Annotation of www/sparc.html, Revision 1.21
1.3 fn 1: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML Strict//EN">
2: <html>
1.1 deraadt 3: <head>
4: <title>OpenBSD/sparc</title>
1.3 fn 5: <link rev=made href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>
6: <meta name="resource-type" content="document">
7: <meta name="description" content="the OpenBSD/sparc page">
8: <meta name="keywords" content="openbsd,sparc">
9: <meta name="distribution" content="global">
1.16 deraadt 10: <meta name="copyright" content="This document copyright 1996 by OpenBSD">
1.3 fn 11: </head>
12:
1.20 johns 13: <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#23238E">
1.3 fn 14:
1.1 deraadt 15: <h2>OpenBSD/sparc</h2>
16:
1.3 fn 17: <hr>
18: <h3><strong>History and Status:</strong></h3>
19:
20: <p>
1.1 deraadt 21: The original BSD4.4 port was done by Chris Torek as a contract to
22: LBL. The code was released by Chris in mid-93, and Theo de Raadt
23: worked it into shape for the NetBSD tree. Theo and Markus Wild worked
24: on improving Chris' original SunOS compatibility code into a highly
25: complete and reliable emulation. Chuck Cranor ported the sun4c code to
26: the 8KB pagesized Sun4 architecture, and Theo merged this code in a
27: way that would allow the same kernel and programs to run on either
28: sun4c or sun4 machines (unlike Sun's seperate kernel environments).
29: This last change also required a rewrite of the device configuration
30: code. Just after the NetBSD/sparc 1.0 release, Peter Galbavy wrote an
31: ESP scsi device driver as a replacement for Chris' sparc-specific scsi
32: code, this new driver unfortunately had some problems.
1.3 fn 33: </p>
1.1 deraadt 34:
35: <p>
36: At this point a conflict emerged between Theo and the other people he
37: started the NetBSD project with, and Theo was forced by the core group
38: to resign from NetBSD. After Theo left NetBSD, a few people in the
39: NetBSD group did some other things for the port: Paul Kranenburg
40: ported a floppy driver and started writing support for the 4/400.
41: Chuck spent many long hours working on the ie, xy, xd device drivers.
1.3 fn 42: </p>
1.1 deraadt 43:
44: <p>
45: Theo continued working independently, and made a number of additions:
46: P4 support, flexible boot strategy, a few graphics drivers with help
47: from John Stone, and masses of bug fixes. Many people will be most
48: interested that the ESP scsi driver has been completely replaced by
49: Theo, and that it supports disconnect/reconnect.
1.3 fn 50: </p>
1.1 deraadt 51:
52: <p>
1.7 deraadt 53: Work on porting OpenBSD/sparc to the sun4m platform was started by Theo,
54: but tendonitis problems with his wrists and the problems with the NetBSD
55: core conspired, and he stopped work. Theo passed his initial sun4m work
56: to Aaron Brown of Harvard, who was paid out of Margo Seltzer's research
57: funds. This initial stuff consisted mostly of a few attempts at building
1.8 deraadt 58: pmap structure that could support all 3 MMU types efficiently. Also,
1.7 deraadt 59: David Miller of the Sparclinux project got a little bit involved.
60: </p>
61:
62: <p>
63: Recently Theo and Jason Downs began merging the NetBSD sparc code back into
64: OpenBSD. OpenBSD/sparc is becoming usable again. There are still a few
65: OpenBSD/sparc features from older source trees that need to be re-integrated;
66: these will likely surface soon.
1.3 fn 67: </p>
1.1 deraadt 68:
69: <p>
1.21 ! johns 70: The people working the most on OpenBSD/sparc are Jason Downs, George Robbins,
! 71: John Stone, and probably Chuck Cranor again now that it once again works.
1.6 downsj 72: </p>
73:
74: <p>
1.7 deraadt 75: An important note about OpenBSD/sparc is that it is designed so that
1.21 ! johns 76: a single kernel can run on <b>ALL</b> sparc machines. Whereas SunOS and
1.15 grr 77: Solaris have always had separate `kernel architectures', ie. sun4, sun4c,
78: and sun4m, the same `GENERIC' OpenBSD kernel will run on all the supported
79: models.
80: </p>
81:
82: <p>
83: OpenBSD/sparc can be reasonably described as a continuation of the
84: NetBSD/sparc development with improvements. The current status is
1.17 johns 85: somewhere between under development and ready for general use, in that
1.15 grr 86: it does support many of the Sparc based systems and their peripherals,
87: and can be quite reliable depending on the system configuration and
88: usage.
