Re: AmigaOne X5000

[Michael <macallan%netbsd.org@localhost>]

Hello,

On Tue, 14 Mar 2017 11:58:30 +0100
Frank Wille <frank%phoenix.owl.de@localhost> wrote:

> Al Zick wrote:
> 
> > I think I may have found someone who would be willing to donate a  
> > motherboard to a developer who can port NetBSD to it.  
> 
> I have been offered boards in the past to port NetBSD onto it (also a Sam440
> or 460, IIRC), but I never accept that, because it would always cause
> pressure on me to work on it. I want to work on a port for fun, and stop
> whenever I feel like it.

Nobody expects full time work or a 100% success rate. If you can't work
on it anymore, hand it over to someone who can. The alternative is not
getting things supported.
Also, if you get a new toy, you'll want to mess with it anyway ;)
At least that's my experience from accepting a few hardware donations.
I got them all working, eventually. In some cases it took a while,
since spare time isn't guaranteed and real life happens.

> >> So I am most interested in the new PPC notebook from ACube
> >> Systems, [...]  
> >
> > I would really like to get one of these too. My G3 powerbook with
> > the G4 (550 MHz) upgrade is really showing its age.  
> 
> Same with my PowerBook G3 Pismo (which I always used for travelling).

I've never been able to find a reasonably priced G4 upgrade for mine...

> > Which kernel would  
> > you suggest? Is there any hope of it booting, but only using one core?  
> 
> You can always try. First you have to determine which kind of firmware the
> system is running to boot kernels. Maybe some version of UBoot?

That would make things relatively easy - build uboot image, try to make
it talk to a serial port, proceed from there.

> For a start, I would try an evbppc kernel supporting e500, like P2020 or
> RB800. But I cannot give you a good advice here, because I never used
> evbppc myself. I'm more used to sandpoint, ofppc and macppc...

If it's anything like evbmips it's a kitchen sink of all sorts of
oddball configs that are too obscure to have their own directory in
arch/

have fun
Michael