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Operating System Specific Discussions => Amiga UNIX => Topic started by: MelbourneBen on May 28, 2010, 04:22:59 AM

Title: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: MelbourneBen on May 28, 2010, 04:22:59 AM
Hi,

I've noticed that Netbsd still supports the Amiga amongst other platforms...I just wondered if anyone out there actually uses NETbsd on their Miggy? If so, how does it compare to Amiga dos and workbench?

As a linux fan this is something I'd be interested in installing on my Amiga but just wondered if anyone else out there had given it a go?
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: johnklos on May 28, 2010, 04:54:45 AM
NetBSD is very different than GNU/Linux when it comes to updates because the whole OS is the same version for all supported architectures. GNU/Linux, conversely,  has very few distros which support more than a few architectures, and even Debian has trouble keeping m68k up to date. That's not to say they're not working on it, but you can't install a modern Debian right now. People are working on the toolchain to get things up to date presently.

NetBSD's advantage is that the same source code tree is used for all architectures, so all of userland is exactly the same for amd64 as it is for m68k and VAX, for instance. The toolchain is the same version, all of the daemons are the same, et cetera. By not keeping them separate, all the architectures benefit, plus you know if your code runs cleanly on VAX, m68k, Alpha, SPARC, et cetera, then you know it's good, portable code.

NetBSD's pkgsrc is also architecture agnostic as much as it can. You'll never hear pkgsrc developers say something like, "m68k? Who uses that? We don't care about fixing that." I've heard that many other places, though, even though everyone should care about making their code as correct as they can. After all, there were tons of x86 developers who didn't care about correct code who had to go back and fix tons of things when they wanted their code to work on 64 bit x86. Some people never learn.

To summarize, NetBSD is up to date and well supported on Amiga.
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: johnklos on May 28, 2010, 05:06:40 AM
I didn't exactly answer your question - yes, I run NetBSD on two Amigas and I try to help keep things working properly. I try out different hardware whenever I get the chance. For example, I just got an IOblix multiport serial card and I'm trying to get everything working properly with that (and improve 16650 and 16950 support in NetBSD in general).

Next I hope to get a ZorRAM card or two to make sure that NetBSD is fine with larger amounts of memory...

Personally, I think NetBSD is excellent on Amiga hardware. People don't let it get overly bloated and too slow because we really do run it on old VAXen and m68030 Suns and Macs, for instance.
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: Gulliver on May 28, 2010, 05:14:01 AM
While I agree NetBSD is great.
 I see it hasnt got support for many Amiga hardware expansions, in the form of drivers. That is the only thing IMHO NetBSD lacks. It just needs more hardware drivers.
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: MelbourneBen on May 28, 2010, 08:06:08 AM
Thanks for the responses guys.

Does NETBSD have a GUI that can be installed? Also, do you have your Amiga's setup to dual boot either Amiga dos or Netbsd?

:)
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: johnklos on May 28, 2010, 08:20:59 AM
Quote from: Gulliver;561530
While I agree NetBSD is great.
 I see it hasnt got support for many Amiga hardware expansions, in the form of drivers. That is the only thing IMHO NetBSD lacks. It just needs more hardware drivers.


Like what?
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: johnklos on May 28, 2010, 08:25:50 AM
Quote from: MelbourneBen;561548
Thanks for the responses guys.

Does NETBSD have a GUI that can be installed? Also, do you have your Amiga's setup to dual boot either Amiga dos or Netbsd?

:)

Yes, it comes with X Window System, which comes with twm. You can load any of a number of windowing systems if you like. Check out:

ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/wm/README.html (http://ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/wm/README.html)

No, I don't dual boot those machines. They're colocated and are usually up for months at a time. I have another two Amigas for running AmigaDOS.
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: bloodline on May 28, 2010, 08:26:45 AM
Quote from: johnklos;561528
I didn't exactly answer your question - yes, I run NetBSD on two Amigas and I try to help keep things working properly. I try out different hardware whenever I get the chance. For example, I just got an IOblix multiport serial card and I'm trying to get everything working properly with that (and improve 16650 and 16950 support in NetBSD in general).

Next I hope to get a ZorRAM card or two to make sure that NetBSD is fine with larger amounts of memory...

Personally, I think NetBSD is excellent on Amiga hardware. People don't let it get overly bloated and too slow because we really do run it on old VAXen and m68030 Suns and Macs, for instance.
Links please, I fancy firing NetBSD up in UAE.
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: Daedalus on May 28, 2010, 08:39:59 AM
@johnklos

It's years since I installed it but at the time it didn't support the Mediator PCI bus, which meant no PCI graphics cards or network cards...


@MelbourneBen

It's a totally different beast to AmigaDOS ;-) But "dual booting" when I had it installed basically meant booting Workbench and double-clicking the icon to boot NetBSD. Of course you could edit the startup-sequence and have it boot NetBSD from there if you hold down a certain key or something...
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: johnklos on May 28, 2010, 09:04:08 AM
Quote from: bloodline;561553
Links please, I fancy firing NetBSD up in UAE.


