NetBSD/sparc news archive

2004-04-22: SMP support for hyperSPARC CPUs in -current

Paul Kranenburg has enabled support for multiple hyperSPARC CPUs in models which support this CPU type.

2004-03-01: NetBSD 1.6.2 released

NetBSD 1.6.2 released with support for 40 architectures. More information is available in the 1.6.2 release announcement.

2003-12-13: JavaStation-NC support now in tree

Martin Husemann has annonced that JavaStation-NC support is now in the tree, and no longer requires patches. This means the JavaStation-NC systems will be fully supported in NetBSD 2.0.

2003-07-17: sun4c longstanding MMU bug fixed

A very old bug in sun4c MMU functions has been fixed. This impacts stability on all sun4c CPUs and removes the need for very slow software caching on SPARCstation 1, 1+ and IPC models. The fix will be in the next release of NetBSD. See the post by Paul Kranenburg about this issue for more information.

2003-04-21: NetBSD 1.6.1 released

NetBSD 1.6.1 released with support for 40 architectures. More information is available in the 1.6.1 release announcement.

2003-01-07: SMP enabled in -current

SMP support on sparc has been enabled in -current and has been relatively stable on a SPARCstation 20/712, sun4/690 and other systems. See the FAQ and Matthew Green's message to the port-sparc mailing list.

2002-09-14: NetBSD 1.6 released

NetBSD 1.6 released with support for 39 architectures. More information is available in the 1.6 release announcement.

2002-07-22: NetBSD 1.5.3 released

NetBSD 1.5.3 released with support for 20 architectures. More information is available in the 1.5.3 release announcement.

2002-03-13: Recent hardware support in -current

Martin Husemann has added nell sbus-to-PCMCIA support. See his announcement. Valeriy E. Ushakov has enhanced audiocs support, quashing bugs, adding audio input, and support for JavaStations. See his announcement and the current status.

2002-01-08: JavaStation support

Valeriy E. Ushakov has announced experimental support for JavaStation-1 and JavaStation-10 systems with patches to -current. His patches add support for netbooting, keyboards, mice, and X. See the JavaStation status for the current status of JavaStation support and the location of his patches.

2001-11-11: New -current snapshot available

A new -current snapshot based on 2001-11-11 sources is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server.

2001-09-26: MI softintr(9) implemented

Matthew Green has committed changes to switch the NetBSD/sparc port to the generic MI softintr(9) interface for software interrupts.

2001-09-13: NetBSD 1.5.2 released

NetBSD 1.5.2 released with support for 21 architectures. More information is available in the 1.5.2 release announcement.

2001-08-31: New -current snapshot available

A new -current snapshot based on 2001-08-30 sources is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server.

2001-07-11: NetBSD 1.5.1 released

NetBSD 1.5.1 released with support for 21 architectures. More information is available in the 1.5.1 release announcement.

2001-05-13: 1.5.1_BETA2 snapshot available

A NetBSD/sparc 1.5.1_BETA2 snapshot, based off of 1.5.1 sources as of 2001-05-10, is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.5.1 was released on July 11th, 2001)

2001-04-16: 1.5.1_BETA snapshot available

A NetBSD/sparc 1.5.1_BETA snapshot, based off of 1.5.1 sources as of 2001-04-06, is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.5.1 was released on July 11th, 2001)

2001-03-26: NetBSD/sparc using a pool cache for pmap allocation

Paul Kranenburg has updated NetBSD/sparc to use a pool cache for pmap allocation. The cached pmap structures include a ready-to-use level 1 page table (on sun4m) and MMU context. A simple `fork()' test shows an improvement in spent system time of around 4 percent.

2001-03-01: Physical memory handling changes

Paul Kranenburg has updated the code that manages physical memory in NetBSD/sparc (see the NetBSD-current versions of pmap.c, machdep.c, and autoconf.c), resulting in these "user visible" changes:

• The kernels message buffer size is now 8192 (was 4096) on all platforms under NetBSD/sparc. sun4 users: The full first page is now used, since there should be sufficient sanity checking in the message buffer initialization code to detect possible corruption by boot programs. Testing on a sun 4/490 showed no problems.

