6.0_BETA observations

["John D. Baker" <jdbaker%mylinuxisp.com@localhost>]

I'm making my first foray into running netbsd-6 on my hoarde of sparc
boxes, starting with my "big" workstation (SS5, 110MHz, 256MB, cgsix).

Although most of my sparc will use serial console only, a few will have
a framebuffer console.  Video console handling is much improved over
netbsd-5 (where it was basically unusable due to freezing some random
time after login).

As I was simply updating over a copy of my old netbsd-5 install (NFS),
I was glad to see that it "Just Worked"(tm).  I did an appreciable
amount of work at the console finishing the upgrade and adjusting things.
No stuck console.

Since wscons is turned on by default now, I set out to finish enabling
it on my installation.  The result was not what I expected, though.
Running '/etc/rc.d/wscons start' handled the default/console/ttyE0
well enough, then three iterations of the following line:

  wsconscfg: WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device not configured

followed by a line indicating that ttyE4 was added without problems.
"Stop-Fn" for "2<n<4" didn't do anything, but "n=1, n=5" switched to
the appropriate console.

When the terminals were enabled in /etc/ttys, getty complained similarly
that "/dev/ttyE[1-3]" were not configured.

I checked that the device files existed (ttyE[0-7], wsfont, wskbd(|[0-3]),
wsmouse(|[0-3]), wsmux[0-3], wsmuxctl[0-3]).  I running GENERIC, so I expect
all the necessary things to be defined there.

Any hints to what I'm missing?

I tried 'startx' and the server started up, but I couldn't switch consoles
with it active.  It started 'twm', but I coudln't open an xterm.  Exiting
the window manager didn't terminate the server, but instead reset it.
Guessing that it would behave like its x86 counterparts, I used
Control-Alt-Backspace to "Zap" the server.  Then I was able to switch
consoles again.

Right now, the console/X is not as important--I'm using the machine to
build packages that will be needed for my other (headless) sparcs via ssh.
I would eventually like to get the console/X functional.

Thanks for the work put into the sparc port for netbsd-6.

--
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