OpenBSD/i386

History and Status:

The i386 port has quite a few architecture specific changes from the NetBSD/i386 port, but the major ones are:

• Also runs on machines with 512MB of ram or more, does not crash.
• the addition of ISA bounce buffer support so that ISA scsi cards (ie. Adaptec 1542) can be used in machines with more than 16MB of memory.
• The same one GENERIC kernel works on all machines, whether it has BusLogic or Adaptec scsi cards.
• some APM and PCMCIA support (3c589, NE2000-clone, and COM ports)
• some DDB improvements
• OPTI mcd support
• ATAPI cdrom support
• P5/P6 improved NTP support
• pccons has userland replaceable keymaps, and screen blanking
• boot "-a" support like other ports (asks for root partition)
• floppy disk formatting
• Cyclades Cyclom serial driver
• faster (assembly) IP checksumming (typically 20% faster, up to 62% faster in some cases)
• vmstat -i prints interrupt information.
• latest rev of adaptec 2940 driver from FreeBSD
• supports "ep* at port ? irq ?"
• faster i386-specific `pccom' device driver.
• /dev/pctr pseudo-device & program for accessing the Pentium and PentiumPro performance counters.
• Fixed major i386 kernel interrupt race.
• Fixed UCONSOLE security hole without breaking xconsole.
• Much faster i387-specific libm available for those who want the option.
• ISA Plug-and-Play support
• the GPL FP emulator from Linux/Freebsd, for users who want to use it. Much better!
• Prefer partition type 166, so that OpenBSD can co-reside on the same disk as a 386BSD/NetBSD/FreeBSD install.
• Attempt to fault in a ptp; this avoids two ptp panic cases.
• RAW_PART is now 'c', not 'd'. It should start at 0, and cover your whole disk.
• Updated ncr driver, much more performance.
• 3c59x and 3c9xx cards work.
• Can mount DOS file systems with cluster size > 16KB.

Installation with Other Operating Systems:
The OpenBSD i386 port can be installed to share the system disks with other operating systems such as MSDOS, Windows or Linux using the MSDOS MBR/partition scheme and an optional boot selector. Everyday operation is trouble free, but setup requires care and Windows '95 installation is known to be careless about pre-existing MBR/partition information. See the Installation Notes for more details.

Supported Hardware:
The OpenBSD i386 port works across a broad range of standard PC's and clones, with a wide variety of processors and I/O bus architecures. It can be expected to install and run with minimal diffculty on most current products. The cases where problems may be encountered are typically older proprietary PC's, Laptops or specialized server boxes that rely on a custom BIOS to paper over implementation differences.

OpenBSD does not currently support multiple processors, but will run using one processor on a multi-processor system board.

Working hardware includes:
(Drivers listed with an XXX are included, but may not be completely functional, as do not own all the hardware listed to test them on an on-going basis. Also, please note any reservations listed. You must let us know if this list is incorrect, or if a driver is broken.)

• All mainstream i386 architecture CPU chips, including 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium-Pro and compatibles such as the AMD K5 series.
• Basically all standard ISA, VLB, PCI, or PCMCIA bus based machines.
• No support for "Micro Channel" MCA bus used in many IBM PS/2 models.

• Floppy controllers.
• MFM, ESDI, IDE, and RLL hard disk controllers.
• Most ATAPI IDE CD-ROM drives

• MDA, CGA, VGA, SVGA, and HGC Display Adapters.

• 8250/16450-based ports
• 16550-based ports
• AST-style 4-port serial boards
• BOCA 8-port serial cards
• Cyclades Cyclom-{4, 8, 16}Y serial boards (XXX)
• IBM PC-RT 4-port serial boards
• Parallel ports.

• AMD LANCE and PCnet-ISA: Novell NE1500T/Novell NE2100, Kingston 21xx
• AMD PCnet-PCI: BOCALANcard/PCI
• AT&T StarLAN 10, EN100, and StarLAN Fiber
• 3COM 3c501
• 3COM 3c503
• 3COM 3c505
• 3COM 3c507
• 3COM 3c509, 3c579, 3c589, and 3c9xx
• 3COM 3c59x (XXX)
• Digital DC21x4x PCI: SMC EtherPower 10, 10/100 (PCI only!), Znyx ZX34X, Cogent EM100, Digital DE450, Digital DE500
• BICC Isolan (XXX)
• Intel EtherExpress 16
• SMC/WD 8003, 8013, and the SMC "Elite16" ISA boards
• SMC/WD 8216 (the SMC "Elite16 Ultra" ISA boards)
• Novell NE1000, NE2000

• Adaptec AHA-154xA, -B, -C, and -CF, Buslogic 54x
• Adaptec AHA-174x
• Adaptec AIC-6260 and AIC-6360
• Adaptec AHA-294x[W] and other PCI AIC-7xxx chips/boards.
• BusLogic 445, 74x, 9xx (But not "FlashPoint" series)
• Symbios Logic (NCR) 53C8xx-based PCI SCSI host adapters
• Ultrastor 14f, 34f, and (possibly) 24f
• ST01/02, Future Domain TMC-885/TMC-950
• Most SCSI tape drives
• QIC-02 and QIC-36 format (XXX)
• Mitsumi CD-ROM drives (XXX)
• Most SCSI CD-ROM drives
• Most SCSI tape changers.

• "Logitech"-style bus mice
• "Microsoft"-style bus mice
• "PS/2"-style mice
• Serial mice (no kernel support necessary)

• SoundBlaster
• Gravis Ulrasound and Ultrasound Max
• Personal Sound System
• Windows Sound System
• ProAudio Spectrum

• APM power management -- if your system supports it, turn it off!
• PCMCIA: most chipsets.
• 3COM 3c589 pcmcia ethernet
• WD-7000 SCSI host adapters.
• Digital DEFPA PCI FDDI adapters (support barely missed this release; it works in other ports, and will work in this one in the next release)
• ATM cards -- some. Mail chuck@openbsd.org to get this entry updated.

Snapshots are made available from time to time.