KR20040060366A - Method for upgrading OS images in wireless communication medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A method for upgrading an OS(Operating System) of a wireless communication medium is provided to upgrade an OS image without an exclusive equipment and fundamentally block the upgrade of the OS image disagreed with a hardware of the wireless communication medium. CONSTITUTION: A unified image, which is the OS image of a new version to upgrade the OS image stored in a nonvolatile memory of the wireless communication medium, is received. The hardware information embedded into the wireless communication medium is compared with the version information provided from the unified image(505). If the hardware information and the version information are identical with each other, the OS image is upgraded based on the unified image.

Description

OS upgrade method of wireless communication medium {Method for upgrading OS images in wireless communication medium}

The present invention is a method for upgrading an operating system (hereinafter referred to as "OS") of a wireless communication medium, more specifically a portable digital assistant (PDA), and the upgrade method is applied. It relates to a wireless communication medium.

Upgrading an OS image from a mobile terminal such as a PDA generally requires knowledge of its development environment, and it is extremely rare for a general user to upgrade the OS image. Therefore, when upgrading due to bug or enhancement of OS image is required, general users have to visit A / S center, so OS upgrade can be done easily without prior knowledge of development environment. The program appeared.

However, in the development process, various versions of the platform are released due to hardware changes, and as the OS image is changed accordingly, there is no way for the user to know the difference. Therefore, the OS image that is not suitable for the platform of the user is upgraded. Upgrading may hinder the user's first intended use, and may result in a platform that is not even bootable, with users performing upgrades to unsuitable OS images that they never thought possible.

This problem becomes apparent when looking at the conventional upgrade method with reference to the accompanying drawings of FIGS. 1 and 2. 1 is a functional block diagram related to an OS operation of a conventional wireless communication medium, and FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an OS upgrade process of a conventional wireless communication medium. Hereinafter, a PDA will be described as an example of a wireless communication medium. In general, to write the OS image to flash memory, the boot loader is first written using a dedicated program (eg Jflash). Because dedicated programs are very slow to write, they can be used to burn bootloaders with small data sizes. After booting the system with the boot loader, you use Ethernet to write large OS images. If you use this method, you should use bootloader file and OS image file with dedicated device such as Jflash cable and LAN from your computer to PDA. Therefore, it is difficult to use the above method for general users. Therefore, the alternative method is to copy the files that you want to write to the flash memory, that is, the boot loader and OS image to the memory card, and then use the OS upgrade program to control the flash memory directly so that the OS image upgrade can be done without specialized equipment and expertise. It became possible.

Note the above alternative method. First, functional blocks related to the operation of the PDA 100 are largely divided into a central processing unit (CPU) 102, a flash memory 101 in which an OS image is stored, a RAM 103 in which various applications and data are stored and read, and an upgrade. It is composed of a memory card 104 that downloads a new OS image, etc. to be downloaded using a computer communication including the Internet, and then delivers the new OS image to the flash memory 101 under the control of the central processing unit 102. Since the general function of each function block is well known, the description is omitted. The process of upgrading to a new OS image under the configuration as shown in FIG. 1 is disclosed in FIG. 2. That is, after the user runs the upgrade program and enters the location of the boot loader and OS image file (typically, it will be the location on the memory card) (201), the upgrade program checks whether the files are located in the path entered by the user. To determine whether or not (202), if the input is wrong, an error message pops up to require input again (203). If the input is correct, the write protection of the flash memory 101 is released, and then a new OS image is written (204), and the contents are correctly compared (205). As a result of the comparison, it is determined whether there is an error (206), and if there is an error, a write operation is performed again. If there is no error, the PDA is rebooted (207) to operate the PDA based on the upgraded new OS image.

As explained so far, the OS image can be easily upgraded, which makes the process of upgrading the OS image simpler, but various hardware modifications are made during the product development phase. However, general users can not know these details and know what hardware version they have, so if you upgrade the OS image that is not appropriate, there is a serious situation that can not even boot.

The technical problem to be achieved by the present invention is to upgrade the OS image without the dedicated equipment, and the OS image upgrade method and the upgrade method that can block the upgrade of the OS image that does not match the hardware of the wireless communication medium to upgrade at the source The present invention provides a wireless communication medium.

