[Soekris] Net4521 Console Help

[Ron Watkins]

In all seriousness, this will probably be enough of a pain that you 
don't want to do this.  The soekris is superb hardware, but if it hasn't 
been used in several years, it's gonna require a huge amount of patching 
to get current, which is really hard on these flash-based systems, and 
you're probably going to want a new radio for it.  It's probably 
802.11b, which is 11mbit and horribly insecure.... the newer 11g is 
54mbit and theoretically very hard to crack.  Getting to the point of 
having a fully working, secure access point will probably take you 
*weeks* if you're starting from zero knowledge. 

Instead, just buy something like a Linksys WRT54GL.  (make sure it's the 
GL, not a G or GS.)  These aren't terribly expensive ($62 on Newegg, 
with a $10 mail in rebate), and you'll be up in an hour or two.   You'll 
likely spend that much on a new radio for the Soekris, and you'll invest 
a ton of time to boot.  

That said, if you're really determined to get this going... the 
gibberish is because the OS is talking to the serial port at a different 
speed than the BIOS.  Try all the settings in your terminal program... 
19200 and 38400 are frequently used, but your husband could have set it 
even faster.  Boot the system up, wait for the gibberish to stop and the 
light to start flashing, and then start going through the different baud 
rates.  After changing it each time, hit return a few times.  When you 
pick the right one, you should suddenly see a login: prompt.

If you don't have the password, you'll probably have to set up a PXE 
boot environment and network boot it so you can get at the flash. 

Again, this will take a LOT of effort if you're not familiar with this 
stuff.  A Linksys WRT54GL will be MUCH easier.  You want to go to the 
grocery store, and your husband has left you a souped-up Ferrari that's 
been sitting in the garage for several years.  It'll probably need a 
full tuneup before the engine will even start, and then all the extra 
power and customizability will interfere with basic grocery carting.

You're likely better off buying a cheap station wagon. :)

Paul Carroll wrote:
> I have a Net4521 that was purchased for my husbands birthday several
> years ago. It's not been in use for the past few years because his
> laptop died... or whatever. Anyway, my husbands now deceased and I'm
> trying to get the WAP working again because I'm purchasing a new laptop
> (which I don't have yet).
>
> So, thats my story. The question is, how do I tell if the thing is
> working? I've got the console hooked up, and it seems to "boot" but then
> the console goes to jibberish after the OS loads (seen below). Shouldn't
> I be able to log into the OS or at least get some sort of prompt? The
> bios seems first rev as well... ver 1.15. What a mess, huh?
>
> Also, the light on the internal PC card is blinking... I'm thinking
> that's not a good sign either. Help?
>
> ***********
> 1 Seconds to automatic boot. Press Ctrl-P for entering Monitor.
> Console: internal video/keyboard
> BIOS drive C: is disk0
> BIOS 639kB/64512kB available memory
>
> FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 0.8
> (root at nb.neon1.net, Sat May 29 16:40:46 CEST 2004)
> /kernel text=0x189f60 data=0x1e908+0x1ae5c syms=[0x4+0x299c0+0x4+0x31044]
> Hit [Enter] to boot immediately, or any other key for command prompt.
> Booting [kernel]...
> 怘€€˜€††æ€˜€€˜€žæ€˜€€˜æ€˜€æ€˜€æ€˜€æ€˜€ø怘€`žæ€˜€ø怘€æ€˜€æ€˜€æ€˜€æ€˜€æ€˜€€˜†˜†
> ˜†˜†˜†˜†˜†˜†˜†˜†˜†˜†˜†˜†˜†˜†˜†˜†˜†˜
> ***********
>
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