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Frank van der Linden | 10 May 2003 20:24

New snapshot

Hi,

I've put up a new NetBSD/amd64 snapshot at:

	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/amd64/iso/amd64-2003-05-10.iso

It's, as before, a bootable ISO image. It contains some important fixes
(see below). See also the README in that directory.

Enjoy, and let me know if it's useful to you.

Fixes:

        * A problem that would cause installations not to boot (hang or
          reset early in the bootstage) has been fixed.
        * The problem that caused glxgears to crash the X server has
          been fixed. It was a signal delivery problem.
        * Everything is now compiled with -O2, making things quite a bit
          faster.
        * gdb (5.3) is now included. It works okay for userland debugging,
          examining kernel dumps is not yet possible.
        * Issues with PCI DMA systems with more than 4G of memory should
          be fixed.

- Frank

--

-- 
Frank van der Linden                                   fvdl <at> wasabisystems.com
-----------------------http://www.wasabisystems.com/--------------------------
NetBSD development                                     Embedded, Storage, other
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Frank van der Linden | 26 May 2003 15:42
Picon

A short update

Just a short update on snapshots: later this week, I'll create a new
snapshot. Nothing much amd64-specific has changed in NetBSD since
the last snapshot, except a workaround for bad MPS tables as present
in the BIOS on at least the RioWorks Arima HDAMA motherboard,
as present in an Appro 2-CPU server. This error manifests itself
as PCI devices having no working interrupts. Unfortunately this
board also has a quirky ACPI implementation, so that won't work
for PCI interrupt configuration either. With the workaround, things
work fine using the MPS BIOS interrupt routing table, though.

I'll also include the gcc 3.3 release in the snapshot, although not much
changes with regard to amd64 in that since the last snapshot either.

In the meantime, I'd like to hear about your experiences if you have
installed NetBSD/amd64.

- Frank

--

-- 
Frank van der Linden                                            fvdl <at> netbsd.org
===============================================================================
NetBSD. Free, Unix-like OS. > 45 different platforms.    http://www.netbsd.org/
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Parag Patel | 28 May 2003 23:28
X-Face

Re: A short update

Just FYI, we successfully booted the previous snapshot under
SmartFirmware on the AMD SOLO board.  It's wired for only the SOLO
right now but does boot SF out of ROM which then boots NetBSD.

The only PC legacy support is for ISA devices accessed through the usual
I/O ports.  Other than that, we've tried to jettison all the legacy
gunk.  The first 1Mb is actually all RAM.  SF runs fine without any
video card using the serial port as a console.

(Which is why Linux currently doesn't boot - it expects and uses too
many PC legacy interfaces.  We'll have to essentially re-port it to
SF/amd64.  Naturally, Windows won't run.)

We still have a lot more work ahead - things are more than a little bit
wired for the AMD SOLO board with 512Mb RAM and one processor.  We still
haven't worked on the NetBSD startup code to use SF nor figure out if
it's booted in 64-bit or 32-bit mode and automatically compensate.

But the real trick is to figure out a way to sell it.  Anyone interested
in legacy-free Hammer motherboards?  Or perhaps legacy-free NetBSD/amd64
systems all configured, tested, and ready to go? :)
--

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  __                            
 /__)_ _ _ _    Technological progress has merely provided us with more
/   (// (/(/    efficient means for going backwards.  -- Aldous Huxley
         _/
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Matt Thomas | 29 May 2003 17:07

Re: A short update


>But the real trick is to figure out a way to sell it.  Anyone interested
>in legacy-free Hammer motherboards?  Or perhaps legacy-free NetBSD/amd64
>systems all configured, tested, and ready to go? :)

Definitely interested.  But I have to wonder if SmartFirmware will
contain the same functionality as ACPI since ACPI > OpenFirmware.

--

-- 
Matt Thomas               Internet:   matt <at> 3am-software.com
3am Software Foundry      WWW URL:    http://www.3am-software.com/bio/matt/
Cupertino, CA             Disclaimer: I avow all knowledge of this message
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Parag Patel | 29 May 2003 18:45
X-Face

Re: A short update

>Definitely interested.  But I have to wonder if SmartFirmware will
>contain the same functionality as ACPI since ACPI > OpenFirmware.

Well, from a quick look at ACPI, it looks like ACPI is approximating
Open Firmware but doing it in a far more complex way.  Not to mention
that it seems there are a lot of buggy ACPI implementations. :)

Are there any specific features that BSD depends upon which aren't
defined in OF but are in ACPI?

We intend to build Open Firmware amd64 and HyperTransport binding docs
that describes the necessary info in the OF device tree along with OF
properties.  This looks fairly straight-forward though tedious.
--

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 /__)_ _ _ _    If you can read this, you're too close.
/   (// (/(/                    
         _/
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David O'Brien | 29 May 2003 18:48

Re: A short update

On Thu, May 29, 2003 at 09:45:14AM -0700, Parag Patel wrote:
> Well, from a quick look at ACPI, it looks like ACPI is approximating
> Open Firmware but doing it in a far more complex way.  Not to mention
> that it seems there are a lot of buggy ACPI implementations. :)
> 
> Are there any specific features that BSD depends upon which aren't
> defined in OF but are in ACPI?

That's a hard question to answer. :-)  Is there a short consice doc of OF
features (properites)?

FreeBSD/amd64 will depend on ACPI to get the MP table info, for instance.
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Parag Patel | 29 May 2003 19:01
X-Face

Re: A short update

>That's a hard question to answer. :-)  Is there a short consice doc of OF
>features (properites)?

Alas these tend to be binding-specific.  The PowerPC and PCI documents
from the OFWG sites make a good stab at the info provided.

>FreeBSD/amd64 will depend on ACPI to get the MP table info, for instance.

Quite.  That info can easily be placed into the device tree.  Here's the
current device tree on the SOLO:

    ok show-devs
    /
    /pci (pci)
    /pci/host <at> 18
    /pci/sysmgmt <at> 5,3
    /pci/smbus <at> 5,2
    /pci/pciide <at> 5,1
    /pci/isa <at> 5 (isa)
    /pci/isa <at> 5/ide <at> i1F0 (ide)
    /pci/isa <at> 5/ide <at> i1F0/cd <at> 1,0 (block)
    /pci/isa <at> 5/ide <at> i1F0/disk <at> 0,1 (block)
    /pci/isa <at> 5/ide <at> i1F0/disk <at> 0,0 (block)
    /pci/isa <at> 5/keyboard <at> i60 (keyboard)
    /pci/isa <at> 5/serial <at> i2F8 (serial)
    /pci/isa <at> 5/serial <at> i3F8 (serial)
    /pci/pci <at> 4 (pci)
    /pci/pci <at> 4/ethernet <at> 5 (network)
    /pci/pci <at> 4/usb <at> 0,2
    /pci/pci <at> 4/usb <at> 0,1 (usb)
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