPd User manual
http://ftp.isu.edu.tw/pub/Unix/FTP/proftpd/docs/userguide.html

Here’s how I got an PPP connection trough my serial port. Before I can have internet on my iPAQ (with an familiar distro installed on it…) I had to compile a new kernel on my laptop with ‘PPP filtering’ enabled. You can find it under ‘Network Devices’ in ‘make menuconfig’. For IP portforwarding you’ll have to have some more stuff in your kernel you can find here. How to build a custom Debian kernel package is here. Also installed ‘ppp’ on my laptop with:

apt-get install ppp

Before we go on, I’ve got an internal network with a NetGear router, it’s IP number is 192.168.1.1 and it’s the internal gateway and DNS server of my laptop. When you don’t have the same setup, change the 192.168.1.1 into the IP number from the gateway (or DNS) from your access-provider.

Then I made a file ‘/etc/ppp/peers/ipaq‘ on my laptop, with this content:

-detach
noauth
nocrtscts
lock
local
ms-dns 192.168.1.1
user ppp
connect '/usr/sbin/chat -v -t3 ogin--ogin: ppp'
/dev/ttyS0
115200
192.168.0.1:192.168.0.2

Then edit the ‘/etc/modules.conf‘ on the iPAQ and add these lines to it:

alias /dev/ppp          ppp_generic
alias char-major-108    ppp_generic
alias tty-ldisc-3       ppp_async
alias tty-ldisc-14      ppp_synctty

Then add to ‘/etc/modules‘

ppp_async

Now reboot your iPAQ with the command ‘reboot’. Then kill your minicom, if it’s on… and then open the ppp connection to the iPAQ from your PC, on Debian you do that with

pon ipaq

When it works you’ll see this

Serial connection established.
Using interface ppp0
Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyS0
Cannot determine ethernet address for proxy ARP
local  IP address 192.168.0.1
remote IP address 192.168.0.2

Now you can ssh to the iPAQ…

ssh root@192.168.0.2

With me the login takes a second or 10… So be patient, it’s a serial connection ;)

Now you want internet on your iPAQ trough your serial PPP connection. So when you’ve compiled IP portforwarding (see my howto) in your kernel, you do the following. Make a file ‘ipmasq.sh’ with the following contents:

#!/bin/sh
#Assuming external internet card is eth0, and IP is 192.168.1.2
# modprobe ipt_MASQUERADE;
#Uncomment line above when you didn't compile it into the kernel
iptables -F; iptables -t nat -F; iptables -t mangle -F;
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j SNAT --to 192.168.1.2;
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward;

Make the file executeable by doing:

chmod +x ipmasq.sh

Now start it as root

./ipmasq.sh

Okay, now you should be able to ping your gateway, in my case 192.168.1.1. When you’ve got a ping the ipmasq works. Now try to ping www.google.com, that should work now to!
Now you can upgrade your distro with

/root/postinst
ipkg update
ipkg upgrade
ipkg install less
ipkg list | less
ipkg install madplay

Have fun ;)

Here is my howto section about familiar/gpe2/opie on my iPAQ 3900 series (H3970)HowTo H3900I’m now installing familiar 0.7, so I can document some stuff…

Okay, this is what I did to install Familiar, a Linux distro for PocketPC. First what I needed was a serial program like ‘minicom’, and for xmodem upload capabillities I needed ‘lrzsz’. So under debian you do on your PC:

apt-get install minicom lrzsz

Then you go to this page and follow the instructions realy good!! Familiar v0.7 Installation Instructions. It is possible that there is a newer version but the instructions are the same. Please keep this in mind: Installing the bootloader is a very important part! This is the only part you have to be carefull to keep your iPAQ alive! The rest can be repaired very easaly, but when you mess up your bootloader you can turn your iPAQ into a ‘brick’. (Don’t be scared, just be carefull!)

Just bought an iPAQ 3970. Nice pda! Fast, sound, bluetouth, and PCMCIA capebillities (needs an expansion pack) Now trying to install GNU/Linux on it. Found a project that runs on the 3900 siries. Installing Familiar on H3900