Re: MNT ZZ9000: Various additional drivers available.

[Alain Runa <alain74%gmx.net@localhost>]

Thanks for your feedback.

> On 28. Mar 2020, at 21:17, is%netbsd.org@localhost wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Mar 28, 2020 at 05:55:10PM +0100, Alain Runa wrote:
>> Hi Amiga/NetBSD nerds,
>> Hi Ignatios,
>> 
>> I developed my ZZ9000 driver further to support the network interface and a RAM block device beside the framebuffer.
> 
>> The RAM block device is limited to Zorro III Amigas, due to the limited memory mapping area of Zorro II. The RAM block device can be used as a 240 MB swap partition via altmem(4).
> 
> Also - Z2 memory willbe slower than a moderately fast disk.
Right. Also, the bandwidth is shared with the framebuffer. So, there are downsides to it. But someone might find this feature useful nevertheless. 

> 
>> The main driver now checks for the firmware version of the ZZ9000, and prints a warning if it differs from the expected v1.5 one.
> 
> A good idea.
> 
>> There are also some dummy drivers included for the USB and the microSD card reader of the ZZ9000. But, they’re just skeletons for future driver development. As for today, the ZZ9000 with firmware 1.5. does not seem to expose the required register-sets for these functionalities.
> 
>> 
>> Each driver can be enabled individually from each other in the WSCONS config file:
>> #mntzz*		at zbus?		# MNT ZZ9000
>> #zzgpu*		at mntzz?		# Framebuffer
>> #options	MNTZZ_CONSOLE		# console on ZZ9000
>> #zz*		at mntzz?		# Network
>> #options	MNTZZ_MACADDR="68:82:F2:00:01:00"	# your MAC address
>> #zzusb*		at mntzz?		# USB
>> #zzmcr*		at mntzz?		# microSD card reader
>> #zzrbd*		at mntzz?		# RAM block device
>> #altmem*	at zzrbd?		# altmem(4) on zzrbd
>> 
>> Please notice the MNTZZ_MACADDR option. One should replace the default MAC address with the personalized one which came printed with MNT ZZ9000 setup manual.
> 
> This shouldn't be necessary (why doesn't the card have its link
> address in the firmware?)
Don’t ask me. Currently, all ZZ9000 come with the same default MAC address "68:82:F2:00:01:00”. During the installation of the AmigaOS driver, it asks for the last three address numbers from the manual. Once the driver is loaded, the correct MAC address is kept even after Amiga resets, but not after a power shutdown. So, if one boots directly into NetBSD, only the default MAC is available. I hope MNT will change this in the future, so that the MAC address gets stored in the firmware itself.

> 
> You can configure that with ifconfig.  and ist stylistically the
> wrong thing to do - you could boot two machines with the same
> kernel…
Hmm… right.

> 
> paraphrased from "man ifconfig"
> 
> ifconfig zz0 link 68:82:f2:00:01:00 active
> 
> or put it into /etc/ifconfig.zz0 to be automatically set at boot time
> as the first configuration option
> 
> link 68:82:f2:00:01:00 active
> up
> inet ....
> inet6 ….
I didn’t know about this one. I will look deeper into that.
I tried “ifconfig zz0 link 68:82:f2:12:34:56 active" just for fun, and was expecting some kind of error, as I didn’t implement this functionality. But instead “ifconfig zz0” shows now:
address: 68:82:f2:12:34:56
inet: 192.168.0.10/24 ...
link: 68:82:f2:00:01:00

Very confusing. Why do address and link differ? And what does address and link represent in this context?

> 
> Sorry I didn't comment anymore on your older driver, I'll start with this
> one. It have been very hectic weeks ...
> 
> Regards,
> 	-is

No Problem.
For the next weeks I will not have much time to dedicate myself to the Amiga and NetBSD either.

Regards,
Alain