Links for NetBSD? How about http://www.NetBSD.org/?

From the main site, look under Ports for the Amiga port. It's a little bit of work to get going, but you'll get plenty of help on the port-amiga mailing list.

I tried many times to get NetBSD to run under UAE, but never got it working properly. I don't know if UAE emulates the MMU well enough. I'd love to hear how if you succeed. I don't really know much about UAE, so maybe I'm just doing something wrong.
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: johnklos on May 28, 2010, 09:06:19 AM
Quote from: Daedalus;561555
@johnklos

It's years since I installed it but at the time it didn't support the Mediator PCI bus, which meant no PCI graphics cards or network cards...


It'd be nice to see PCI support for Amiga in NetBSD, especially since most of the PCI drivers compile for whatever architecture as-is. We'd need to get a Mediator or two to NetBSD developers...
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: squidbass on May 28, 2010, 09:37:33 AM
I've got netbsd installed on a 1200...the only thing (2 things) that got me stumped was the XFconfig for AGA and getting pcmcia/3c509 to work - can't seem to find any documentation anywhere.
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: Gulliver on May 28, 2010, 10:27:20 AM
Quote from: johnklos;561550
Like what?

Okay so I said not enough drivers for hardware. These are the ones that seem to be missing. Please do correct me if I made some mistake on any of them:

CPU (the PPC part):
-BlizzardPPC
-CyberstormPPC

IDE controller (all channels + full features):
-Idefix Express
-FastATA 1200
-FastATA 4000
-Eide99

SCSI:
-BlizzardPPC 603+ (is it unsupported?)

Video Controllers:
-BlizzardVision
-CyberVisionPPC
-All pci based videocards

Audio:
-Delfina

Ethernet controllers:
-All PCI based ethernet cards

IO:
-Subway
-Deneb

BUSBOARD:
-All mediator models
-All G-Rexx models
-All Prometheus models
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: haywirepc on May 28, 2010, 10:45:53 AM
Can anyone post screenshots of netbsd running on an amiga?

I'd like to see the desktop...
 
Steven
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: Colani1200 on May 28, 2010, 11:30:22 AM
Here is a picture of my A1200 running NetBSD (console only). http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=2186

I installed it just for fun, actually you won't really want to use it in a serious manner because it isn't really fast on the miggy... You'll get a better experience running NetBSD on any PC from the junkyard that is 100x faster...

@haywirepc: There is no "the desktop". As usual with Unix, you can choose between a number of desktop environments, like fvwm, icewm and the like. And they'll look about the same on the miggy as on i386 (ok, maybe less colors and lower resolution if you don't have a gfx card).
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: roomeo on May 28, 2010, 12:12:56 PM
This is a picture of my A4000 running NetBSD 5.0.2
Booted for first time.. So i have not configured network yet..
 
http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=3242
 
Running on an A4000/040.33mhz/PicassoII/Ariadne/(Delfina Lite)
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: johnklos on May 28, 2010, 06:34:32 PM
Quote from: Gulliver;561569
Okay so I said not enough drivers for hardware. These are the ones that seem to be missing. Please do correct me if I made some mistake on any of them:

CPU (the PPC part):
-BlizzardPPC
-CyberstormPPC


These are working, for the most part, and the amigappc port is actively being improved.

Quote from: Gulliver;561569
IDE controller (all channels + full features):
-Idefix Express
-FastATA 1200
-FastATA 4000
-Eide99

I don't know which are which, but fixes based on the current IDE ports should work fine, and/or require an option in the kernel configuration file.


Quote from: Gulliver;561569
SCSI:
-BlizzardPPC 603+ (is it unsupported?)


This looks like it'd be straightforward to support since we already support the chip. I suppose we just never had anyone to test it. I assume you have one of these - would you be willing to test it for us?

Quote from: Gulliver;561569
Video Controllers:
-BlizzardVision
-CyberVisionPPC
-All pci based videocards


PCI isn't supported yet, as I mentioned earlier, but it'd certainly be nice. The CyberVisionPPC and BlizzardVision are supported, but probably need some testing.

Quote from: Gulliver;561569
Audio:
-Delfina


No idea on this one. If you have one, we can probably get some technical info on it and see about adapting a current driver to it.

Quote from: Gulliver;561569
Ethernet controllers:
-All PCI based ethernet cards


Again, PCI would be nice, but we'd need to get a Mediator or two to developers.

Quote from: Gulliver;561569
IO:
-Subway
-Deneb


Same as above - USB wouldn't be too hard because so many USB chips are already supported in NetBSD, but we'd have to get hardware to developers.

Quote from: Gulliver;561569
BUSBOARD:
-All mediator models
-All G-Rexx models
-All Prometheus models


Same as above.

How much of this hardware do you have, and how much testing would you be willing to do?

