Familiar v0.8.4 is now available. Please refer to the release notes. This is the current stable release. It is the first release to includes initial support for the HP iPAQ H2200, Hx4700, and H6300 series of devices.
Please note that the official installation instructions for the HP iPAQ H2200, Hx4700, and H6300 series of devices unfortunately could not be finished in time for the release since a number of unexpected other issues turned up shortly before the release which had to be addressed first.
Please do not even try to apply the existing instructions from the installation guide on any of the HP iPAQ H2200, Hx4700, and H6300 series of devices. The installation will fail and in a worst case you may end up with a bricked device.
We hope to be able to rectify the documentation situation shortly and appologize for the delay.
Please enter bugs in v0.8.4 into Handhelds.org Bugzilla. Here is a handy link for creating a Familiar v0.8.4 bug report if you have trouble deciphering which component to submit a bug report against.
To get more information on the Familiar distribution, and the Familiar project in general, see the Familiar [project page].
See the installation guide.
The upgrade path from v0.8.2 to v0.8.4 is now largely tested and working with standard installations. Depending on the extra packages you may have installed there may be certain rough edges but not major surprises.
If you want to do an upgrade rather than reflashing, please make sure to follow the instructions below carefully, you will run into trouble otherwise.
First of all make sure you are logged in as root with a proper environment (that's what the "-" in "su -" does, don't omit it):
su -
Now edit /etc/ipkg.conf and add a lists_dir entry and comment out any old feed sources to save space and speed things up. On a default installation the following command will do that:
sed -i 's/^src/#src/' /etc/ipkg.conf echo "lists_dir ext /var/lists" >> /etc/ipkg.conf
Configuration files containing default feed locations for x11 and opie installations are available from here. Download the ones for your machine to /etc/ipkg/ (the universe feeds are optional, replace x11_or_opie and your_machine as desired):
cd /etc/ipkg wget http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.8.4/install/ipkg_confs/x11_or_opie/your_machine/familiar-v0.8.4-feed.conf http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.8.4/install/ipkg_confs/x11_or_opie/your_machine/familiar-v0.8.4-universe.conf cd -
You're now ready to start the upgrade procedure. It is important that you really start with ipkg and then in a separate command install busybox, before you run "ipkg upgrade".
ipkg update ipkg install ipkg ipkg install busybox ipkg install diff ipkg upgrade
The upgrade step will take a while. The diff utility will allow you to review changes to configuration files. After the upgrade is complete you will have to reboot for some of the changes to take effect:
shutdown -r now
There have been several release candidates but no final release for v0.8.3. Upgrading to v0.8.4 from one of those release candidates is therefore not officially supported.