NetBSD/i386 On IBM PS/2 (MCA) Machines

Jaromir Dolecek writes: "The support on NetBSD for these old IBM boxes has reached the point where it's useful for general work and should provide stable multiuser service. The NetBSD/i386 installation tools were also updated to support installation on this type of machines. The next NetBSD formal release will include all this support. Until then, it's available through NetBSD/i386 binary snapshots of the development branch. For further information, see the original announcement, the NetBSD site and NetBSD/i386 on IBM PS/2 page. Besides the hobbyist and enthusiast value of this project, the general support for MCA (MicroChannel Architecture) bus will also be used within upcoming NetBSD RS/6000 port, since quite a few of IBM RS/6000 boxes have MCA bus too."

Comments

Re:yay

[iankerickson]

The supported hardware page at http://www.netbsd.org/Hardware/mca.html lists ESDI MCA controllers as compatible. Your odds are good, I'd say.

Download the install floppies, and try to boot from them. Watch the messages for the edc0 controller (your card) and ed0, ed1, etc (your disks), though they might come up wd0 or sd0.

Choose "Utilities" and then the option for a shell (Bourne, not bash). Then you can try to mount the EDSI disks as FAT, or look at them with fdisk, etc. That way you can test the kernel's ability to reach the disks at all without a full install.

Whatever you do, don't format over your reference partition, or you'll need one on a floppy just to boot up, and the BIOS might try to "take back" that part of the disk, causing a great deal of disagreement with netbsd. Just look for an unallocated area on the disk with fdisk, and setup your partitions to avoid that area. I have a 9595, and it squirrels away the reference disk in the last 3 blocks of the hard drive. Any old DOS utility to examine a raw disk should help you find out what part of the disk to avoid.