Alternative OS for ip650 w/ intgerated flash(not removable compact flash)?

[mltv1]

I freed up a pair of ip650's(our lower-end models, pII 450mhz). Now, I was hoping to use these elsewhere(not as fw's and not running ipso, running freebsd or openbsd). But, my past experience with running an OS other than ipso were on our newer ip650's(pIII 700mhz models), and the newer ip650's had a removable compact flash card, so all I needed to do was dd the boot image(floppy*.fs for example) to it and pop it in and go through an install. The pair I freed up have an integrated sandisk flash on the console board, and I freed them up assuming they had a removable compact flash card.

So, my question is has anyone installed something other than ipso on a ip650 with integrated flash? I was thinking of if I do the update via ipso(cat/dd an image to the bootflash), but I would like to hear of any experiences others have had or any pointers, etc. As with this intergrated flash model if I screw up, then I need to send back to Nokia..

Thanks!

[ispo_alex]

Hello,

I see that you've managed to get your newer IP650's running something other than IPSO. I'm currently trying to do the same with one of our units and it currently runs everything off of a 2.5'' (6GB) hard drive. What procedure have you found to work on getting a new OS up and running on this device?

Thank you for your time.

-Alex

[thel8elvis]

AFAIK, the 650's do not boot of the HDD.

If you take the unit out of the case, you will see it is a INTEL MB, with video, audio, and even USB. If you plug into the vga out on the MB, instead of the console port in the front, you can access the regular BIOS, and see that it is booting off flash memory on the card that the console port resides on.
The Newer 650 has a removal sandisk CF card on that board - you can take that out and flash it with whatever you want. I just put m0n0wall on my 650, and it booted fine.

The older 650 has the flash integrated onto the card - as the OP described - so you won't be able to 'take it out' and flash it.

To the OP - you should always be able to boot from a USB CDROM or USB Key and re-flash - just be sure to dd the original image off, first.

This is my first 650, so YMMV, as I am still trying to learn what I can do with it and how they work.