Re: Alpha PCI and TURBOchannel X11 testers wanted (Was: Alpha Turbochannel display adaptors and Xorg 1.20)

[David Brownlee <abs%absd.org@localhost>]

(Thanks to the replies and offers - sending a single email to all :)

OK, so now we have a build of NetBSD/alpha -current with Xorg v1.20.

It _should_ work just the same on non PCI hardware, but should use the
Xwsfb server on TURBOchannel PMAG framebuffers. I'm very interested in
testing results from both PCI and TURBOchannel machines.

There is a full distribution (individual set files and bootable ISO
image) in http://sync.absd.org/xwsfb/ - the README from that directory
is included below.

If anyone really needs a netbsd-9 set let me know and I'll see what I can do

(Tobias: You might want to ask on
http://www.classiccmp.org/cctalk.html or even port-vax re finding a
3W3 cable :)

Thanks

David

xwsfb - v1.2

This contains xwfb Xorg builds for NetBSD/pmax and NetBSD/alpha from
2021-12-03 sources

Changes from stock NetBSD tree:
- Add WSDISPLAYIO_GET_FBINFO to dev/tc TURBOchannel display adaptors
- Enable building Xwsfb X server for pmax
- Switch alpha from Xorg 1.10 to 1.20 (plus tweaked bsd_ev56 from 1.10)
- (diffs in xwsfb.diff)

Things to test:
- Really looking for real pmax and alpha hardware
- Any and all framebuffers, TURBOchannel (and also PCI on alpha)
- Confirm if keyboard mapping is correct (and does console match x11)
- Does uxterm work on alpha

pmax issues:
- uxterm and LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 in general do not work
- Escape does not work on gxemul console (not a regression from stock)

To install and test pmax in gxemul
- Install gxemul :) - eg pkgsrc/emulators/gxemul
- Create a 2GB disk image: dd if=/dev/zero of=pmax.img bs=1m count=2048
- Run: gxemul -X -M 256 -e 3max -d pmax.img -d b:NetBSD-9.99.92-pmax.iso
- Follow prompts to install
- At the end - select 'Add a user' and make sure it is added to wheel
- Exit and halt
- Run: gxemul -X -M 256 -e 3max -d pmax.img (wait ~forever for fontcache)
- Login as root, edit /etc/X11/ctwm/system.ctwmrc and change "uxterm" to "xterm"
- Run: startx
- Optionally: (if user is in wheel group), enable xdm=YES in /etc/rc.conf

To upgrade an existing NetBSD-9.99.92 install
- Ensure you have the following from this location (where arch is alpha or pmax)
  - ${arch}/binary/kernel/netbsd-GENERIC.gz
  - ${arch}/binary/sets/xbase.tgz
  - ${arch}/binary/sets/xcomp.tgz
  - ${arch}/binary/sets/xetc.tgz
  - ${arch}/binary/sets/xfont.tgz
  - ${arch}/binary/sets/xserver.tgz
- Copy /netbsd to /onetbsd, then extract netbsd-GENERIC.gz as /netbsd
- Wipe /usr/X11R7 then extract x*tgz from /
- For pmax only: edit /etc/X11/ctwm/system.ctwmrc & change "uxterm" to "xterm"
- Run: startx
- Optionally: (if user is in wheel group), enable xdm=YES in /etc/rc.conf