John
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: Gulliver on May 28, 2010, 07:43:26 PM
I dont have any problem to test things out. Well maybe not enough time home to do it, but I can surely help, and have the following setup:

Blizzard PPC 603+
Mediator SX
Eide99

Mediator PCI cards:
Voodoo 3 3000
Realtek 8139
Soundblaster CT4750
Winfast TV 2000 (based on Conexant/Brooktree BT878)
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: tone007 on May 28, 2010, 07:47:11 PM
Quote from: roomeo;561592
This is a picture of my A4000 running NetBSD 5.0.2
Booted for first time.. So i have not configured network yet..
 
http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=3242
 
Running on an A4000/040.33mhz/PicassoII/Ariadne/(Delfina Lite)


This looks like fun.

Maybe one day, when I have lots and lots of free time...
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: strim on January 09, 2011, 06:21:23 PM
Quote from: Gulliver;561569

SCSI:
-BlizzardPPC 603+ (is it unsupported?)


NetBSD has just got support for BlizzardPPC 603e+ SCSI host. It will be included in upcoming 6.0 release :) .
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: Rodomoc on January 17, 2011, 08:41:45 PM
This NetBSD is interesting for me.
 
I think I have a machine that will run it. A3000 w/ A3640 (68040-25), GVP Spectrum Video, XSurf Ethernet. I am limited to the original 2/16MB Ram however. I am assuming that my FastATA card is not supported which means I will have to revert back to onboard SCSI. This is fine from a hard drive standpoint because A3000 native SCSI works real good in my opinion. Getting a CD running off this will be a challenge for me. I wonder if the SCSI CD drives sitting in my older powermac 7200-7600's would work?
 
Anway, I am interested in this for the sole reason that the Amiga version of NetBSD is up to date and fundamentally on par with other hardware ports. I have attempted Debian Linux on this machine and couldn't make it go. Maybe NetBSD will be a better experience.
 
Has anyone tried the Amiga specific binaries I saw in NetBSD FTP site? It looked like there were a few useful things in there. I am thinking that this should run well from a command line. I am not sure from X11 standpoint. Has anyone been able to run this? and what are your impressions?
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: strim on January 17, 2011, 09:41:27 PM
Quote from: Rodomoc;607329
This NetBSD is interesting for me.
 I think I have a machine that will run it. A3000 w/ A3640 (68040-25), GVP Spectrum Video, XSurf Ethernet. I am limited to the original 2/16MB Ram however.

A3000, A3640, GVP Spectrum, XSurf are all supported. However, 16MB of fast RAM is way too small amount to run NetBSD 5. You'll be able to boot the system, but nothing more. Memory will be exhausted very quickly. In reality you need 32MB to do anything useful. ZorRAM memory expanion from AmigaKit is supported, might be a nice choice if you don't want to invest in turbo card.
Quote

I am assuming that my FastATA card is not supported which means I will have to revert back to onboard SCSI.

Unfortunately, FastATA is not supported yet. I have a half finished driver, which does not work yet :(.
Quote

I wonder if the SCSI CD drives sitting in my older powermac 7200-7600's would work?

Yes, it should just work.
Quote

Anway, I am interested in this for the sole reason that the Amiga version of NetBSD is up to date and fundamentally on par with other hardware ports. I have attempted Debian Linux on this machine and couldn't make it go. Maybe NetBSD will be a better experience.

Go ahead, try it! In case of any problems, do not hesitate to post to port-amiga mailing list.
Quote

Has anyone tried the Amiga specific binaries I saw in NetBSD FTP site? It looked like there were a few useful things in there. I am thinking that this should run well from a command line. I am not sure from X11 standpoint. Has anyone been able to run this? and what are your impressions?

Few days ago I installed NetBSD 5.1 on A600 + ACA630 using binaries on NetBSD FTP site, and these work without problems :). Though, I didn't test X11.
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: Cammy on January 18, 2011, 12:13:12 AM
I haven't tried anything with it myself yet, but there's an interesting thread about NetBSD on the Amiga over on AmiBay at the moment - http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=12636
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: beakster2 on January 18, 2011, 03:05:57 AM
Definitely worth doing just for the hell of it.  I ran it back in the day on my A1200 with 030/16meg to teach myself UNIX.

These days though it doesn't make much sense to run it on an Amiga (other than just for fun) when you could find an old PC in a skip which would run it faster.  What it does show though, is just how great AmigaOS is at being a practical WIMP OS on a machine with such limited resources.
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: Rodomoc on January 18, 2011, 06:10:45 PM
strim - thanks for the post. I was actually thinking of getting a Zoram board for this machine of mine anyway. I wonder if the NetBSD would pick up on the Zoram?
 
This is sort of a pure fun thing for me and to get familiar with Unix. I also want to learn how the NetBSD kernel gets along with the Amiga hardware. This is intriguing to me in a variety of ways, especially when staying with Amiga's native hardware features.
Title: Re: NETbsd on Amiga
Post by: strim on January 18, 2011, 07:06:50 PM
Quote from: Rodomoc;607471
I wonder if the NetBSD would pick up on the Zoram?


ZorRAM should just work with NetBSD/amiga, just as any other Z3 RAM expansion.