I installed the latest release of OpenBSD on my Ultra 5, but did not get 
X to work in the 20 minutes I played with it.  If it does work, it 
wasn't obvious how the XF86Config needs tweaked for it to work.  Also, 
OpenBSD's support of the ATI Mach64 was just as slow, if not slower than 
NetBSD's on the console... and the console display size, at least 
out-of-the-box, was not as big as the screen.  I think OpenBSD's support 
for this video needs a lot of work... it just doesn't seem to be very 
good especially compared to Linux' support of the same hardware.

X on Linux (Debian stable sparc64 dist.) worked right away without any 
trouble.  Also, the console was high-res and filled up the whole screen 
without any tweaking.  It was very fast, too...  and white on black.  
Maybe that's why it was so fast... could black on white be too intensive?

I gather that if I want it done I'd either have to loan my hardware out 
to a stranger or do it myself.... hmmmm.....

I've not really worked on a driver before... where would one begin? 
Would I need to get "specs" from ATI or Sun? 
How hard is it to get such information from a vendor/manufacturer? 
How does one go about getting the info.?   Does it ever cost money?
Or are there ways of properly writing the driver with only the hardware 
and a brain? 
Is it all C, or would some assembly be required, too? 
Would the SPARCv9 architecture manual be handy? (I bought it a year or 
two ago to fulfill my curiosity of the SPARC)   
How much time do you think would be reqired for someone with my lack of 
driver experience to get it working?  Less than a couple months?  I'm a 
good self-starter, just not a good self-finisher.... in fact, most 
things I start do not get finished so if one might consider this a 
long-term project, I'd better not bother.



Thanks,
Mike.


R. Tyler Ballance wrote:

>Do keep in mind however, OpenBSD's X tree is pretty hacked (from my perspective) 
>
>If I had an Ultra 5 (not hinting) i'd be up for hacking some of their drivers,
>but here's a link to where I think the drivers would be, maybe somebody can
>diff ours vs. theirs
>http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/X11/xc/programs/Xserver/hw
>
>-Tyler
>
>-----------------
>R. Tyler Ballance
>NetBSD-FreeBSD-L4::Pistachio
>
>---------- Original Message -----------
>From: Matthew Kolb <muk@msu.edu>
>To: port-sparc64@netbsd.org
>Sent: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 17:35:54 -0400
>Subject: Re: Help?
>
>  
>
>>On Jul 19, 2004, at 5:09 PM, R. Tyler Ballance wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Isn't this more of an XFree86 problem than a port-sparc64 problem? I 
>>>mean,
>>>given that it does relate very,very much, wouldn't it take someone who 
>>>can
>>>hack Xfree86 drivers, and sparc64 hardware?
>>>
>>>Of course, if you could get me a hold of a similar Ultra5, with the 
>>>specified
>>>graphics card.....I'd be willing to give it a go :-P
>>>      
>>>
>>As an aside, it is probably worth noting that OpenBSD has a working 
>>X server for this hardware.  I have been running it for a while now 
>>(I have several Ultra 5s).
>>
>>If someone wanted to get going on it, the OpenBSD stuff might be a 
>>place to start.
>>
>>./muk
>>
>>-- 
>>m. kolb  <muk@msu.edu>
>>    
>>
>------- End of Original Message -------
>
>
>  
>