On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 04:34:36PM -0700, Bob Lantz wrote:

 > Regardless, application support on netbsd/pmax is lacking in several
 > areas:  no web browser (e.g. current netscape, mozilla or konqueror,) no
 > java (e.g. kaffe,) no current KDE (e.g. kfm, konqueror, koffice, etc.) and
 > no xemacs binary. In general, "client" or "desktop" software is not
 > supported - e.g. kde/gnome, koffice/openoffice, etc.. Indeed, it's a
 > challenge just to find a program to write a letter or simple report using
 > netbsd/pmax (my choice is Ted - otherwise try troff, TeX, or enscript, or
 > perhaps LyX and AbiWord - LyX works better, in my experience.)

Go ahead and build KDE/GNOME!  It *should* build just fine (but, those
are pretty bloatest desktop environments -- might make your R3000
feel even *slower* :-)

The current Mozilla just needs some minor tweaking to work on MIPS
(some machine-dependent threads stuff for the internal threads
package it has).

I have built plenty of packages on NetBSD/mips (not necessarily pmax).
And I have certainly built many packages on non-x86 systems on NetBSD.

 > Unfortunately, the netbsd "ports" of desktop programs require significant
 > work to get them to compile on netbsd/pmax, and then additional work to
 > get them to run. This is reminiscent of Linux, where everything works
 > great as long as you are on an x86 machine.
 > 
 > Although vintage computing seems to be my hobby, it is extremely
 > time-consuming trying to compile anything on a pmax (even my blazing-fast
 > 260 - fortunately I haven't up(?)graded to the molasses-like netbsd/pmax
 > 1.5) and it's also difficult set up a cross-development environment on
 > anything except perhaps another netbsd machine...

-- 
        -- Jason R. Thorpe <thorpej@wasabisystems.com>