On Mon, 16 Sep 1996 13:58:09 -0700 (MST) 
 Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> wrote:

 > > Now I know what the name of the list is, but to be honest I doubt most  
 > > of us charged out and got an HP just to write an OS for it.

Oh, I forgot to mention this earlier... "port-hp300" means that this is 
the mailing list for the hp300 port... There's not much porting effort to 
do, anymore, since NetBSD has run on the hp300 since 0.9[AB]... There's 
still lots of work to do, but it's a complete, functional port.

 > I did, actually.

Heh ... when I bought my first personal hp300 (originally, I used them at 
the University), I got it specifically so I could run NetBSD when I left :-)

 > I am booting off of SCSI tape.  It's true that there is no way to
 > install the FS from tape (yet), but I *can* boot without NetBSD on
 > another platform.  The "conv=osync obs=20b" options necessary to
 > write a "good" tape are annoyingly undocumented, but it works.

Hmm ... I thought _for sure_ that was in there somewhere...

Ah, it is... Look at the notes under:

To prepare for installing via a tape:

        If you wish to load SYS_INST from tape, it must
        appear on the tape before any other files.  To copy
        this onto tape, use a command like the following:

                dd if=SYS_INST of=<tape_device> bs=20b

        Note that not all HP BOOTROMs support booting from
        SCSI tapes.

Hmm, conv=osync isn't there ... I'll add that... thanks for pointint it 
out..  (I've never tried this ... I was told by another party about the 
bs=20b)

 > Yes, I agree that the NetBSD effort has not put much effort into this
 > area -- the area you refer to is called "productization".  It's probably
 > the main reason for the FreeBSD x86 beating the NetBSD x86 port in the
 > general "popularity contest".

Like I said, we're trying to improve this ... I may be working on a 
single-floppy/CD-ROM install for the _next_ release for the i386 with a 
friend of mine ...

 > Personally, I have little direct HP experience (well, non-PA/RISC
 > experience, anyway).  I'm keeping notes on what is causing me to
 > stumble, but until I'm done stumbling, I can't give you a comprehensive
 > "hit list" of things to fix.

I'd appreciate any feedback people have ... I'm always interested in 
improving the system :-)

 > Write down each of the issues that bites you as it bites you, and the
 > soloutions, as you implement them (that's what I'm doing).  When you
 > are done, go through and fix the issues that bit you, and start over
 > to make sure the fixes took.  For instance, my list includes three items
 > on disklabel, and the ability to install the "inst-11.fs" from SCSI tape.
 > So far.

Terry: you may want to install the 1.2 stuff instead... Look at:

	ftp://ftp.NetBSD.ORG/pub/NetBSD/arch/hp300/pre-release/

The install program is improved somewhat... (Sorry 1.2 is late; I expect 
to release the final 1.2 hp300 binary sets this coming weekend...)

Anyhow, it's not only important to make that list, but to provide 
feedback to the port maintainer (in this case, me).  The best way to do 
this is via send-pr ... if it gets logged in the bugs database, it's much 
less likely to slip through the cracks...

 > I think CD won't work unless we recode the roms.  The floppy might work,
 > but I have yet to see a system with a floppy.  That basically leaves
 > tape, and you must have another system to build the tape in the first
 > place (or to pull a floppy image from the net or to burn a CDROM, for
 > that matter).

To my knowledge, the only hp300-like systems that could boot from CD-ROM 
were the 400/425/433 systems ...

 > I have *ZERO* hardware data, other than what comes up on the console
 > during boot, and a history with 68k based Amiga and Atari hardware;
 > sorry, but I think your plan isn't terribly workable (for me, anyway).
 > That's not to say that a hardware FAQ would not be auseful resource --
 > especially one which dealt with all the ROM issues for people unlucky
 > enough to be running Domain/OS ROMs.

Oh ... you can switch the 400/425/433 ROM back to "HPUX" mode from Domain 
mode... I forget the magic sequence, but it's possible... anyone know it?

 > On the other hand, I think binary compatability is a critical issue,
 > if NetBSD is to be the #1 upgrade path for people with hardware which
 > HP is no longer supporting very well (the primary role I see for NetBSD,
 > actually, even on Sun hardware: it upgrades SunOS, which Sun has
 > replaced with Solaris -- ie: Sun is not supporting its hardware very
 > well).  If you can't run their software, well, you're not an upgrade.

...which reminds me, I've found some more bugs in COMPAT_HPUX that I need 
to fix... :-)

Ciao.

 -- save the ancient forests - http://www.bayarea.net/~thorpej/forest/ -- 
Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                               Home: 408.866.1912
NAS: M/S 258-6                                          Work: 415.604.0935
Moffett Field, CA 94035                                Pager: 415.428.6939