On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, Gregg C Levine wrote:

> However, that's as far as it looks they have gotten, on the surface.
> Do any of you; have any idea what happened regarding their efforts to
> continue the project? I am reluctant to post a subscription message to
> their lists, because I am not sure how active it is.

Here's a url for the Linux-VAX list archive.  You can see what they're
up to:

   <http://solar.physics.montana.edu/hypermail/linux-vax/index.html>

It's still active, but not quite as active as the port-vax list.

As for the other questions.  I'm not sure what systems their current
development work supports.  I know, at one time, the focus was on the
KA43 because that's the system that the port master had available.
They'd need to explicitly add support for many of the various system
types.

> Next up, what about using the MOP protocol to do the booting? Those
> kernels were created with that in mind, it seems. Any suggestions for
> setting up SIMH to do that? I've got the vaguest notion of doing so,
> and I do not even know where to begin.

When I last investigated running Linux/VAX (a number of years ago),
their approach was to to MOP load the kernel directly as opposed to MOP
loading the bootloader, and then letting that bootloader find and start
the kernel running.  So, yeah, MOP is an option--it may even be the only
way you can run it at this point.

For details (or hints) on running SIMH, you might want to check out the
NetBSD/vax specific, non-netboot, docs:

   <http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/vax/emulator-howto.html>

And the official SIMH page(s):

   <http://simh.trailing-edge.com/>
   <http://simh.trailing-edge.com/vax.html>

In the past couple of months, support for a simulated DELQA/DEQNA
ethernet device has been added and enhanced.  There have been quite a
lot of discussions in the comp.sys.dec newsgroup about it.  I'm pretty
sure it's fully functional--even to the point of allowing you to MOP
boot images into SIMH.  I don't recall seeing any HOWTOs about it, but
I'm positive it's been discussed and explained in the newsgroups.

> Oh, and this whole business will be done, on an Intel machine running
> Linux, as I haven't had a chance to build a box for NetBSD/i386. And
> Brian, I have setup my kernel accordingly.

It's probably safe to assume that nearly everything in my old HOWTO
for netbooting, with respect to setting up a Linux server, is
irrelevant.  (And probably most of what's needed to setup a NetBSD
server).  IIRC, the last version of Linux I expended effort on doing
this with was something like RedHat 4.2.  After that, I gave up on Linux
as a diskless server platform; it ended up taking more somewhat more
effort configuring it than it did with NetBSD in the same role.

Someone else here may be able to provide more comprehensive answers to
the steps you should take to get Linux/VAX running on a system; I think
at least a few people here who subscribe to both lists.  But I do think
you'll get better informed answers, at least about the Linux/VAX
specific stuff, on the linux-vax mailing list.  They're a helpful group
of people, so you needn't be wary of subscribing.

-brian.