Help needed to port NetBSD to an alien i386 machine

[BogDan Vatra]

Hello there,

I'd like to port NetBSD-8 to an altos unix machine[0]. Altos has unix
installed and I chose netbsd-8 because I want to be able to run also unix
apps and 8 was the last version that supported ibcs2.

So far I have managed to decompile and patch the BIOS to support 486 DLC as
386 has been supported by NetBSD for a very long time.

I need help with the following:
- how to manually compile the bootloader (sys/arch/i386/stand). I searched
the net but I couldn't find any info...
- even if it's x86 based, this machine is not a PC! It doesn't have ISA,
PIC, IDE, etc. Instead all the communication with all the I/O is done via
DMA and irqs, therefore I'll need to write drivers for these I/Os. Any
tutorial, examples, documentation will be very much appreciated!
- does the info from https://www.netbsd.org/docs/kernel/ddwg.html still
apply to NetBSD-8 ? If not, where can I find an up to date one?

I don't have experience with NetBSD, though I have quite a lot of
experience with linux, so please give me as many details as possible.

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
BogDan.


[0]
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/altos/386/Altos-386_Series_1000_Brochure_Nov88.pdf

[Joerg Sonnenberger]

Post by BogDan Vatra
I'd like to port NetBSD-8 to an altos unix machine[0]. Altos has unix
installed and I chose netbsd-8 because I want to be able to run also unix
apps and 8 was the last version that supported ibcs2.

That talks about 80386 processors. We don't support 80386 and I'm fairly
sure that no one is insane enough to bring that back. There are just too
many stupid bugs to make that worthwhile.

Joerg

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[Valery Ushakov]

Post by BogDan Vatra
I need some links where I can find documentation about porting
NetBSD to another platform.

You can sift through http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/presentations/
though the older stuff, like e.g. fvdl's amd64 paper is not there it
seems.

Neither are my old and superficial javastation notes. I now put them
at http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/misc/uwe/eurobsd2002-krups.pdf

-uwe

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[David Brownlee]

Post by Joerg Sonnenberger

Post by BogDan Vatra
I'd like to port NetBSD-8 to an altos unix machine[0]. Altos has unix
installed and I chose netbsd-8 because I want to be able to run also unix
apps and 8 was the last version that supported ibcs2.

That talks about 80386 processors. We don't support 80386 and I'm fairly
sure that no one is insane enough to bring that back. There are just too
many stupid bugs to make that worthwhile.

I think NetBSD 4 (from 2008) was the last version to support 80386
CPUs (Unless you have an Altos 900, 1700 or 3500 (AcerPower 486e)
system), which should still be a reasonable target to port (if you are
inclined to tilt at that particular windmill :)

David

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[BogDan Vatra]

Ah, I realized that I made a mistake, I wanted to write:
"as 386 has been NOT supported by NetBSD for a very long time." :)

Post by David Brownlee

Post by Joerg Sonnenberger

Post by BogDan Vatra
I'd like to port NetBSD-8 to an altos unix machine[0]. Altos has unix
installed and I chose netbsd-8 because I want to be able to run also

unix

Post by Joerg Sonnenberger

Post by BogDan Vatra
apps and 8 was the last version that supported ibcs2.

That talks about 80386 processors. We don't support 80386 and I'm fairly
sure that no one is insane enough to bring that back. There are just too
many stupid bugs to make that worthwhile.

I think NetBSD 4 (from 2008) was the last version to support 80386
CPUs (Unless you have an Altos 900, 1700 or 3500 (AcerPower 486e)
system), which should still be a reasonable target to port (if you are
inclined to tilt at that particular windmill :)
David

[BogDan Vatra]

I know netbsd doesn't support 386, that's the reason why I upgraded it to a
486DLC [1] (after I patched its BIOS as it refused to work with 486).
Now the computer has a 486 which works just fine.

Regarding the bootloader, even though I managed to build it I dropped the
idea because I like to have dual boot, therefore I'm going to choose GRUB
or U-Boot for this job.
I need some links where I can find documentation about porting NetBSD to
another platform.

Cheers,
BogDan.


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrix_Cx486DLC

Post by Joerg Sonnenberger

Post by BogDan Vatra
I'd like to port NetBSD-8 to an altos unix machine[0]. Altos has unix
installed and I chose netbsd-8 because I want to be able to run also unix
apps and 8 was the last version that supported ibcs2.

That talks about 80386 processors. We don't support 80386 and I'm fairly
sure that no one is insane enough to bring that back. There are just too
many stupid bugs to make that worthwhile.
Joerg