1 is a functional block diagram related to OS operation of a conventional wireless communication medium.

2 is a flowchart illustrating an OS upgrade process of a conventional wireless communication medium.

3 is a functional block diagram of a wireless communication medium according to the present invention.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a process of generating an integrated image for OS upgrade of a wireless communication medium according to the present invention.

5 is a flowchart illustrating an OS upgrade process of a wireless communication medium according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a user interface displayed on a screen when generating the integrated image of FIG. 4.

7A to 7B are diagrams showing an example of a user interface appearing in an OS upgrade process according to the present invention.

In order to achieve the above technical problem, an OS image upgrade method according to the present invention includes a method of upgrading an OS image of a wireless communication medium, wherein a new version of OS for upgrading an OS image stored in a non-volatile memory of the wireless communication medium. Receiving an integrated image that is an image; Comparing hardware information of the wireless communication medium with version information provided by the integrated image; And upgrading the OS image based on the integrated image when the hardware information and the version information match.

In order to achieve the above technical problem, a wireless communication medium according to the present invention includes a nonvolatile storage medium for storing an OS image; A removable storage medium providing an integrated image which is a new version of the OS image to upgrade the OS image; And a programmable logic device that determines whether to upgrade the OS image by comparing hardware information of a wireless communication medium with version information of the integrated image.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings of FIGS. 3 to 7B. Hereinafter, the method and the apparatus will be described together to make the present invention easier to understand. 3 is a functional block diagram of a wireless communication medium according to the present invention, Figure 4 is a flow chart showing a process of generating an integrated image for upgrading the OS of the wireless communication medium according to the present invention. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an OS upgrade process of a wireless communication medium according to the present invention. Meanwhile, FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a user interface displayed on a screen when the integrated image of FIG. 4 is generated, and FIGS. 7A to 7B are diagrams illustrating an example of a user interface appearing in an OS upgrade process according to the present invention. First, as shown in FIG. 3, as a functional block associated with the operation of the PDA as disclosed in FIG. 1, the CPU 340, the flash memory 330, the RAM 350, the memory card 320, and the OS image are stored in a memory card ( There is a function block 310 to execute the upgrade after determining whether to upgrade the new OS image to the flash memory safely by reading from 320). We will look at the process of creating an integrated image, a new OS image. When a new OS image is generated, a boot loader file and OS image files (601 of FIG. 6) are generated. The present invention does not require the PDA user to separately upgrade the boot loader file and the OS image, so it is necessary to provide a single integrated OS image. That is, the boot loader file and OS image are processed into one file, the integrated image by using the integrated program, and then provided to the user.

Now, the operation of the integrated program for creating the integrated image will be described with reference to the user interface screen (FIG. 6) displayed on the actual screen. First, a path where files such as a boot loader and an OS image to be provided to a user are located (401) is selected (601), and then a hardware version of the PDA to which the integrated image is applied is selected (402, 602). A request is made (403, 603) to select whether to integrate the boot loader and OS image, and the hardware version, and selecting integration will search whether the files are in the specified location (404). If present in the designated location, a fixed byte size (for example, 3 bytes) is allocated to the integrated image to include hardware information to which the integrated image is applied (405). Then, as shown in 601, eboot.nb0 and nk.nb0 are sequenced, and after performing checksum (604), the result is displayed (604), which creates one file (406). will be. The generated integrated image is uploaded on the web so that the user can download and upgrade the OS image at any time.

