Hoi,

I've recently got a HP workstation for someone to install (He said,  NetBSD
or Linux, whichever you succeed in getting onto the hardware first).
It's a 712, 100mhz cpu, 64mb of RAM.

First of all, the hp700 related docs are good, thank you very much. A bit
scattered throughout (I'd like to have the FAQ, the release notes and the
diskless stuff on one page, but ok) but very valuable.

Preparatory steps were 'simply' building the latest NetBSD (-current) on
my i386 host with build.sh (that's now the third architecture I've cross-built
on i386, blesseth be build.sh!) and setting up netbooting as was described.

I've setup the 712 for booting (after I realized it was NOT using rboot :),
and eventually it was loading the netinstall.lif I built. From there on it
was a piece of cake, enter sysinst, do the usual stuff.

Well, until I wanted to fetch the distribution sets. I could not get tcp to
work ok. This was (and still is) baffling me, as the (UDP ?) based tftp-delivered
kernel would boot over the network (the dhcp root mount would fail though).

I don't have any error codes or stuff, I just do not have any idea why the
iee0 was not working. I've configured it with sysinst, by hand, upped and
downed, whatever. (I was testing with ping and ftp). Even ping localhost
wouldn't work. (In the meantime I found out it's when OACTIVE is set)

After hours of testing and testing again, I gave up and installed hppa-linux
on the box. With all the setup for net-installing the hp for netbsd, installing
linux was a piece of cake (the netbsd doccos had given me all info needed
already!). As Linux could easily handle the network adapter, I did not accept
NetBSD's failure, and, after my friend had left, tried again with it.

Now for surprise, the network adapter worked on first attempt. Obviously linux
has fiddled around with the iee0 a bit to enable it or WHATEVER, I don't care.

Sysinst attempt #2, partitioning for hd booting this time (i.e. leaving space
at the front of the disk -- this should go into the release notes!); Installation
works great. I then  also got the right order of the LIF-dd and the disklabel 
commands to enable disk-booting and basically am happy now.

During some pkgsrc builds I've also found out how to distinguish 'non-working'
iee0 from 'working' iee0 - if it's broken, instead of flag "RUNNING" it has
"OACTIVE" set.

I'm also kind of surprised that there's no X delivered for King Gecko.
Whatever exact version of X delivered by Debian, they *do* support the 
1024x768x8 framebuffer with xfree. So obviously it is supported but we 
lack some imports? Or is that related to linux console framebuffer / fbdev?
(In the meantime I guess that's it. Linux driver support. yeehaa :( )

Taken aside the super-sluggish HD of the 712; the problems with the iee0; the
lack of X I'm content with the NetBSD installation so far. Another platform
looking always the same, THANK YOU NETBSD(1)! The HD is going to be replaced,
the X support hopefully something that's not linux-specific (if it is, well,
then it's linux again :( ), and the troubles with the iee0 hopefully solved
soon ?

Here's some details about the machine and about the iee0 when stuff is fine
and when stuff isn't:

System:

Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
    The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.  All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
    The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.

