>>>>> "dg" == Deven Gallo writes:

    dg> When I insert it in my dreamcast as a root disc though, NetBSD
    dg> just hangs!

That sucks.  Hangs where?  As in, at which step in the ``HOWTO'', or 
what's on the screen?

Anyway, it is hard to take those instructions seriously, since they
call for some kind of opaque binary-only ``disc image'' that can only
be burned with proprietary Windows software.


You're right that the port-dreamcast list has been substantiatively
quiet lately, but the important thing about the dreamcast port is that
it's far enough along to make further development easy, and it makes a
plausible demonstration for convincing a video game company to pay for
more drivers out of their royalty budget.

The eventual goal is to use NetBSD for writing video games, thus
opening up an entirely new marketable arena for NetBSD code.  It seems
like mouse support, X11, and shared libraries aren't useful for
writing video games since most games use the standard controller, a
3D-specific display abstraction rather than X11, and can compile into
one giant binary plus texture/sound/... file(s).

Rather, what's needed is a framebuffer interface that can cleanly
support hardware acceleration and ports of 3D libs to it, and more
real-time features like fair queueing for filesystems [ :' ],
fine-grained locking, kernel/user threads like ``Unstable Threads'', a
fancier scheduler---that sort of thing.  I think most of this work is
ongoing (except my ridiculous pet-fascinations like ALTQ-for-IDE and
Masuda-Inohara threads) because everyone needs it.  Likely as not, the
work most beneficial to port-dreamcast will be actually developed on
other ports.

Linux, in my not-so-humble opinion, doesn't have a prayer in the
console arena because they want to make everything look like a PeeCee.
Meanwhile, NetBSD progresses in exactly the opposite direction: it
becomes increasingly un-Unixish.  This is a good thing.  This is why
NetBSD will ultimately prevail, although maybe no one will notice.

Anyway, the nice thing about pursuing video game companies is that
they're not going to sell games by printing penguins on them.  The
video game industry is one of the few remaining markets where software
quality is king.  Particularly console gamers, who are liable to smash
things if the console crashes, and they lose their spot.  gamerz
demand results, not boot logos.  Just read any of those gamer
magazines---those reviews are _brutal_.  I've never seen such
main-stream media scorn leveled at a product like Outlook, much less
Linux---it's always this wishy-washy nonsense about each
``technology'' having its ``strengths and weaknesses.''  Pigshit.

``This game was a total dissappointment.  It's definitely not worth
$39.95.''  

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!  Let's see how Linux does without
that infernal NT-alternative penguin branding.

-- 
shadowy grove
outside the locked ward
a moonless night
  		-- Mark Brooks