Hi Jason,

On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 05:50:19PM +1100, Jason Hecker wrote:

> I am new to NetBSD and have come across a new and cheap access point which
> has a complete MIPS R3000 based SoC part on it.  Internally it has a PCI
> bus, two RTL8139 10/100 ethernet MACs, an 801.11b MAC and externall 2MB of
> FLASH and 8MB of SDRAM.  All that needs to be written for it as far as
> NetBSD goes is the 802.11b MAC driver.  It runs Linux out of the box and
> the OEM has released the Linux source code for everything bar crucial
> driver stuff (like the 802.11b MAC).  It seems to me to be a great little
> platform for hacking NetBSD - at AUD$99 it's a steal.

The MIPS core is a Lexra core - we currently don't support any of those.
I'm not sure offhand how it's MMU differs from a standard R3000 MMU,
but especially with another OS's source code available you'd think it
shouldn't be too hard to get working.

> I have been trying to build NetBSD current using evbmips-eb on my Redhat
> Fedora Linux machine.  The tools build fine but the cross compiled
> development build fails.  I have yet to try building a kernel.
> 
> A few questions:
> 
> Is it better to try to get current working on it or 1.6.0/1?

-current; if we add a port for this device to our tree it'll go
in -current.  How are your builds failing?

> Is writing a driver for the 802.11b MAC tricky?

Good question!  I don't know how an 802.11 MAC differs from a "normal"
one.  Maybe tech-net@netbsd.org would be a good place to ask.

In all, looks like an interesting project.  I might grab one myself.
Questions about general MIPS info (like support for the Lexra core)
should go to this list.  Questions about the box itself are better
suited to say port-evbmips@netbsd.org but that list has almost no
subscribers and I can't recall the last time there was a message on
it, so probably send those questions to this list too.

Simon.
--
Simon Burge                                   <simonb@wasabisystems.com>
NetBSD Development, Support and Service:   http://www.wasabisystems.com/