XVR-1000 (Re: pkgin missing on repo sparc64)

[Julian Coleman <jdc%coris.org.uk@localhost>]

Hi,

> Sorry to Hijack, thanks for that John, I've been wondering that same thing
> myself, NetBSD is amazing on Sparc64, it's actually a daily for me, I run
> it on a U10, a U60 and a Blade1000, though, it'd be amazing if someone
> could pick up the driver support for the XVR-1000 card, I have one for my
> Blade 1000 that I can't use with NetBSD but just seriously lack the skills
> to do anything about it, though I am learning C at present, but, rushing in
> to making a driver as a first big project might be a little ambitious!

Glad to hear that you like NetBSD on sparc64!

We do have a console driver for the XVR-1000 (gfb) but the problem is lack
of documentation.  That means we don't know how any of the acceleration
works, nor how to drive the card apart from as a dumb framebuffer.  This
means that you are better off with an FFB or an XVR-100 in your SB1000.

Unfortunately, it's the same for the 3DLabs cards as well (XVR-500, -600
and -1200).  If documentation ever appears then we could write drivers for
them, but that seems unlikely.

Regards,

Julian