# GXemul: HPCmips emulation

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The HPCmips modes are for emulating "Handheld PCs" based on MIPS processors, such as the MobilePro 770, 780, 800, and 880. It is possible to install and run NetBSD/hpcmips as a guest OS.

### NetBSD/hpcmips:

NetBSD/hpcmips can be installed onto a disk image, on an emulated MobilePro. Not all MobilePro models work with all versions of NetBSD, most likely due to bugs in the emulator.

Model: |  | Screen resolution: |  | CPU: |  | RAM: |  | Comments:
MobilePro 770 |  | 640x240 |  | VR4121 |  | 32 MB |  | Graphical framebuffer (-X) is broken with NetBSD 8.0 but works with 8.1.
MobilePro 780 |  | 640x240 |  | VR4121 |  | 32 MB |  | Unaligned framebuffer; may run a bit slower.
MobilePro 800 |  | 800x600 |  | VR4121 |  | 32 MB |  | Graphical framebuffer (-X) is broken with NetBSD 8.0 but works with 8.1.
MobilePro 880 |  | 800x600 |  | VR4121 |  | 32 MB |  | Graphical framebuffer (-X) is broken with NetBSD 8.0 but works with 8.1. Unaligned framebuffer; may run a bit slower.

These instructions show an example of how to install NetBSD/hpcmips:

1. Create an empty harddisk image, which will be the root disk that you will install NetBSD/hpcmips onto:

       	dd if=/dev/zero of=nbsd_hpcmips.img bs=1024 count=1 seek=5000000

2. Download the NetBSD/hpcmips ISO image, a generic kernel, and the installer kernel (and optional symbols):

       	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/iso/8.1/NetBSD-8.1-hpcmips.iso
       	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-8.1/hpcmips/binary/kernel/netbsd-GENERIC.gz
       	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-8.1/hpcmips/installation/netbsd.gz
       	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-8.1/hpcmips/installation/netbsd.symbols.gz

3. Start the installation like this:

       	gxemul -X -e mobilepro770 -d nbsd_hpcmips.img -d b:NetBSD-8.1-hpcmips.iso netbsd.gz netbsd.symbols.gz

   and proceed like you would do if you were installing NetBSD on a real MobilePro: Install onto wd0, choose "Use entire disk" when doing the MBR partitioning, and choose to install from CD-ROM. Change the CDROM device name from `cd0a` to `cd0d`.

If everything worked, NetBSD should now be installed on the disk image. Use the following command line to boot the emulated hpcmips machine:

    	gxemul -e mobilepro770 -X -d nbsd_hpcmips.img netbsd-GENERIC.gz

NOTE: It seems that the NetBSD installer only activates the graphical console. You may need to edit `/etc/ttys` at the end of the install, and enable `/dev/console` like this if you wish to be able to log in using serial console:

    When the installer says "Exit Install System", select that option to get to a # prompt.

    # mount /dev/wd0a /mnt
    # echo 'console "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600" vt100 on secure' >> /mnt/etc/ttys
    # umount /mnt
    # sync
    # halt -p

When you have logged in as `root`, you can use `startx` to start X Windows, but there is no mouse or touch support yet, so only keyboard input is available. This makes it a bit meaningless to use X.

If you want to supply raw files such as .tar.gz files as disk images using the `-d` command line option, those are accessible as the 'd' partition in NetBSD/hpcmips, not c. So for example:

    	tar zxvf /dev/wd1d

would extract files if the disk image is a .tar.gz archive.