OpenBSD/vax

History and Status:

OpenBSD/vax began in early 2000 when architecture specific code was adapted from NetBSD's very mature port to these systems. Smaller imports still occur as useful changes happen in that OS, but not wholly derivative, changes in our port are often incorporated into NetBSD. The result of all this work is an Operating System that is stable and familiar to any OpenBSD user.

Significant changes post 3.0:

• Binary logical page size changed to 4096 bytes

Significant changes between 2.9 and 3.0:

• Support for "Omega" machines added
• Event counters attached to most devices
• More addressing modes added to the emulation system

Significant changes between 2.8 and 2.9:

• Support for 16 filesystems per drive
• Emulation of the EMODD instruction
• Support for "Cheetah" machines added
• Interrupt signals no longer cause ksh subshells to core

OpenBSD runs on a wide variety of VAX hardware, but our inventory of systems is limited. OpenBSD/vax may actually run on your hardware even if it's not listed here, so we rely on your testing and feedback to keep this list up to date. After you finish installing and road testing your new system, consider running "dmesg |mail dmesg@openbsd.org" to help us determine what types of hardware people are using.

In addition to formal releases, snapshots that reflect our current work are available for download from the ftp mirrors, and a mailing has been set up at vax@openbsd.org. To join the OpenBSD/vax mailing list, send a message body of "subscribe vax" to majordomo@OpenBSD.org. Please be sure to check our mailing list policy before subscribing.

The OpenBSD/vax port maintainers are Brandon Creighton and Hugh Graham.