Subject: New bootloader for testing.... - SA compatible ?
To: None <port-arm32@netbsd.org>
From: Reinoud Zandijk <imago@kabel065011.kabel.utwente.nl>
List: port-arm32
Date: 12/02/2000 01:11:07
Hi all,

Steven helped me a lot with some information about his tests and i now
feel a bit more certain that a few major sources of bugs and
dissapointments are gone now...

I've also worked on StrongARM compatibility and i'm very very anxious to
see if it works OK ... I dont have a SA myself so i cant test my code :(
... I looked at the usage of cp15 registers on the SA in the Linux loader
source and i hope it'll work fine now.

Furthermore i patched some memory operations and detection code so i dont
think that will be a great trouble anymore.... 

There are 3 things that really need work :
  - the screen code.... for some reason i am doing something wrong but i
    havent found the time to really dig into the vidcconsole code to get
    the scrolling right and the colour sensible :)

  - debug kernels : i'm sorry but they dont work as yet :(( ... some
    issue's with symbol table loading

  - on an A7000 trouble was reported by Steven that looked like running a
    debug kernel : VERY slow drawing of some lines of text and then lots
    of undefined instructions in the kernel ... have to look at that
    later. The source is as yet unknown

The new release is the bootloader, a RiscPC kernel, an A7000 kernel and
the new rpc_machdep.c in the /pub/NetBSD-test-20001202 directory of
ftp://130.89.65.13/

For sanity's sake please test a set and not mixtures .... since they are
dependend on eachother ...

I've tested the RiscPC kernel on a ARM710 machine with 16D+8D+2V megs RAM
and on the same machine without the VRAM ... 

Oh one BIG question : would ppl like if there is (also?) a wscons
interface ? I dont know how hard it is to interface but oh well .. i'm
just curious :)

Happy testing !
Cheers,
Reinoud