Subject: Funky hardware supported...?
To: None <port-i386@NetBSD.ORG, current-users@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Mason Loring Bliss <mason@acheron.middleboro.ma.us>
List: current-users
Date: 06/26/1998 07:52:35
[Crossposted to port-i386 and current-users.]

Hi, all. Last weekend I picked up a new Intel-type machine with an
all-in-one motherboard. It's a SiS... um...5597. I assume that refers to
the board itself and not just the video circuitry. Anyway, I'm running
NetBSD 1.3.2 at the moment, and I get the following:

Silicon Integrated System product 0x5597 (host bridge, revision 0x02) at pci0 de
v 0 function 0 not configured
Silicon Integrated System 85C503 (ISA bridge, revision 0x01) at pci0 dev 1 funct
ion 0 not configured
Silicon Integrated System product 0x5513 (IDE mass storage, interface 0x8a, revi
sion 0xd0) at pci0 dev 1 function 1 not configured
Silicon Integrated System product 0x7001 (USB serial bus, interface 0x10, revisi
on 0x10) at pci0 dev 1 function 2 not configured
Silicon Integrated System product 0x0200 (VGA display, revision 0x65) at pci0 de
v 20 function 0 not configured

Now, the IDE interface works, and shows up, however:

wdc0 at isa0 port 0x1f0-0x1f7 irq 14
atapibus0 at wdc0

...and my hard drive and ATAPI CD work fine. As expected, though, the video
and sound don't exist, and the serial ports don't talk. I saw nothing in the
kernel config options that related to any of these bits of hardware.

The XFree86 FAQ says that support for SiS 5597/5598 boards won't be around
until 1.4 or something, but what about the rest? Does NetBSD support USB
stuff yet? (I'm going to hazard a guess that we don't, since I noted that
this support is still being worked on in FreeBSD, and I assume that if they
had it, we'd have it, in any order.)

Tomorrow (Saturday, 1998.06.27) I'm going to the shop where I bought the
machine, and we're going to slap in traditional video, sound, and serial
controllers as an interim solution, until the ballsy hardware on my
motherboard is supported. HOWEVER... Here's the rub. When I turn off the
USB in my BIOS Setup, the kernel still detects com0 and com1. They still
don't work, of course, but this makes me wonder if putting in another
board with serial ports will work...

If worse comes to worse, I'll swap in another motherboard, but the place
doesn't have a different kind that still supports a 75mHz bus - I'll have
to drop down to 66mHz, probably, if I swap. (I'm probably choking myself
by using an IDE hard drive anyway, so maybe that doesn't matter...?)

Does anyone have any clues for me? Is support for this stuff so far off
that I might as well just swap it all out and go for more traditional
stuff now? I wouldn't mind waiting for support, but not being able to
run X is driving me batty, and to run X I need a mouse, which means USB
support, and if I've thrown in a graphics card and a serial controller,
a sound card is a small step afterwards. I'd rather just use what's here
now...

Answers that come in before tomorrow morning, 9:00 EST, will win a reply
containing several very sincere smiley-faces.

-- 
Mason Loring Bliss...mason@acheron.middleboro.ma.us...www.webtrek.com/mason
"In the drowsy dark cave of the mind dreams build their nest with fragments
 dropped from day's caravan."--Rabindranath Tagore...awake ? sleep : dream;