On Jun 21,  2:18am, Ian Beswick wrote:
> Subject: RiscBSD and Hydra Multiprocessor?
> Hello,
>
> I am currently writing a series of articles for Archive magazine, about the
> Hydra multi-processor interface.

Ok, for definitive answers you need to talk to Mark Brinicombe, but as he is a
busy man I will attempt to answer the questions.

> I understood that RiscBSD would take advantage of extra ARMs fitted to the
> Hydra, but I have been subscribing to the RiscBSD mailing list for several
> weeks now and have heard no mention of this.

It will, but the hydra support isn't released yet (even if it was it would only
support the v1 prototype - ie about the first 10 cards made). All the
discussion of it is technical ond within the RiscBSD core team so it doesn't
appear on this mailing list.

> I would be grateful if anyone could advise me whether the current (beta?)
> version of RiscBSD supports the Hydra yet, and if not when it is likely to be
> available. Any additional information about the nature of the multi-processor
> support would be helpful.

Right, currently the support available to the core team is limited to a syscall
which can be used to load modules onto slave processors. This is likely to get
upgraded to work with the latest cards within the next month I would guess.
Eventually we will have a single-threaded kernel which can schedule jobs across
the processors. This is fairly low on the priority list because we are in the
middle of the NetBSD 1.2 release cycle and there are other important projects
in the pipeline (much as we'd all like to play with it).

> What spec of machine will I need to be able to run it? In particular, what is
> the minimum disc footprint required by RiscBSD? I currently have a RiscPC700,
> 26Mb RAM, Simtec Hydra ARMed with 4x610s, Cumana SCSI-II card with CD-ROM
> drive - is this OK?

That should be fine... how much disk space depends on what you want to run. I
use about 2 Gig but other people get away with only 300 Meg. I guess it depends
on whether you want to compile stuff. The big binary packages are X and
xemacs/emacs at about 50 Meg a throw. The basic installation is a couple of
hundred Meg and you need swap space on top of that.

> Can somebody please tell me how to obtain a complete copy of RiscBSD (when
> Hydra support is available), prefferably on CD, or alternatively via the
> Internet. I saw the stand at the Wakefield show, but all the CDs had been
sold
> before I got there!

You can get a copy of RiscBSD on CD from PlingBoot (contact
amb@physig4.ph.kcl.ac.uk for details). Hydra support will be added to the CD
after it has been tested by people on the mailing list. Obviously you will have
to wait a bit. Try asking at Acorn World.

> Although I have not currently used RiscBSD, I am a programmer with experience
> of various UNIX platforms (inc. IBM AIX, SVR3/4, Novell Netware, NonStop-UX)
> using both 'C' and SQL databases. Is there any information available about
any
> of the comercial SQL database servers being ported to RiscBSD (eg. Oracle,
> Ingres, Sybase, Informix etc.)? Alternatively, has anybody attempted to port
> any of the PD SQL engines?

As far as I know there are no commercial ports of anything happening.

Cheers

Rob Black

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