It will be described how to upgrade the OS image in the PDA by using the integrated image generated as described above. First, the function block 310 to be upgraded includes a first storage unit 311 storing hardware information of the PDA (for example, a hardware version of the PDA), hardware information included in an integrated image, and the first storage unit 311. A comparison unit 312 for comparing the PDA hardware version stored in the), and an upgrade unit 313 for determining to upgrade if the comparison results match. This functional block 310 is preferably implemented in a programmable logic device (CPLD) or ROM (ROM). In addition, the functions of the comparison unit 312 and the upgrade unit 313 may be implemented in pure software. The memory card 320 is a removable storage medium and, as described above, downloads an integrated image from the web and is mounted on the PDA 300. If the user chooses to overwrite the integrated image stored in the memory card 320 with the flash memory 330 (701), the user can enter the exact path of the location where the integrated image is located (typically in the memory card). If a screen 702 requesting to display is displayed and a path is input accordingly (501), it is determined whether the integrated image exists at that location (502). If the correct position is not input, an error message is output (503), and if the input is correct, hardware information of the PDA 300 is read from the first storage unit 311 (504). If the hardware information included in the integrated image and the hardware information stored in the first storage unit 311 match, it is determined to upgrade (505). If it does not match, an error message is displayed (703) to warn the user (506) that the current hardware version and the version of the OS image do not match, and to select whether to retry or cancel. 704 is displayed. However, when the two pieces of hardware information match, the write protection of the flash memory 330 is released according to the upgrade decision of the upgrade unit 313 and the existing contents are erased, and then the integrated image provided by the memory card is written to the flash memory 330. (507). In order to check whether the upgraded contents are correct, the programmed or overwritten OS image is compared with the original file in the memory card (508) to determine whether there is an error (509). If there is an error, the writing to the flash memory is executed again. If there is no error, the PDA is rebooted 510 to complete the upgrade to the new OS image.

The OS image upgrade method according to the present invention can also be embodied as computer readable code on a computer readable recording medium. The computer-readable recording medium includes all kinds of recording devices in which data that can be read by a computer system is stored. Examples of computer-readable recording media include ROM, RAM, CD-ROM, magnetic tape, hard disk, floppy disk, flash memory, optical data storage device, and also carrier wave (e.g. transmission over the Internet). It is also included to be implemented in the form of. The computer readable recording medium can also be distributed over computer systems connected through a computer communication network so that the computer readable code is stored and executed in a distributed fashion. Also, the font ROM data structure according to the present invention can be read by a computer on a recording medium such as a computer readable ROM, RAM, CD-ROM, magnetic tape, hard disk, floppy disk, flash memory, optical data storage device, and the like. It can be implemented as code.

The preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described so far. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the present invention can be implemented in a modified form without departing from the essential features of the present invention. Therefore, the embodiments disclosed so far should be considered in descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation. The scope of the present invention is shown in the claims rather than the foregoing description, and all differences within the scope will be construed as being included in the present invention.

As described above, according to the OS image upgrade method and the wireless communication medium to which the upgrade method is applied according to the present invention, there is no need for additional equipment or specialized knowledge for upgrading the OS image, and the general user can distinguish them. By allowing the programmer to check the hard hardware information, users can upgrade OS images that match the version of hardware they are using without error.

Claims (7)

In the method of upgrading the OS image of the wireless communication medium, (a) receiving an integrated image which is a new version of the OS image for upgrading the OS image stored in the non-volatile memory of the wireless communication medium; (b) comparing hardware information embedded in the wireless communication medium with version information provided by the integrated image; And (c) upgrading the OS image based on the integrated image when the hardware information and the version information match each other. The method of claim 1, wherein the integrated image OS image upgrade method comprising the version information, the boot loader file and the OS image of the wireless communication medium to which the integrated image can be applied. The method of claim 1, wherein step (a) Receiving the integrated image via a removable storage medium; OS image upgrade method further comprising. The method of claim 1, wherein step (b) And obtaining hardware information of the wireless communication medium from a programmable logic device of the wireless communication medium. Non-volatile storage medium for storing the OS image; A removable storage medium providing an integrated image which is a new version of the OS image to upgrade the OS image; And And a programmable logic device that compares hardware information of a wireless communication medium with version information of the integrated image to determine whether to upgrade the OS image. 2. The device of claim 5, wherein the logic device is A first storage unit for storing a hardware version of the wireless communication medium; A comparison unit which receives a hardware version of a wireless communication medium to which an OS image to be upgraded from a removable storage medium can be applied and the hardware version to determine whether two versions match each other; And And an upgrader configured to receive the determination result of the comparator and output the OS image to be upgraded to the nonvolatile storage medium to perform the upgrade. In the method of upgrading the OS image of the wireless communication medium, Receiving an integrated image, which is a new version of the OS image including version information, a boot loader file, and an OS image of a wireless communication medium for upgrading the OS image stored in the nonvolatile memory of the wireless communication medium; Comparing hardware information embedded in the wireless communication medium with version information provided by the integrated image; And And upgrading the OS image based on the integrated image when the hardware information and the version information match. A computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for executing on a computer.