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Simon Burge | 1 Mar 2005 01:23

Re: "pmap_unwire: wiring ... didn't change!"

Markus W Kilbinger wrote:

> Isn't it possible to turn the cache off just for testing purposes,
> just to see if the problem is still present then?

In general you can't turn off the L1 cache on MIPS chips.  Certain CPU
cores allow you to play with the size of the L1 cache, including totally
disabling it (an implemetation of the MIPS 4Kc comes to mind), but this
ability is rare.

Simon.
--
Simon Burge                            <simonb <at> wasabisystems.com>
NetBSD Support and Service:         http://www.wasabisystems.com/
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Alex Pelts | 1 Mar 2005 01:58
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Re: "pmap_unwire: wiring ... didn't change!"

Some of the processors will allow you to make it write-trough instead of 
write-back. I am not sure if the cube is of that variety but I think it 
is not. Although I dont know if that would help.
The closest thing to disabling cache would be to allocate buffers for 
suspected operation from Kseg1 segment which is uncached. Unfortunately 
I dont think it is possible as this memory also unmapped which would 
kill its use in user space. Although it might be possible to setup some 
specific test with hacked kernel just to find this bug.

Is that a bad idea ?

Alex

Simon Burge wrote:
> Markus W Kilbinger wrote:
> 
> 
>>Isn't it possible to turn the cache off just for testing purposes,
>>just to see if the problem is still present then?
> 
> 
> In general you can't turn off the L1 cache on MIPS chips.  Certain CPU
> cores allow you to play with the size of the L1 cache, including totally
> disabling it (an implemetation of the MIPS 4Kc comes to mind), but this
> ability is rare.
> 
> Simon.
> --
> Simon Burge                            <simonb <at> wasabisystems.com>
> NetBSD Support and Service:         http://www.wasabisystems.com/
(Continue reading)

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Carsten Pache | 3 Mar 2005 13:21
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Re: upgrading a qube2 with netbsd 1.6.1 to 2.0

Following Andy's suggestions it seems that I successfully upgraded my
Qube II from NetBSD 1.6.1 to 2.0. Thanks!

There is still a problem with the LCD on the back of the Qube. When I
switch on the Qube, "Starting up" is displayed. A few seconds later
the LCD becomes empty and stays in this state. In /var/log/messages,
I find the following line:

Mar  3 13:34:11 qube paneld[537]: cannot attach to device hd44780, node /dev/lcd

Writing to the LCD using "echo" (for example: echo "Qube" > /dev/lcd)
also fails - nothing appears on the LCD.

Although I do not really need the LCD, I would be glad to know *why* it
does not work and how to get it to working.

--

-- 
Regards
Carsten
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Andy Ruhl | 3 Mar 2005 14:05
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Re: upgrading a qube2 with netbsd 1.6.1 to 2.0

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:21:13 +0100, Carsten Pache <newsabo <at> gmx.info> wrote:
> Following Andy's suggestions it seems that I successfully upgraded my
> Qube II from NetBSD 1.6.1 to 2.0. Thanks!
> 
> There is still a problem with the LCD on the back of the Qube. When I
> switch on the Qube, "Starting up" is displayed. A few seconds later
> the LCD becomes empty and stays in this state. In /var/log/messages,
> I find the following line:
> 
> Mar  3 13:34:11 qube paneld[537]: cannot attach to device hd44780, node /dev/lcd
> 
> Writing to the LCD using "echo" (for example: echo "Qube" > /dev/lcd)
> also fails - nothing appears on the LCD.
> 
> Although I do not really need the LCD, I would be glad to know *why* it
> does not work and how to get it to working.

Hey, no problem. I'm glad I could help.

I haven't used the LCD panel, but you're not the first person that has
said this. I've got mine all tucked away in the corner so I can't see
the back of it.

If the device driver seems to be working (meaning dmesg has no
errors)... Is there actually a /dev/lcd file?

Andy
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Carsten Pache | 3 Mar 2005 15:09
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Re: upgrading a qube2 with netbsd 1.6.1 to 2.0

On Thursday, March 3, 2005, Andy Ruhl <acruhl <at> gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey, no problem. I'm glad I could help.

To me it seems that there is only a small number of people using
NetBSD on a Cobalt Qube, so every help is greatly appreciated,
especially by a real newbie like me :-)

> I haven't used the LCD panel, but you're not the first person that has
> said this. I've got mine all tucked away in the corner so I can't see
> the back of it.

I think the same will happen to my Qube, at least when it has finally
found its place in my room.

> If the device driver seems to be working (meaning dmesg has no
> errors)... Is there actually a /dev/lcd file?

