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

yay

[faeryman]

now i can pull out the model 80 in my closet and install this. i tried Linux at first, but i had some problems with the EDSI drivers...anyone know if NetBSD does it better?

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.

Re:yay

[Ed Avis]

The ESDI disks work fine under Linux, if slowly. I used to have two of them in my Model 80 (before going SCSI). Pick your kernel version carefully though: some of the MCA support has rotted in newer versions. 2.2.14 works like a charm.

Usually the difficulty is not so much the kernel drivers as getting your distribution to realize that ESDI disks exist. To install Slackware I had to make some fake device nodes /dev/hda* to make the ESDI disks appear as IDE ones to the installer. Then I was able to install Slackware and finally make the correct device nodes (/dev/eda*) and fix up /etc/fstab and /etc/lilo.conf by hand.

Sorry to hijack this NetBSD thread with writing about Linux, but it's probably more an MCA discussion than a NetBSD discussion. The Linux support for MCA is a lot more mature than any of the BSDs: many of the OSes will boot and run but Linux supports a wider range of devices commonly found on MCA boxes. OTOH that makes NetBSD a more challenging project to undertake :-)

Damn

[jmenezes]

Just when i decide that i might as well give up on having anything useful happen with my Model 70, and get rid of it...
*sigh*
although, its def a good thing, seein as how a lot of the RS/6000 machines use MCA, so the bus support is something that should be very useful/important for any OS bein ported to those...