Re: New Qube2 owner with questions.

[Rowdy <rowdy%netspace.net.au@localhost>]

Mark wrote:
> On 10 May 2008, at 05:35, Rowdy wrote:
>
> > AFAIK an IDE flash card is just seen by the system as an IDE drive, so
> > it should just work.
>
> Compact FLash cards are actually ATA devices, so with the correct 
> adapter they work just like Hard Drives. One thing I *have* noticed (I 
> built a FreeNAS PC box up recently using a CF boot card and a 200GB HDD) 
> is that my CF adapter, or the CD drive I used didn't like living 
> together on the same IDE bus. That might cause an issue if your hard 
> drive decides it's not going to play ball.
>
> > Shon has successfully run two IDE drives from the Qube's internal IDE 
> > port, so that should also not be a problem.
>
> As the Qube2 has fairly modern ATA/33 onboard IDE, I'd have hoped it was 
> buffered to take 2 devices (unbuffered interfaces sometimes take 2 
> devices but you get data collisions and even physical damage sometimes). 
> I have no confirmation of this from any of my meagre hardware 
> information sources, does anyone else know if it's properly buffered?
>
> > The 750G drive is probably 7200RPM - the only thing to be careful of is
> > excess heat generated inside the Qube's small case with small exhaust
> > fan.  The standard drives are 5400rpm in order to reduce the heat
> > generated.
>
> I have a variable speed fan on the back of mine turned a ways down to 
> keep the noise to minimum while it's sat up near my desk (I'm gonna move 
> mine somewhere else at some stage). I have a 80GB Seagate Barracuda 
> 7200.8 in the drive bay and it doesn't get hugely hot and bothered. I 
> think as long as you maintain a reasonable airflow with the fan it'll be 
> okay. I've left mine doing pkgsrc compiling for hours with no apparent 
> problems and the air coming off the back doesn't seem to get much warmer.
> > Again AFAIK any standard PCI device should work, provided it is
> > supported by NetBSD.
>
> Anyone got a link to the supported list of PCI hardware? I could do with 
> knowing for an i386 project I am about to embark on :)

http://www.netbsd.org/support/hardware/pci.html

> > Quite a few people have tried to get various USB cards working in a 
> > Qube with mixed results.  If you do get one working,
> > please let the list know :)
>
> I haven't tried USB 2.0. I preferred FireWire as an option because of 
> its better characteristics for Mass Storage. I have used 2 FireWire 
> cards successfully though after a kernel recompile. I looked right 
> through the kernel config and never saw anything for UHCHI and OHCI USB 
> devices so I assume it's in the base kernel now so doesn't need a 
> recompile?
>
> > Personally I usually just download each release (the most recent is
> > 2008Q1), untar it into /usr/pkgsrc, and go from there.
> >
> > http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-announce/2008/04/13/msg000018.html
>
> I actually managed to get he CVS repository to work when I downloaded 
> pkgsrc the other day. It's not always worked for me before.
>
> CVS is beneficial because with one command you can lets it sit on the 
> net and update what needs updating from the CVS archive, which is 
> marginally more bandwidth friendly than downloading the tar evert time. 
> CVS updates do take a while though.

Absolutely, yes.  I do this for my FreeBSD server as it is facing the
world, and I like to try to keep up with security updates etc.  But my
NetBSD machines are generally hidden inside my network, most are older
slower machines, and it is a pain to recompile stuff all the time, so I
generally only update them when there is a milestone pkgsrc release.

> > As with any NetBSD port, you can do a binary upgrade without losing
> > anything.  I have done that in the past on my Qube, going from 3.0 to
> > 3.0.1, and again from 3.0.1 to 3.1.
>
> Anyone got a guide for this? It'd again be useful to know for when a new 
> version pops up. I'd have thunk doing a backup-wipe-restore of 4.0 or 
> later is a bit of a PITA at the moment as I've had to compile everything 
> I use on the Qube2 from source, as the binaries are not available for 
> cobalt currently (from what I saw).

http://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-upgrading.html

Or, updating from source ...

http://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-updating.html

> > > 6)  Does the Cobalt port (from that RestoreCD) have all the tools 
> > > required to make a new RestoreCD ?  And build new kernels etc ?
>
> I do know the kernel sources are not included, but all yo uneed to do is 
> download the 'syssrc.tgz' tarball from NetBSD.org and untar it to your 
> Qube2 or another machine with MIPS CPU or Cross-Compiling toolchain.

Separate informative response from Tsutsui-san, however after re-reading
the question and interpreting it literally, would you really want to
build a restore CD on a Qube (or Raq)?  The compile time would be
horrendous! ;-)

Rowdy