[BACK]Return to aviion.html CVS log [TXT][DIR] Up to [local] / www
File: [local] / www / aviion.html (download) (as text)

Revision 1.11, Sat Oct 19 10:13:18 2013 UTC (10 years, 7 months ago) by deraadt
Branch: MAIN
Changes since 1.10: +2 -2 lines 

typo

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC  "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
	"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>OpenBSD/aviion</title>
<link rev="made" href="mailto:www@openbsd.org">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="resource-type" content="document">
<meta name="description" content="the OpenBSD/aviion page">
<meta name="keywords" content="openbsd,aviion,AViiON,AV400,AV5000">
<meta name="distribution" content="global">
<meta name="copyright" content="This document copyright 2006-2013 by OpenBSD.">
</head>

<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#23238e">
<a href="index.html"><img alt="[OpenBSD]" height="30" width="141" src="images/smalltitle.gif" border="0"></a>
<p>
<h2><font color="#e00000">OpenBSD/aviion</font></h2>

<hr>

<p>
OpenBSD/aviion is a port of OpenBSD to the Motorola 88100- and
88110-based AViiON systems manufactured by Data General.

<p>
A mailing list for m88k-based ports is available at
<u><font color="#23238e">m88k@openbsd.org</font></u>.
To join the OpenBSD/m88k mailing list, send a message body of
<b>"subscribe m88k"</b> to
<a href="mailto:majordomo@openbsd.org">majordomo@openbsd.org</a>.
Please be sure to check our <a href="mail.html">mailing list policy</a> before
subscribing.

<a name="toc"></a>
<h3><font color="#0000e0"><i>Table of contents</i></font></h3>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#history">History of the port</a>
  <li><a href="#status">Current status</a>
  <li><a href="#projects">Project list</a>
  <li><a href="#hardware">Supported hardware</a>
  <li><a href="#install">Getting and installing OpenBSD/aviion</a>
</ul>

<hr>
<a name="history"></a>
<h3><font color="#0000e0"><strong>History:</strong></font></h3>

<p>
In September 2003, Chris Tribo published some excerpts of the technical
documentation for the AViiON series 400. From a cursory glance at it, it was
obvious these systems were built upon a modified MVME188 design, which was
already supported by <a href="mvme88k.html">OpenBSD/mvme88k</a>, but there
was no interest in AViiON support at that time.

<p>
Then, late April 2006, enough boredom convinced Miod Vallat to start a port,
even though he did not have access to any AViiON hardware, as a challenge.
In two weeks, thanks to the help of Chris Tribo, a model 410 was running
multiuser (but diskless) - a proof that this effort was worth continuing
inside the OpenBSD tree.
<p>
Work on the port has continued since then, adding support for the 4600/530
family, as well as multiprocessor support. The port was left staging until
the effort to switch all m88k ports towards the ELF binary file format and
shared library paid off, from autumn 2012 to winter 2013.
<p>
The port eventually became self-hosting on a dual-processor 4600 model in
october 2013, with the first working (i.e. recognized by the PROM) boot blocks.
<p>
And work continues...
<hr>
<a name="status"></a>
<h3><font color="#0000e0"><strong>Current status:</strong></font></h3>

<p>
All supported models (or with similar designs) should run multi-user (some of
them do not support booting from the onboard SCSI controller yet and need to
boot from a DG/UX setup or run diskless), and currently limited to serial
console.

<hr>
<a name="projects"></a>
<h3><font color="#0000e0"><strong>Projects (in no particular order):
</strong></font></h3>

<ul>
  <li>AIC-6250 (on-board SCSI on series 400) support in the disk bootloader.
  <li>DMA support for the AIC-6250 SCSI controller.
  <li>Keyboard and video support (and an X server).
  <li>Test on as many different models as possible.
</ul>

<hr>
<a name="hardware"></a>
<h3><font color="#0000e0"><strong>Supported hardware:</strong></font></h3>

<h4>Supported machines</h4>

<ul>
<li><strong>100, 200, 300, 400, 3000, 4000 and 4300 series</strong><br>
These are the machines initially targetted by this port.
Their design is close to the well-known MVME188 design, with different on-board
devices; at the moment, there is no support for the on-board SCSI controller
in the boot blocks, although the on-board SCSI controller is supported by the
kernel.<br>
The only models tested so far are models 410 and 4300, but all the models in
this series should work.<br>
Multiprocessor systems are not supported.<br>
<li><strong>4600 and 530 series</strong><br>
These machines are slightly different from the above series, but not too much,
and documentation is available.<br>
Both the on-board SCSI controller and the on-board network interface are
supported, and these systems are able to boot from disk.<br>
Multiprocessor systems are supported.<br>
</ul>

<!--
<h4>Untested machines</h4>

<ul>
</ul>
-->

<h4>Unsupported machines</h4>

<ul>
<li><strong>5000 and 6000 series</strong><br>
These machines may eventually run as well, but lack of on-board device support
might be a showstopper. Some documentation is available, but there hasn't been
any work towards supporting them yet.
<li><strong>6280 and 8000-8 series</strong><br>
Documentation is available, but there hasn't been any work towards supporting
them yet.
<li><strong>8500 and 9500 series, and other 88100-based models</strong><br>
These systems won't likely be supported unless documentation for them is found.
<li><strong>88110-based models (500, 4500, 5500, 8500+ and 9500+ series)</strong><br>
These systems won't likely be supported unless documentation for them is found.
</ul>

<hr>
<a name="install"></a>
<h3><font color="#0000e0">
<strong>Getting and installing OpenBSD/aviion:</strong>
</font></h3>

<!--
<p>
The latest supported OpenBSD/aviion release is
<a href="42.html">OpenBSD 4.2</a>.
Here are the
<a href="http://ftp.OpenBSD.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.2/aviion/INSTALL.aviion">
OpenBSD/aviion 4.2 installation instructions
</a>.
 -->

<p>
Snapshots are made available from time to time, in
<a href="http://ftp.OpenBSD.org/pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/aviion">this location</a>
as well as in a few
<a href="ftp.html">mirrors</a>.

<p>
Here are the
<a href="http://ftp.OpenBSD.org/pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/aviion/INSTALL.aviion">
OpenBSD/aviion snapshot installation instructions
</a><!-- as well -->.

<hr>
<a href="plat.html">
<img height="24" width="24" src="back.gif" border="0" alt="Supported platforms">
</a> 
<br>
<small><a href="mailto:www@openbsd.org">www@openbsd.org</a></small>
<br>
<small>$OpenBSD: aviion.html,v 1.11 2013/10/19 10:13:18 deraadt Exp $</small>

</body>
</html>