On Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 12:22:56PM -0500, Daniel Lamblin wrote:
> If I were to suddenly find the time, and have the inclination to, port NetBSD
> to another platform, I'd start with the netwinder which I could borrow from
> someone.

> But I have recently come into an IBM RS/6000 7009 C-10.  Its a small server
> that has an 80Mhz 601 PowerPC processor, and seems to use the Micro Channel
> Bus.

> I've found both linux and NetBSD has some MCA support for old PS/2 MCA
> Machines, but neither mention its use with the PPC.
> It may be a wasted effort, but with the recent availibility of such machines
> (see ebay) and licensing issues of AIX, a port might be desirable.

> How much work would be involved in moving NetBSD PPC to work with such a
> machine as the C10? 

As others have stated here, you've got three issues: the lack of support
for a 601 chip, the boot loader, and the MCA bus interface.

The C10 is practically identical to the 7009-C20 except for the 604 chip
CPU board. I'd suggest that you beg/borrow/steal a C20 CPU board for
the first part of the move, and make 601 support be the last thing on
your plate.

As stated, the MCA code should help for the bus interface. Unfortunately,
the C10 is probably much closer to the older MCA machines than the newer
PREP machines, so I doubt that the PREP code will help you when it comes
to booting.

I did a bit more digging. Look at http://www.sjdjweis.com/linux/rs6k/
for more info. Be sure to read the bulletin boards.

After that, how about pestering the people at
http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/linux/projects/ppc/
and see if they can make any more docs fall out?

David

-- 
David W. Rankin, Jr.     Husband, Father, and UNIX Sysadmin. 
   "We're the technical experts. We were hired so that management could
    ignore our recommendations and tell us how to do our jobs."
       -- Mike Andrews in <eUJE5.880$ln6.119642@news.flash.net>