NetBSD 3.99.8 (GENERIC) #0: Sun Sep 11 17:39:04 CEST 2005
	root@circe.entropie.net:/usr/home/phaeton/netbsd/hp700/obj/sys/arch/hp700/compile/GENERIC
HP9000/712/100 (King Gecko)
real mem = 65536 KB (73728 reserved for PROM, 52044 KB used by NetBSD)
avail mem = 51180 KB
mainbus0 (root) [flex fff80000]
pdc0 at mainbus0
cpu0 at mainbus0 hpa 0xfffbe000 path 8 irq 31 ipl 0: PA7100LC (Hummingbird) rev 6
cpu0: PCX-L, PA-RISC 1.1c, lev 1, cat A, 100 MHz clk
cpu0: shadows, 128K/128K D/I caches, 64 shared TLB, 8 shared BTLB
cpu0: PCX-L (CMOS-26B) floating point, rev 1
mem0 at mainbus0 hpa 0xfffbf000 path 9: viper rev 0, ctrl 0 size 64MB
sti0 at mainbus0 hpa 0xf8000000 path 1: HPA208LC1024 rev 8.04;7, ID 0x2b4ded6d40a00499
sti0: 2048x1024 frame buffer, 1024x768x8 display, offset 0x0
sti0: 8x16 font type 1, 16 bpc, charset 0-255
lasi0 at mainbus0 hpa 0xf0000000 path 2 irq 28: rev 3.0
gsc0 at lasi0
osiop0 at gsc0 hpa 0xf0106000 path 2/0/1 irq 9 ipl 1: NCR53C710 rev 2, 40MHz, SCSI ID 7
scsibus0 at osiop0: 8 targets, 8 luns per target
iee0 at gsc0 hpa 0xf0107000 path 2/0/2 irq 8 ipl 2: Intel 82596CA address KI:NG::GE:CK:O
com0 at gsc0 hpa 0xf0105000 path 2/0/4 irq 5 ipl 3: ns16550a, working fifo
lpt0 at gsc0 hpa 0xf0102000 path 2/0/6 irq 7 ipl 4
harmony0 at gsc0 hpa 0xf0104000 path 2/0/8 irq 13 ipl 5: rev 0
audio0 at harmony0: full duplex
"floppy controller" at gsc0 (type 0xa, sv 0x83) hpa 0xf010a000 path 2/0/10 not configured
gsckbc0 at gsc0 hpa 0xf0108000 path 2/0/11 irq 26 ipl 6: keyboard
pckbd0 at gsckbc0 (kbd slot)
wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard
gsckbc1 at gsc0 hpa 0xf0108100 path 2/0/12: mouse
pms0 at gsckbc1 (aux slot)
wsmouse0 at pms0 mux 0
biomask 00000182 netmask 00000186 ttymask 000003de
wsdisplay0 at sti0 kbdmux 1: console (default, vt100 emulation), using wskbd0
wsmux1: connecting to wsdisplay0
Kernelized RAIDframe activated
scsibus0: waiting 2 seconds for devices to settle...
sd0 at scsibus0 target 6 lun 0: <SEAGATE, ST32151N, HP02> disk fixed
sd0: 2048 MB, 4177 cyl, 8 head, 125 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 4194685 sectors
sd0: sync (100.00ns offset 8), 8-bit (10.000MB/s) transfers
sd0: fabricating a geometry
boot device: sd0
root on sd0a dumps on sd0b
sd0: fabricating a geometry
sd0: fabricating a geometry
no file system for sd0 (dev 0x400)
cannot mount root, error = 79
root device (default sd0a): sd0d
dump device (default sd0b): 
file system (default generic): 
root on sd0d dumps on sd0b
sd0: fabricating a geometry
root file system type: ffs
WARNING: clock lost 6806 days -- CHECK AND RESET THE DATE!
init path (default /sbin/init): 
init: trying /sbin/init

Fine iee0:

iee0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
	address: KI:NG::GE:CK:O
	media: Ethernet autoselect
	inet 192.168.1.99 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
	inet6 fe80::a00:9ff:fec9:5d76%iee0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1

Broken iee0:

iee0: flags=8c03<UP,BROADCAST,OACTIVE,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
	address: KI:NG::GE:CK:O
	media: Ethernet autoselect
	inet 192.168.1.99 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
	inet6 fe80::a00:9ff:fec9:5d76%iee0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1

Addon: In the meantime I've tried to get the harmony up and running,
I'm failing (I was trying with mpg123 but always get an error about
no fitting sample rate being available. audioctl says there's no
/dev/audioctl; mixerctl complains too ?)

So... I'm getting it right that netbsd is not up to par to make
a hp712 into a 'workstation' (video, audio, networking ...) yet
only into some (headless or console) 'server' which has to check
its own connectivity regularly, is it ? I'd say I'd help porting
if someone could lend me another 24hours the day :(

Regards,

-Martin

PS: Please keep me CC'd for replies, I'm off-list.

(1) Even if it may sound ironical given the state of support of this
    machine, I'm serious about it. The same smell everywhere, gotta
    love you never leaving your beat..