• sun4m PROMs may allow you to not have a memory bank starting at physical address 0. The NetBSD bootstrap code now also deals with this, so you can plug your memory modeuls into any slot supported by the machine's PROM.

If you encounter any problems, please drop Paul a note.

2001-02-04: New compat14 package available

Matthew Green has added a compat14 package to pkgsrc. This package contains NetBSD 1.4.3 shared libraries, and can add compatibility for dynamically linked executables compiled under NetBSD/sparc 1.4 (a.out) to a NetBSD/sparc 1.5 (elf) machine.

2001-01-30: New -current snapshot available

A new -current snapshot based on 2001-01-30 sources is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server.

2000-12-06: NetBSD 1.5 released

NetBSD 1.5 released with support for 20 architectures. More information is available in the 1.5 release announcement.

2000-12-04: New -current snapshot available

A new -current snapshot based on 2000-12-01 sources is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server.

2000-11-25: NetBSD 1.4.3 released

NetBSD 1.4.3 released with support for 16 architectures. More information is available in the 1.4.3 release announcement.

2000-11-07: 1.5_BETA2 snapshot

A NetBSD/sparc 1.5_BETA2 snapshot is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.5 was released on December 6th, 2000)

2000-10-31: New Mozilla port available

Charles Hannum has ported Mozilla to the SPARC CPU type. A prebuilt package for NetBSD/sparc 1.5 is available, see the mozilla page under the NetBSD Packages Collection. More information on this, and the other CPU types that there are new Mozilla ports for, is available in Charles' message in the netbsd-announce mail archive.

2000-10-20: Third 1.5_ALPHA2 snapshot

The third NetBSD/sparc 1.5_ALPHA2 snapshot is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.5 was released on December 6th, 2000)

2000-10-16: Second 1.5_ALPHA2 snapshot

The second NetBSD/sparc 1.5_ALPHA2 snapshot is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.5 was released on December 6th, 2000)

2000-08-30: First 1.5_ALPHA2 snapshot

The first NetBSD/sparc 1.5_ALPHA2 snapshot is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.5 was released on December 6th, 2000)

2000-07-13: First 1.4.3_ALPHA snapshot

The first sparc 1.4.3_ALPHA snapshot, based off of 1.4.3 sources as of 2000-07-07, is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.4.3 was released on November 25th, 2000)

2000-06-24: Sun 4/400 machine support

NetBSD/sparc 1.5 (currently in testing stage) now supports the sun 4/400 class of machines. Thanks to the Luleå Academic Computer Society for providing access to a sun4/490 that enabled this work to be completed.

2000-06-22: First 1.5_ALPHA snapshot

The first sparc 1.5_ALPHA snapshot, based off of 1.5 sources as of 2000-06-20, is available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.5 was released on December 6th, 2000)

2000-04-12: Hardware acceleration under RASTERCONSOLE

Hardware acceleration features for use with the RASTERCONSOLE option have been added.

2000-03-25: NetBSD/current has been verified to run

on Sun's Javastation 1, which is a sun4m class machine, based on a microSPARC II processor.

2000-03-19: NetBSD 1.4.2 released

NetBSD 1.4.2 released with support for 16 architectures.

2000-03-14: Tadpole SPARCbook 3GS and 3GX serial support

Tadpole SPARCbook 3GS and 3GX models have working serial ports in NetBSD -current. The serial ports can be set to always on / on when open (default) / always off using tadpolectl(8).

1999-12-23: NetBSD-current snapshot

Based on 1999-12-23 sources, at: ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/sparc/snapshot/.

1999-08-02: Tadpole SPARCbook 3GS and 3GX console support

Tadpole SPARCbooks 3GS and 3GX models have a working console driver in NetBSD -current. The driver emulates a Sun cgthree video so that the unmodified Xsun server will work.

1999-05-20: hyperSPARC support

hyperSPARC machines should now work in NetBSD -current. Plans are underway to provide patches for 1.4.1

1999-05-12: NetBSD-1.4 released

The NetBSD 1.4 release supports sixteen architectures, and was distributed free by Usenix to all 1999 ATC attendees.

1998-08-29:

Sbus `esp' and `le' and their DMA engines restructured to live in sys/dev/sbus and use a common LSI64954 DMA engine driver

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