Re: status of port

["Valeriy E. Ushakov" <uwe%ptc.spbu.ru@localhost>]

On Sat, Dec 07, 2002 at 14:21:36 -0500, Robert Solomon wrote:

> 1) Generally, is the net-BSD port a working system or is it still in
> the early stages?

Well, enough to run dial-up ppp (pcmcia modem) or wireless and use ssh
over that.  That's what I use it for.

The biggest problem is that in-tree gcc cannot produce PIC for sh3, so
the world is static and hence very fat.  This is bad both for disk and
RAM footprtint.  AFAIK, gcc-3.3 can do PIC for sh3 and I know other
developers are working on importing gcc 3.x in to the tree, fixing
bugs in both gcc and our tree (gcc 3.x is more strict in may areas).

X might be simple, because Xserver for hpc's just uses wscons, but
again running static X will probably consume lots of RAM.

The second biggest problem IMHO is lack of power-management support.
Being unable to suspend the netbsd really limits the usefulness of the
machine.  It was ok during the conference, where I was able to keep it
always on and recharche regularly, but "on the road" that's gonna be a
pain.


> 2) Is anyone using it?  I'm not talking about hundreds of apeople,
> but are there two or three of you I can turn to for help when I
> really get stuck?

http://www.eurobsdcon2002.org/pictures/sunday/img_0484-1-0.shtml

This is my 680 working as an exhibit at the NetBSD both at the Euro
BSDCon.  I used it quite a bit during the con with a wireless card,
but at that particular moment the card was in my laptop, so jornada
was serving its duty as an attraction.

A big plus of the hpcsh (vs. 72x hpcarm machines) is its low price.
Now that MicroSoft WinCE only supports ARM and new faster ARM machines
hitting the market, people are getting rid of their 680s.  You can get
680 on ebay at around $250 "buy now".  720 offerings are usually twice
as expensive.  (and I was able to get 16MB expansion for mine from a
local shop for just $20 - it was their last one and they were unable
to sell for quite some time, we both parted quite happy with the deal
;)


> 3) Is US keyboard supported?

I wrote layout table for the "international: keyboard that has few
extra keys.  It should be possible to convert it to pure US with
minimal changes (also, see below).


> 4) Can I do development on the Jornada?  (I run Slack on my
> desktop.)

Do you mean compiling programs for/on it or compiling NetBSD/hpcsh?
NetBSD world is cross-buildable and I think it should be
cross-buildable on the Linux host.

Compiling 3rd party programs might be problematic, mostly because the
static world is very fat.  With 256MB CF you might be able to fit
everything and have space for the programs left, though.  Also
compiling on the jornada will take more RAM (b/c the gcc is static
etc).  If you want to develop "on the road", you will most likely need
a swap partition on your CF.


> 5) Where can UP TO DATE install instructions be found?  Is there
> a binary distro, or do I have to build it from source?

This is what I did.  Now that there's an official 1.6 release you
might just grab the sets from ftp.netbsd.org or build the world
yourself.  I think you will need to compile a custom kernel anyway to
add support to your PCMCIA cards.

    http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-hpcsh/2002/06/18/0000.html


On Sun, Dec 08, 2002 at 19:12:30 +0200, Vesa A Norrman wrote:

> > 3) Is US keyboard supported?
> 
> No. The international keymap seems to work but it lacks some very
> important keys. I would like to create US keymap but I don't know how to
> create keymaps.

The keyboard in hpcsh is a matrix-scan keyboard.  The scan-maps are in

    sys/dev/hpc/hpckbdkeymap.h.

The high-level driver shared by all hpc platforms is in 

    sys/dev/hpc/hpckbd.c

My scan-map for the international keyboard is in this file and is
(inappropriately) named jornada6x0_us_keytrans.  The magic numbers in
the scan-maps are PC-XT keyboard scancodes - you can use e.g.
sys/dev/pckbc/wskbdmap_mfii.c for reference.

The low level keyboard driver is in

    sys/arch/hpcsh/dev/pfckbd.c

In taht file check

    pfckbd_callout_hp() - low level scan
    pfckbd_input()      - feed input, if any, to hpckbd


BTW, the RAM upgrade I've got has a US version of WinCE, so my WinCE
now thinks the box has US keyboard, and that sucks (no separate keys
for curly and square parens etc).  But with a little bit of mental
adaptation I can still use it under WinCE, so in the NetBSD driver you
will need to change only few numbers.  You will also need to write a
wscons layout to access the missing chars via modifier keys (so, NB:
the "US" hpc keyboard is not(!) KB_US as known in netbsd, because of
those missing keys).

You can see the pictures of my "international" keyboard vs. US
keyboard at 

    http://snark.ptc.spbu.ru/~uwe/jornada/


SY, Uwe
-- 
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