89: </p>
90:
91: <p>
92: Most of the problems are believed to stem from the wide variety of sparc
93: processor and cache implementations along with their undocumented bugs,
94: rather then general kernal problems.
95: Feedback on which models do and do not work reliably is
96: appreciated, particularly with the newer sun4m implementations like the
97: Fujitsu TurboSparc and Ross HyperSparc based systems and upgrades.
98: </p>
99:
100: <p>
1.17 johns 101: The installation tools and process as of the 2.1 release are greatly
102: improved over previous releases of OpenBSD. OpenBSD/sparc can be installed
103: or upgraded via floppy boot images on sun4c and sun4m, miniroot images
104: for machines without floppies (and sun4 machines).
1.3 fn 105: </p>
106:
107: <hr>
1.1 deraadt 108: <p>
1.12 deraadt 109: <a href=ftp.html>Snapshots are made available from time to time.</a>
1.3 fn 110:
111: <hr>
112: <h3><strong>What hardware is supported?</strong></h3>
1.1 deraadt 113:
114: <h4>OpenBSD/sparc runs on the following classes of machines:</h4>
1.3 fn 115: <ul>
1.19 johns 116: <li> sun4: 4/100, 4/200, and 4/300
117: <li> sun4c: SS1, SS1+, IPC, SLC, SS2, IPX, and ELC
118: <li> sun4m: at least the LC, LX, 4, 5, 10, and 20. A few cpu
1.17 johns 119: combinations do not work reliably, as well as a few odd memory
120: configurations.
1.15 grr 121: <li> Typically it works on faithful clones of these machines
1.3 fn 122: </ul>
123: <h4>Supported devices. This list of basically declares that any `stock' sun4c
124: "sparcstation" machine will probably work; for sun4 machines one must be more
125: careful.</h4>
126: <ul>
1.19 johns 127: <li> Sun keyboard and mouse
128:
129: <li> Floppy drives:
130: <ul>
131: <li> sun4c floppy disk drive
132: </ul>
133:
134: <li> Serial ports:
135: <ul>
136: <li> ttya and ttyb on-board serial ports (can be used as console if needed)
137: <li> 4/300 ttyc and ttyd on-board serial ports
138: </ul>
139:
140:
141: <li> Audio support:
142: <ul>
143: <li> sun4c on-board audio
144: </ul>
145:
146: <li> Framebuffers:
147: <ul>
148: <li>SBus or sun4c on-board video:
149: <ul>
150: <li>bwtwo - black and white
151: <li>cgthree - 8-bit color, unaccelerated
152: <li>cgsix - 8-bit color, accelerated (GX, GX+, TGX, TGX+) Should probably work with most faithful emulations/clones of SBus cgsix..
153: </ul>
154:
155: <li> 4/200 on-board bwtwo
156:
157: <li> P4 video (4/100 and 4/300):
158: <ul>
159: <li> bwtwo - black and white
160: <li> cgthree - 8-bit color, unaccelerated
161: <li> cgfour - 8-bit color, 1-bit overlay, unaccelerated
162: <li> cgsix - 8-bit color, accelerated
163: <li> cgeight - 24-bit color, 1-bit overlay, unaccelerated
164: </ul>
165:
166: <li> VME video (sun4):
167: <ul>
168: <li> cgtwo - black and white
169: <li> cgthree - 8-bit color, unaccelerated
170: <li> cgsix - 8-bit color, accelerated
171: </ul>
172: </ul>
173:
174: <li> Ethernet adapters:
175: <ul>
176: <li> on-board AMD Lance ethernet
177: <li> SBus AMD Lance ethernet cards
178: <li> on-board Intel 82586 ethernet (ie0 on 4/100 and 4/200)
179: <li> VME Intel 82586 ethernet cards
180: </ul>
181:
182: <li> SCSI controllers:
183: <ul>
184: <li> on-board "esp" SCSI controller (sun4c, sun4m, and 4/300)
185: <li> SBus "esp" SCSI controller
186: <li> VME "SUN-3"/"si" SCSI controller (polled mode only, slow)
187: <li> 4/110 "SCSI Weird"/"sw" on-board controller (slow, polled mode)
188: </ul>
189:
190: <li> SMD and other disk controllers
191: <ul>
192: <li> Xylogics 7053 VME/SMD disk controller ("xd")
193: <li> Xylogics 450/451 VME disk controller ("xy")
194: </ul>
195:
1.3 fn 196: </ul>
1.1 deraadt 197:
198: <h4>OpenBSD/sparc does *not* run on these machines (yet):</h4>
1.3 fn 199: <ul>
1.19 johns 200: <li> sun4: 4/400 (lacks support for the I/O cache, and has ethernet problems)
201: <li> sun4m: older systems with Viking (TMS390Z55) processor modules without external cache chips, aka SuperCache, aka MXCC, aka PAC.
