Subject: Re: NetBSD and AdvancedTCA
To: Herb Peyerl <hpeyerl@beer.org>
From: Michael Thompson <m_thompson@ids.net>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 06/13/2005 12:58:48
At 08:10 AM 6/6/2005, Herb Peyerl wrote:

>On Jun 6, 2005, at 4:02 AM, shadow123@gmx.net wrote:
>>Does NetBSD 2.0 work on ATCA Platforms?
>>Is hot-swap working with NetBSD?
>
>I've booted NetBSD on a Continuous Computing XE20 and it worked
>fine... I was busy and didn't have any time so I don't know whether
>any of the I2C stuff was recognized... Hot swap is just a function of
>APM I think.... I'm  just learning about ATCA but as far as I can
>tell, there's really nothing special about an ATCA blade.  It's just
>a PC in a slot...
>

Most ATCA processor boards use standard PC chipsets and I/O chips and will 
run Linux or Windows. They should run NetBSD, but they may not have full 
functionality.

Each ATCA board includes an IPMC management processor that talks to the 
shelf manager. The shelf manager allocates power resources to each board 
and enables the network connections to the backplane. The processors on the 
ATCA board have a serial or keyboard connection to the IPMC. The 
interaction between the processors and the IPMC is probably not supported 
in NetBSD.

Some ATCA boards support network connections other than Ethernet. The 
Infiniband, Starfabric, PCI Express, and Serial RapidIO networks are 
probably not supported in NetBSD.

Michael Thompson
E-Mail: M_Thompson@IDS.net