OpenBSD/sparc

OpenBSD/sparc

History and Status:

The original BSD4.4 port was done by Chris Torek as a contract to LBL. The code was released by Chris in mid-93, and Theo de Raadt worked it into shape for the NetBSD tree. Theo and Markus Wild worked on improving Chris' original SunOS compatibility code into a highly complete and reliable emulation. Chuck Cranor ported the sun4c code to the 8KB pagesized Sun4 architecture, and Theo merged this code in a way that would allow the same kernel and programs to run on either sun4c or sun4 machines (unlike Sun's seperate kernel environments). This last change also required a rewrite of the device configuration code. Just after the NetBSD/sparc 1.0 release, Peter Galbavy wrote an ESP scsi device driver as a replacement for Chris' sparc-specific scsi code, this new driver unfortunately had some problems.

At this point a conflict emerged between Theo and the other people he started the NetBSD project with, and Theo was forced by the core group to resign from NetBSD. After Theo left NetBSD, a few people in the NetBSD group did some other things for the port: Paul Kranenburg ported a floppy driver and started writing support for the 4/400. Chuck spent many long hours working on the ie, xy, xd device drivers.

Theo continued working independently, and made a number of additions: P4 support, flexible boot strategy, a few graphics drivers with help from John Stone, and masses of bug fixes. Many people will be most interested that the ESP scsi driver has been completely replaced by Theo, and that it supports disconnect/reconnect.

Work on porting OpenBSD/sparc to the sun4m platform is currently in progress. This work is being done in cooperation between the OpenBSD group and a research group at a US university. This research group wishes to remain anonymous at this time. This work should be available for integration within the next few months.

OpenBSD/sparc can be correctly described as NetBSD/sparc + improvements.

The people working the most on OpenBSD/sparc currently consists of Chuck Cranor, Theo de Raadt, and David Miller. Of course others are very welcome!

Where to get it?

The third binary snapshot (Nov 22) is now available.

You should also read the general description about OpenBSD snapshots.

What hardware is supported?

OpenBSD/sparc runs on the following classes of machines:

  • sun4c: the SS1, SS1+, IPC, SLC, SS2, IPX, and ELC
  • sun4: the 4/100, 4/200, and 4/300
  • Typically it works on clones of these machines

    Supported devices. This list of basically declares that any `stock' sun4c "sparcstation" machine will probably work; for sun4 machines one must be more careful.

  • sun4c sbus or on-board cgsix, cgthree, and bwtwo
  • 4/200 on-board bwtwo
  • 4/300 and 4/100 P4 video: bwtwo, cgthree, cgsix. As well, P4 cgeight may work
  • sun4 VME cgtwo, cgthree, cgsix
  • P4 on-board bwtwo, and VME cgtwo card
  • ttya and ttyb serial ports (can be used as console if needed)
  • 4/300 ttyc and ttyc serial ports
  • on-board AMD Lance ethernet
  • sbus AMD Lance ethernet cards
  • on-board Intel 82586 ethernet (ie0 on 4/100 and 4/200)
  • VME Intel 82586 ethernet cards
  • on-board "esp" SCSI controller (sun4c and 4/300)
  • sbus "esp" SCSI controller
  • VME "SUN-3"/"si" SCSI controller (polled mode only, slow)
  • 4/110 "SCSI Weird"/"sw" on-board controller (slow, polled mode)
  • Xylogics 7053 VME/SMD disk controller ("xd")
  • Xylogics 450/451 VME disk controller ("xy")
  • sun4c floppy disk drive
  • sun4c audio
  • sun keyboard and mouse

    OpenBSD/sparc does *not* run on these machines (yet):

  • 4/400 (lacks support for the I/O cache, and has ethernet problems)
  • sun4m: the 4/600, LC, LX, 4, 5, 10, and 20
  • sun4d: sparc center 1000/2000
  • the new Ultra sparc-64 machines...
  • It does not work on most Solbourne machines, which are quite different.

    Unsupported Devices. First of all, there are MANY unsupported devices. A comprehensive list can probably not be written.

  • VME mti 16-port serial card
  • VME alm2 16-port serial card
  • VME mcp 4-port serial card (or is it 8 port)
  • VME "sc" SCSI controller
  • VME IPI controller
  • VME cgfive
  • VME cgnine
  • VME GP/GP2 Graphics Processor
  • sbus cgeight 24-bit video card (note: sbus cgeight is quite different from VME cgeight)
    www@openbsd.org
    $OpenBSD: sparc.html,v 1.2 1996/05/06 10:32:09 deraadt Exp $