# 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 recent versions of NetBSD.
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 recent versions of NetBSD.
MobilePro 880 |  | 800x600 |  | VR4121 |  | 32 MB |  | Graphical framebuffer (-X) is broken with recent versions of NetBSD. 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/8.0/NetBSD-8.0-hpcmips.iso
       	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-8.0/hpcmips/binary/kernel/netbsd-GENERIC.gz
       	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-8.0/hpcmips/installation/netbsd.gz
       	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-8.0/hpcmips/installation/netbsd.symbols.gz

3. Start the installation like this:

       	gxemul -X -e mobilepro780 -d nbsd_hpcmips.img -d b:NetBSD-8.0-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`.

While it is possible to install and run NetBSD/hpcmips without the `-X` command line option (i.e. using serial console), the default `/etc/ttys` file after a full install may not have `/dev/console` enabled. In that case, you needed to edit `/etc/ttys` before you reboot after the install is finished, to be able to log in.

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 mobilepro780 -X -d nbsd_hpcmips.img netbsd-GENERIC.gz

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.