Re: How do you use old versions?

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

 On Fri, 7 May 2021 at 15:55, D Walton <walton.david%sky.com@localhost> wrote:
>
> Is it possible to copy over the wi0 driver for the Linksys WPC11 from version 7.1 which works, into the current NetBSD release.
>
> Please don’t shoot me down in flames as I am not a programmer but it is a reasonable question.

The history of https://nxr.netbsd.org/history/src/sys/dev/pcmcia/if_wi_pcmcia.c
shows that other than adding a device and whitespace fixes there have
been no changes to if_wi_pcmcia.c since netbsd-7

The issue could be in any number of places, some of which include:
- A newer gcc compiling code differently affecting timing, memory
barriers, or some other aspect
- Changes to MI or generic MIPS VM or other code interacting with
hpcmips hardware drivers
- Other hpcmips hardware drivers (eg pcmcia)
- The wi driver (does not seem so in this case)

Knowing when the issue started could help further investigation.
https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi?do=index&fts=z50 indicates that
the pcmcia driver was working for at least one user in 7.99.33

If you have 7.1 working what I would suggest is to keep your 7.1
install, but to boot the GENERIC kernels from later releases - 8, 9 &
current - http://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/latest/hpcmips/

Depending on your setup you may be able to copy these to the root of
your netbsd install as /netbsd8 or similar and boot them on demand.
Later versions of NetBSD usually have very good compatibility for
running older binaries (in this case the full netbsd-7 distribution).

As has been suggested, capturing a copy of the output from dmesg for
each version (either post to this list or upload to
https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi and post links to this list) may
help determine if the wi is failing to be recognised, failing to
attach, or even if there is an issue with the underlying pcmcia device
driver.

David