I have been reading this list for about 3 months and to be honest I'm  
starting to get a little confused. Most of the other non PC BSD/Linux
ports seem to be hardware driven, that is people are trying to do  
something usefull with free/cheap hardware, the OS is a means to that  
end. 

Rant on !!!!!


Reading this list you would think that the port was an end in itself.
Now I know what the name of the list is, but to be honest I doubt most  
of us charged out and got an HP just to write an OS for it. If this
group has any simularity with any of the other porting efforts then
the majority of us were given machines (or bought them cheap) and  
are now looking to use them for something usefull. Yet there is no
hardware FAQ, or core data of any kind and the little information  
around is often confused, (witness the Boot ROM fiasco of the past  
week).

With so much HP stuff becoming landfill I would have thought that  
getting hardware information out there would be a priority. Each guy  
who realises that it's worth his while to pluck an HP out of a skip is  
potentially the Jason Thorpe of the future :-)

The unfortunate truth of the matter is that at the moment is isn't worth  
anyones time to rescue one of these machines. For a start there is no  
way to boot one unless you already have NetBSD working on another  
platform. I have a number of computers running a variety of OS's if I  
realy look into rbootd and the NET2 code I'm sure I could do  
something. The question is should I have to go to all that trouble?

I think the problem is that there is a massive difference between the  
guys running the porting effort and the first time user. From reading  
the group I would say that people like Jason have 2 or 3 different  
machines all net capable and at least a working HPUX or 
NetBSD machine to boot off. In addition they have several years of  
HP experience and are frankly of Guru or SuperGuru status in Unix
hacking :-) The way the OS installation is handled is designed for these  
people. IF you don't have the capacity to netboot then you are out of  
luck.

The installation notes say that this will be fixed but unfortunately this  
has NO priority since the leaders of this effort already have working  
systems. I would offer to help, but I can't get the OS on my machine.

It's ok adding all this great stuff and I'm sure that things like the 4k
page binary compatability are really important to someone but until a  
guy can pick up an HP and boot with a tape or a floppy or a CD  
without a second host I don't see this port as being viable.


Anyway I have an offer. If people will send me what little hardware  
data they have I'll start to compile a hardware FAQ. I'll need help  
because I've only seen 2 or 3 of these machines but I'll do all the admin  
and compilation and posting. This is all I can donate to the project  
because I can't get the damned OS on my machine. Now once we have  
some hardware data AND an OS you dont HAVE to netboot I think  
we can start making progress.

Rant off !!!

Fletch