On Wed, 7 Oct 1998, Stephen Welker wrote:

> Recently some interesting ideas up about a port of NetBSD versus MkLinux on
> NuBus PowerMacs.
> 
> * MkLinux runs on NuBus & PCI PowerMacs.
> * There are approx 2.5 million NuBus PowerMacs near or at end-of-life.
> * All 'vintage' PowerMacs have high speed serial (230kbps).
> * All 'vintage' PowerMacs are cheap.
> * All 'vintage' PowerMacs have SCSI.
> 
> I know there is an experimental port of NetBSD to PCI PowerMacs, however
> most PCI PowerMacs are not quite end-of-life for the desktop user.
> 
> I was just interested in knowing if there is any plans to port NetBSD to the
> NuBus PowerMacs.

I'm aware of no plans TO port to the NuBus PowerMacs, but I also know of
no plans NOT to.

There are a few technical issues, like a dual-boot kernel would need two
different entry points (one for an OpenFirmware boot, the other for a
NuBus/non-OF boot). Other than that, since port-mac68k has a lot of nubus
drivers, and a fair bit of Q660AV/840AV support, we should be in a good
position to support them.

Oh, I think another poster mentioned we don't support 601's.

>From the device configuration point of view, we'd do something like:

ofmainbus0 at root
nbmainbus0 at root

pci0 at ofmainbus0 bus ?
pci1 at ofmainbus0 bus ?
nubus0 at nbmainbus0

and so on. We generate two different trees, called ofmainbus0 and
nbmainbus0 here. Only one of the two trees would attach, depending on
which entry point was used. Given that the config machinery is smart
enough to attach a device on different busses using different routines, it
shouldn't be too hard.

Take care,

Bill