The install procedure that worked for me

First, some sites where I got my infos from
  • http://www.handhelds.org/pipermail/ipaq/2000-August/000061.html
  • http://www.handhelds.org/minihowto/h3600-serial-cable.html
    • Of course, I was different ;-)
    First of all, I "only" had a nullmodem cable, so I soldered a male DB9 plug to the CON2 pins as follows:
    male DB9 {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8} <--> CON2 {7,5,4,6,9,7,3,2}

    The idea was to make a straight through connection and to have a normal PC serial connector. Open questions: If anyone knows what pin1 on CON2 is supposed to be, please mail me.

    Next, I noticed that I got a german pocket pc windows 2002, which is slightly different from the things described in the existing mini-howtos.
    For a better understanding, I tried to backtranslate the german texts and messages to english. Please apologise any mistake and report them, so I can fix them. I made a new connection as follows:

  • go to setting - connections - connections
  • from autmatic connections to internet choose new
  • under general choose a name you can remember. I took com.
  • under modem choose new
  • again, give a name you can remeber. Again, I took com.
  • Modem is Hayes at COM1:
  • Speed is 115200 (No time to waste ;-)
  • Under advanced set 8N1, no flowcontrol and manual dialing (we don't dial, they they forgot that case obviously)
  • From tcp/ip choose server gives address, for DNS choose server gives address
  • go on and on the next page uncheck everything, i.e. no abort dialing, no wait for tone, ...
  • Finish
  • Now click on connect
  • Immediately afterwards start the following command on the linux site:
       pppd /dev/ttyS0 115200 noauth 192.168.1.101:192.168.1.100 debug nodetach connect ' chat -v -s ""'
    When you see the first PPP frames appear on the iPAQ terminal window, click ok to close and to have the connection established.
    • Question for this: When I first start the pppd on Linux, the iPAQ wants to establish a connection. Unfortunately the known chat script (
    TIMEOUT 3600 "CLIENT" "CLIENT\c" "" "SERVER\c"
    ) does not work. The CLIENT CLIENT part works, but then it hangs. If anyone knows the secret, I'd be glad to share ;-)

    Luc De Cock send me a program that worked for him. IMHO it does the same as the chat script "CLIENT" "\dCLIENTSERVER\c" , so I am now keen on feedback for the question wether the following started without any special preparation on the pocketpc side works: 

      pppd /dev/ttyS0 115200 noauth 192.168.1.101:192.168.1.100 debug \
    nodetach connect ' chat -v -s "CLIENT" "\dCLIENTSERVER\c"'

    So now you got network. You can ping the other end to see something. It's time to get something to the iPAQ. Most simplest setup an http server on the Linuxbox. Make an ftpserver like ftpsvr from http://www.oohito.com/wince/arm_j.htm available (the unix unzip works fine on them) and use the IE to put it onto the iPAQ. Leave IE and use fileexplorer to start the ftp server. Now you have an ftpserver running which gives more comfort for the other tasks. Beware: this very simple ftp server gives anonymous write access to everyone.

    Now we are following again roughly the instructions at http://www.handhelds.org/feeds/bootldr/install.html with one difference. Put the BootBlaster and and the bootldr files as decribed on the handhelds.org page onto the iPAQ with the help of the ftp server you just installed. Caveat: the ftp server does not support passive mode and use binary mode to avoid garbled files. Now continue at step 7.

    In case someone is interested I have some md5sums of my saved files: 

      54f814dc7d81facb0743eb445c3c8489  saved_bootldr.bin
  8872706760a425ac09330c2de890dc4e  wince_image.gz

    Then I tried installing the familair distro. All went fine, except one note (I am not too sure wether this is my mistake or not). As first try, I downloaded task-bootserial.jff2, but could not make a usb-ethernet connection. This worked with the task-bootstrap.jffs2.