202: <li> sun4m: model 4/600 -- uses auxio registers, sun4m VME, I/O cache?
203: <li> sun4d: SPARC Server 1000, SPARC Center 2000 -- XD-Bus vs. M-Bus, MP issues.
204: <li> sun4u: UltraSPARC 64-bit machines.
1.1 deraadt 205: <li> It does not work on most Solbourne machines, which are quite different.
1.3 fn 206: </ul>
1.19 johns 207:
1.15 grr 208: <p>
209: OpenBSD/Sparc on the 4c/4m machines is criticaly dependent on configuration
210: information returned by the openboot prom. A sparc clone that differs
211: substantially from the Sun model as far as device names and properties will
212: require additional work in this area.
1.1 deraadt 213:
214: <h4>Unsupported Devices. First of all, there are MANY unsupported devices.
215: A comprehensive list can probably not be written.</h4>
1.3 fn 216: <ul>
1.19 johns 217: <li> Serial Cards:
218: <ul>
219: <li> VME mti 16-port serial card
220: <li> VME alm2 16-port serial card
221: <li> VME mcp 4-port serial card (or is it 8 port)
222: </ul>
223:
224: <li>Disk Controllers:
225: <ul>
226: <li> VME "sc" SCSI controller
227: <li> VME IPI controller
228: </ul>
229:
230: <li> Framebuffers:
231: <ul>
232: <li> VME cgfive, 8-bit color, 1-bit overlay, double-buffered, unaccelerated without GP/GP2
233: <li> VME cgnine, 24-bit color, 1-bit overlay, double-buffered, unaccelerated without GP/GP2
234: <li> VME GP/GP2 Graphics Processor (drives a cgfive or cgnine)
235: <li> SBus cgeight 24-bit color, unaccelerated (note: SBus cgeight is quite different from VME/P4 cgeight)
236: <li> SBus GS, 24-bit color, 8-bit color, overlay planes, double-buffered, 3-D acceleration (aka cgtwelve)
237: <li> SBus GT, 24-bit color, 8-bit color, overlay planes, double-buffered, 3-D acceleration (aka Graphics Tower)
238: <li> SS20 SX, 24-bit color, 8-bit color, overlay planes, potentially double-buffered, accelerated (aka cgfourteen)
239: <li> SBus ZX, 24-bit color, 8-bit color, overlay planes, double-buffered, 3-D acceleration (aka Leo)
240: </ul>
241:
1.17 johns 242: <li> SBus cards other than the standard video/scsi/ethernet listed above
1.15 grr 243: <li> On-board Audio and ISDN hardware present on some sun4m systems
1.18 johns 244: <li> sun4m floppies (OpenBSD can boot/install from them though)
1.15 grr 245: <li> Multiple Processors/Modules in sun4m systems (OpenBSD will run, but only uses one processor)
1.3 fn 246: </ul>
1.1 deraadt 247:
1.3 fn 248: <hr>
1.21 ! johns 249: <h3>OpenBSD/sparc Projects:</h3>
! 250: <ul>
! 251: <li>Improve sun4m stability.
! 252: <li>Merge in useful NetBSD work.
! 253: <li>Start work on device drivers for unsupported framebuffers.
! 254: <li>Bring back OpenBSD/sparc features from older code.
! 255: </ul>
! 256:
! 257: <hr>
1.11 deraadt 258: <a href=plat.html><img src=back.gif border=0 alt=OpenBSD></a>
1.1 deraadt 259: <a href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>www@openbsd.org</a>
1.3 fn 260: <br>
1.21 ! johns 261: <small>$OpenBSD: sparc.html,v 1.20 1997/06/13 03:21:03 johns Exp $</small>
1.3 fn 262:
263: </body>
264: </html>
![[BACK]](/icons/back.gif){kind=icon}
Return to sparc.html CVS log ![[TXT]](/icons/text.gif){kind=icon}
![[DIR]](/icons/dir.gif){kind=icon}
Up to [local] / www