On Tue, Jul 10, 2001 at 09:49:36AM -0400, samuel rose wrote:
> To help me understand this better, then, netBSD does not need the "virtual
> firmware" that is required under macOS to run this card, and the powerlogix,
> and xlr8 cards. Newer tech used to install the firmware ROMS onto the
> upgrade card, but since at least two of you are running these cards
> successfully, it must not be needed.

Um.

Well, I installed and used my XLR8 card under MacOS for about a
week before putting that machine up under NetBSD 24/7 and stealing
the former MacOS drive to play with LFS a bit.

So I can't reliably comment on that. I'd say, try it. If it doesn't
work, attach an extra CD-ROM or hard drive or something with MacOS
on it and install the firmware with that.

But I don't think it'll even be a problem. The ROMs that this thing
wants to install on the upgrade card are almost definitely stuff to
get AAPL,ROM to recognize it, which is totally unnecessary for
NetBSD.

Put the card in your machine, and boot to OpenFirmware. Then do dev
/ ls. If the processor shows up as the right thing (as opposed to as
some brand of unknown or as whatever your old processor was), you're
probably good to go.

No matter what, if it works under MacOS, it is *definitely* possible
to get the card to work under NetBSD with only nominal tinkering,
so I'd go ahead and order it if you were still holding off.

-- 
       ~ g r @ eclipsed.net