A week or so ago, Ken Hornstein reported that he couldn't get a -500 
off the ground.  The display turned to garbage.  I can reproduce 
that with 1.4.2_ALPHA on a -600au.  The trash starts just after the 
CIA0 messages.

I also tried 1.4.2_ALPHA on a -600 without a display.  It goes through 
the startup sequence, then hangs after asking me what type of display 
I have.  I asked about this back in early Jan.  I don't remember 
any response to that one.  (That same message also described problems 
with the latest snapshot.  There were replies to that - bad hair 
day for the isp driver.)


I just tried the Jan-05 snapshot.  It calls itself 1.4P.

On a -600 without a display, I tried to setup the network before 
I touched the disk.  sysinst terminated after saying it couldn't 
create /etc/resolv.conf.  Is that likely to work if I do a full install 
and wait for sysinst to setup networking?  [I'd prefer not to trash 
the working disk.  I should probably find a spare one.] 

On a -600 with a display, I get the same trashed screen as with 1.4.2_ALPHA. 


I also tried both sets of floppies on an XP1000. 

With 1.4.2_ALPHA, it formatted a disk but then I couldn't get the 
builtin Tulip to do anything.  What options can I feed to the "media" 
line at the network setup screen?  "auto" didn't work.  [I remember 
having troubles here before.] 

I think I really want to specify a mediaopt.  I used another NetBSD 
system to check the man page for ifconfig.  It tells me to look in 
the man page for de.  I don't have one.  I do have one for fxp and 
fpa so I assume it's missing from NetBSD rather than I botched the 
install.  I think the real info is in ifmedia(4).  The mediaopt section 
of the ifconfig man page should probably mention it.  

Is this a new version of the Tulip chip that the driver doesn't know 
about?

Here is what Tru64 says on that machine:

  tu0: DECchip 21143: Revision: 4.1 
  tu0: auto negotiation capable device tu0 at pci0 slot 3 
  tu0: DEC TULIP (10/100) Ethernet Interface,
      hardware address: 08-00-2B-86-60-05 
  tu0: auto negotiation on: will advertise 100BaseTX (UTP) port: full duplex 

Here is what netBSD says on a Miata (which works):

  de0 at pci0 dev 3 function 0
  de0: interrupting at dec 550 irq 8
  de0: DEC 21143 [10-100Mb/s] pass 3.0
  de0: address 00:00:f8:76:2c:54

I'll setup a cable and capture the output if the info above isn't 
enough. 


Mumble.  This whole area is pretty confusing when it doesn't work 
right, especially if you are having problems the first time you are 
installing NetBSD.  I think a 1 or 2 line help message listing the 
media options for ethernet would help a lot.  (Maybe only if you 
are going around again?  Or maybe "? for help".) 

I used another NetBSD system to check the man page for ifconfig.  
It looks like I want to specify a mediaopt.  It tells me to look 
in the man page for de.  That machine does't have one (NetBSD 1.4).  
It does have one for fxp and fpa so I assume it's missing from NetBSD 
rather than I botched the install.

Perhaps the real info is in ifmedia(4).  The mediaopt section of 
the ifconfig man page should probably mention it. 

I got curious and looked in the code for ifconfig.  It looks like 
there are media terms like "100BaseTX" and "100TX" that should do 
the right thing.  This supports the don't-know-about-this rev idea.  


With 1.4P (Jan-05 snapshot), it hangs after printing
    ncr0: timeout ccb=0xfffffe00000a1000 (skip)
[Or I didn't wait long enough.] 


I'll be glad to test things.  I have working 1.4 systems to stand 
on.

------

PS: I got slightly confused looking in:
  ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/alpha/

It has 3 snapshot directories:
  snapshot
  snapshot-19991107
  snapshot-19991204

snapshot contains one directory: 19991223

The link in www.netbsd.org/Ports/alpha/ (upper right, News, current 
snapshot) goes to the 19991223 (sub) directory.  You can't see the 
others from there and/or if you are up a level it's easy to miss 
the latest one since the other 2 sort nicely by date and somewhat 
hide it.