I have just be playing around with NetBSD/arm32 1.3_Alpha, and I have
noticed that there seems to have been a speed increase on my Power-tec
SCSI-2 card.

Now I get around 100 KB/s with a peak so far of 124 KB/s.

But, this still is very slow compared to the speed in RISC OS 3.5.
There the speed is more like 2-4 MB/s depending upon how I set it
up with buffers, DMA etc.

I know that some playing around with DMA in NetBSD/arm32 has been done,
but so far we don't have a DMA driver that works for neither the Cuman
nor the Power-tec SCSI-2.

So, my question therefore is: Is this something that is prioritized
very high with the NetBSD/arm32 kernel team at the moment?

If not, then maybe I should start digging out my TRM, some good
books on writing UNIX(like) device drivers and the source code
and see if I can get something working better.

Somehow I doubt it, but something has to be done. We just can't
live with this situation any longer.

I am willing to test any kernel thrown at me, or even better,
some source code. Now that I have the source on the CD-ROM
I should be able to make my own kernels and try them out.

Even with the full source code and most of the sets installed
I now have 1 GB free on the /usr partition on my 2 GB HP drive,
and I have another 0.5+0.5 GB to throw at it.
I also have 64 MB DRAM, so I should have something to compile with.

My Risc PC is also permanently networked on the intranet at
work, and only a firewall (and some routers) is between it
and the Internet.

So, any comments anyone?

I would like to try to make the mailing list a low-volume thing,
so if you only want to say that you agree, mail me, and I will
make a follow-up listing all those who agree in a week or so.

Kjetil B.
mailto:kjetil@thomassen.priv.no
http://login.eunet.no/~kjetilbt/