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Wyse Xn0: Firmware 

BIOS

The DEL key will get you into the AMI BIOS. At least I assume it is the DEL key. It's the top right-hand key on my AZERTY keyboard marked Suppr.

Should you need it the default Wyse password of Fireport works.

In the opening screen it shows the BIOS version as THIN Client R1.05. In the linux dmesg output I find the date: 03/25/2008.

The BIOS is fairly conventional with a limited range of options. In the Boot screen you have the option of setting the Boot Devices in order of priority. In my simple check it looks like the devices that get listed for you to choose from are anything the BIOS happens to find that it thinks it can boot from. To start with this was:

1st Boot Device               [Network:VIA BootAg]
2nd Boot Device               [HDD: 512MB ATA Fla]

If you plug in a USB pen drive and reboot then the options become:

1st Boot Device               [Network:VIA BootAg]
2nd Boot Device               [HDD: 512MB ATA Fla]
3rd Boot Device               [USB:USB2.0 FlashDi]

As usual the +/- keys let you reorder the list.

Firmware

The X90 runs XPe. On the Wyse website under 'Downloads for X90 / X90e' I found: 'Windows XPe WFR2 V5.01 Build 617 for X90\X90e, (387.28 MB) 09-Feb-2009'.

My initial attempts to install it on my X90, whilst apparently completing successfully, always resulted in a 'Missing Operating System' whenever I tried to boot from the flash drive.

Later I had another look at it and got there but by a rather roundabout route. I don't know if it can be shortened. So here's one way of installing a fresh copy of XPe. The preparatory work I do on a PC so, when talking about paths in that environment (as opposed to Linux) I use a '\' character.

  1. Find a suitable copy of the Wyse USB Firmware tool. I tried V1.14 and V1.19.4. Version 1.4 did not work. V1.19.4 worked sufficiently for my purposes. I didn't try any other versions.
  2. Download the firmware file XPe V5.01 for the X90 from the Wyse site and expand it.
  3. Use the Wyse USB Firmware tool to create USB media to push the OS. (I used a 2GB Compact Flash card in a USB card reader). One thing to note is that the firmware tool unpacks the Wyse 9X90_S617_512.i2d file into its component parts. These end up in the \Image directory on the USB device. (V1.4 did get this far). At this point if you try and update the X90 you will discover that the USB drive created by the Wyse firmware tool does not boot on the X90.

    To get round this problem I also install Tiny Core as (a) it is an easy way of installing the syslinux boot loader to replace the not-working Grub boot loader, and (b) We'll also be using Tiny Core in the final step.

  4. Using LiLi (LinuxLive USB Creator) install Tiny Core onto the USB drive as well. I used the current version which is 9.0 at the time of writing. NB Ensure that when you use LiLi the Format Key in FAT32 box is not ticked. We need to keep the previous contents of the USB drive.
  5. As we are now using syslinux rather than grub as the boot loader we need to create a suitable entry in the syslinux.cfg file to boot the Wyse updater. Edit the \boot\syslinux\syslinux.cfg file using the \grub\grub.cfg file as a guide. I added a new entry which looked like:
    LABEL Wyse
    MENU LABEL Wyse X90 re-flash
    TEXT HELP
    Wyse XPe flash of X90.
    ENDTEXT
    KERNEL /kernel/vmlinuz
    INITRD /initrd/initrd.pxe
    APPEND rw root=/dev/ram ramdisk_size=131072 vga=785 waitusb=5 splash=silent ide_generic.probe_mask=0x03
    
  6. On the X90 boot from the USB drive and pick Wyse re-flash from the boot menu. The system to should load, show a Wyse warning message and then go ahead and do the installation. It doesn't actually do the right job, but at this stage it has setup the partition table and installed the boot loader. I haven't attempted to find out why it hasn't correctly installed the XPe partition.
  7. Reboot from the USB drive. This time select the standard Tiny Core boot (2nd item on the menu).
  8. When Tiny Core is running open a console. The USB drive should be mounted on /mnt/sdb1 (check). The final step in our saga is to copy the XPe disk partition image to the second partition on the internal flash. We do this with the command:
    dd if=/mnt/sdb1/Image/par1.raw of=/dev/sda2
    

    You can speed up the process if you want by increasing the block size.

  9. When this completes, reboot and remove the USB drive as the system shuts down. You should find that it reboots into Windows XPe and starts running its first-time run configuration.

A bit of a rigmarole but it gets you there.

 


Any comments? email me. Added December 2018