Yes, there is:

crw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  34, 0 Feb 28 16:59 lcd

--

-- 
Carsten
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Alex Pelts | 3 Mar 2005 19:03
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Re: upgrading a qube2 with netbsd 1.6.1 to 2.0

Hi,
I would venture to guess that lcd driver in not compiled in to the 
kernel by default, or not present in the stock kernel at all.

I have seen mentioning of the driver being in the 1.6.2 tree then in 2.0 
tree. Personally I am running 1.6.2 which I upgraded from 1.6.1. In both 
cases I had to apply lcd patch. You can get it from 
http://only.mawhrin.net/~cdi/netbsd/cobalt/hd44780.diff.gz if it is 
still there. If not I can post it in this ml.

LCD is usefull only in the beginning if at all. If you have serial 
console it would be much more usefull than lcd. Of course it is nice to 
have complete working qube. I am still looking at how to controll these 
green leds on the front. I would like to turn them off at night :). 
Should be some bit somewhere. I know it is possible because bios does it.

By the way I made 1.6.2 recovery cd using original recovery cd and 
replacing distribution files. It should work but I have not had a chance 
to test it. If anyone interested drop me an email and I will publish the 
  torrent of it.

In my opinion qube is still an excellent toy computer although it is 
getting old fast :(. Mac mini is the replacement which could more useful.

Thanks,
Alex

Carsten Pache wrote:
> On Thursday, March 3, 2005, Andy Ruhl <acruhl <at> gmail.com> wrote:
>
(Continue reading)

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Christopher Schultz | 3 Mar 2005 20:23
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[OT] Anyone in Firenze, IT?

All,
Sorry for the completely off-topic post, but I was wondering if anyone
happens to be in Florence, Italy?

I'm taking a long vacation and have no idea how I'll be feeding my
Internet addiction.

Thanks for any info anyone might have,
-chris
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Carsten Pache | 3 Mar 2005 20:55
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Re: upgrading a qube2 with netbsd 1.6.1 to 2.0

On Thursday, March 3, 2005, Alex Pelts <alexp <at> broadcom.com> wrote:

> I would venture to guess that lcd driver in not compiled in to the
> kernel by default, or not present in the stock kernel at all.

So it seems.

> I have seen mentioning of the driver being in the 1.6.2 tree then in 2.0
> tree. Personally I am running 1.6.2 which I upgraded from 1.6.1. In both
> cases I had to apply lcd patch. You can get it from
> http://only.mawhrin.net/~cdi/netbsd/cobalt/hd44780.diff.gz if it is
> still there. If not I can post it in this ml.

I found the link to the patch on Team Rushmere's Teraqube page. They
also describe how to patch the kernel (1.6.1) config with the driver
for the LCD panel, but I was not sure whether this patch is still
required for NetBSD 2.0.

> LCD is usefull only in the beginning if at all. If you have serial
> console it would be much more usefull than lcd. Of course it is nice to
> have complete working qube. I am still looking at how to controll these
> green leds on the front. I would like to turn them off at night :).
> Should be some bit somewhere. I know it is possible because bios does it.

A bizarre but interesting idea :-)

> By the way I made 1.6.2 recovery cd using original recovery cd and
> replacing distribution files. It should work but I have not had a chance
> to test it. If anyone interested drop me an email and I will publish the
> torrent of it.
(Continue reading)

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Christopher Schultz | 3 Mar 2005 21:16
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Re: LEDs at night [was: upgrading a qube2 with netbsd 1.6.1 to 2.0]

Alex,

> I am still looking at how to control these
> green leds on the front. I would like to turn them off at night :).
> Should be some bit somewhere. I know it is possible because bios does it.

A friend of mine and I temporarily hacked my qube to produce less light
at night using simple photoresistors we got from Radio Shack. Their
behavior is to produce less resistance when you shine light on them, so
you can just put one of them in series with one of the LED wires.

The only problem is putting the photoresistor on the outside of the
qube... without going out through the expansion slots at the back, you
pretty much have to drill a hole through the case and internal, metal
qube that the hardware lives in. That's why I removed all the stuff
after the testing we did (which amounted to turning off the lights and
watching the LEDs get dim.. ooooohh...).

-chris
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Hubert Feyrer | 3 Mar 2005 21:52
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Favicon

Re: [OT] Anyone in Firenze, IT?

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005, Christopher Schultz wrote:
> Sorry for the completely off-topic post, but I was wondering if anyone
> happens to be in Florence, Italy?

Check out regional-it <at> NetBSD.org
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/regional-it/

  - Hubert

--

-- 
NetBSD - Free AND Open!      (And of course secure, portable, yadda yadda)
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