Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
> As another test you could "boot -a" the netbsd10 kernel and then point > it to a netbsd-10 installed USB or PCMCIA drive as a root filesystem. > While you probably already have everything after the boot pretty much > covered, it's always nice to see it come up and run completely from a > netbsd-10 filesystem :) > > You should also be able to pick up a CF to laptop PATA adaptor, which > would allow you to boot from a CF card. More usefully it should (*) > allow you to boot NetBSD-10 on the system, install onto the CF card in > the pcmcia slot, and then be able to move that to the IDE bay to boot, > giving you a way to test a full NetBSD-10 install without overwriting > the existing disk. > > *: "should" - potential hand waving and profanities regarding made up > disk geometries and older BIOS behaviour. > > David > I was wondering if it was worth updating the boot manager (fdisk -B wd0). For now, multiboot works for me to boot to a different root (wd1) than the boot disk (which is still 5.1 on wd0). I have the sets on a CF adapter (wd1) and I added a menu item to the wd0 boot.cfg to boot NetBSD 10; something like this: menu=NetBSD10_RC1 on wd1a:multiboot netbsd10 root=wd1a console=pc /etc/fstab on wd1 has root set to wd1a. Works. This gives me the satisfaction of a fully unattended boot into NetBSD 10 on a 1998 laptop :-) Fun project! I gave i386 GENERIC_TINY a try but it crashed on what looked like a deadlock. Faced with the (tedious) task of trimming i386 GENERIC to get the limited memory back on this device, I'm going to call it good. Maybe next winter (I did find my old 5.1 kernel config). I did learn some things about the init process in NetBSD, for example, so all this has been a worthwhile. Hopefully that pays off when I find some aarch64 device to try to bring into the NetBSD 10 ecosystem -- I've always been tempted. Thanks to everyone for all the help! -Joel
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
As another test you could "boot -a" the netbsd10 kernel and then point it to a netbsd-10 installed USB or PCMCIA drive as a root filesystem. While you probably already have everything after the boot pretty much covered, it's always nice to see it come up and run completely from a netbsd-10 filesystem :) You should also be able to pick up a CF to laptop PATA adaptor, which would allow you to boot from a CF card. More usefully it should (*) allow you to boot NetBSD-10 on the system, install onto the CF card in the pcmcia slot, and then be able to move that to the IDE bay to boot, giving you a way to test a full NetBSD-10 install without overwriting the existing disk. *: "should" - potential hand waving and profanities regarding made up disk geometries and older BIOS behaviour. David
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
On Fri, Dec 22, 2023 at 05:48:57 -, jo...@sdf.org wrote: > I couldn't get the version of boot I have to recognize any USB or CF > drives. I guess because not recognized by BIOS? I guess I could upgrade > boot as a first step? [...] > [ 1.040] Firmware Error (ACPI): A valid RSDP was not found > (20221020/tbxfroot-275) Forgot about that one... You might want to experiment with custom kernels with pnpbios instead of ACPI. Machines from that era often have weird ACPI implementations. On the other hand pnpbios might have its own set of issues. -uwe
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
> On Thu, Dec 21, 2023 at 4:07â¯AM wrote: >> >> > Hi I would say to take to hard drive out and use some other computer >> to >> > install NetBSD 10 on it or use qemu. >> > to use qemu install the drive in a linux machine with the linux boot >> drive >> > and run "qemu-system-i386 -cpu pentium -m 64 -cdrom >> > NetBSD-10.0rc1-i386.iso -hda /dev/oldlaptopsdisk" >> > where NetBSD-10.0rc1-i386.iso is the netbsd install iso and >> > "/dev/oldlaptopsdisk" is the device to the old laptops drive >> > xu...@sdf.org >> > SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.org > > There are several more things you could do: > > 1. Install NetBSD 10 onto a CF card. Update the bootloader on the HDD, > then boot with "boot /netbsd10 root=sd0a" or something like that. That > will show you if NetBSD 10 works at all. > > 2. Update the bootloader, install the NetBSD 10 kernel and > https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-10.0_RC1/i386/installation/miniroot/miniroot.kmod. > Load the miniroot module from the bootloader, and you will have an > installer. You could perhaps use that installer to do the installation > as per #1. > > 3. Instead of gdt's scripts, there is also sysupgrade from pkgsrc. You > can do "sysupgrade fetch kernel modules", reboot, then do the other > steps. > > -- > Benny > > This is great info, thanks. I did get a chance to confirm GENERIC NetBSD 10.0_RC1 will boot. From the '10 boot.iso, I copied the kernel as /netbsd10, rebooted to the boot prompt, and did: boot netbsd10 -s I will have to do some trimming with a custom kernel! [ 1.000] total memory = 81660 KB [ 1.000] avail memory = 57384 KB The full dmesg is below. As noted, ifconfig from 5.1 didn't work with the '10 kernel. I couldn't get the version of boot I have to recognize any USB or CF drives. I guess because not recognized by BIOS? I guess I could upgrade boot as a first step? Back to 5.1, I then prepared a USB thumb drive from the '10 boot.iso to get userland working. For completeness, here's what I did: 1. Created partitions on the thumb drive for /sbin, /bin, /usr, /lib, /libexec (using disklabel -i -I sd0) as /dev/sd0f, g, h, i, j, respectively. 2. Mounted boot.iso, which is pretty nice using vnconfig; something like this: vnconfig vnd0 boot.iso mount -t cd9660 /dev/vnd0a /mnt 3. mount'd each partition and did rsync -av /mnt/sbin/ /dev/sd0f and so on. 4. Rebooted and again: boot netbsd10 -s. 4. Running '10 in single user, I did a /rescue/mount for each of those partitions and was able to assign an ip address using the '10 userland's /sbin/ifconfig -- the old pcmcia 3Com NIC works. Awesome! I gave various other userland commands a try and things looked pretty good. So: NetBSD 10 runs on my old 90s laptop :-) I'll try to get brave enough to actually upgrade in place on the original drive. As also mentioned, and since it feels like I have one shot at this similar to doing this remotely, I'll practice with another 2010s era device going from 9.3 to 10_RC1 in place. Thanks to everyone for the great info. -Joel [ 1.000] Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, [ 1.000] 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, [ 1.000] 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 [ 1.000] The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. [ 1.000] Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993 [ 1.000] The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. [ 1.000] NetBSD 10.0_RC1 (GENERIC) #0: Sun Nov 5 18:30:08 UTC 2023 [ 1.000] mkre...@mkrepro.netbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC [ 1.000] total memory = 81660 KB [ 1.000] avail memory = 57384 KB [ 1.000] timecounter: Timecounters tick every 10.000 msec [ 1.000] Kernelized RAIDframe activated [ 1.000] timecounter: Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 100 [ 1.040] mainbus0 (root) [ 1.040] Firmware Error (ACPI): A valid RSDP was not found (20221020/tbxfroot-275) [ 1.040] autoconfiguration error: acpi_probe: failed to initialize tables [ 1.040] ACPI Error: Could not remove SCI handler (20221020/evmisc-316) [ 1.040] cpu0 at mainbus0 [ 1.040] ACPI Error: AE_BAD_PARAMETER, Thread 324292 could not acquire Mutex [ACPI_MTX_Tables] (0x2) (20221020/utmutex-326) [ 1.040] ACPI Error: Mutex [ACPI_MTX_Tables] (0x2) is not acquired, cannot release (20221020/utmutex-367) [ 1.040] cpu0: Use cpuid to serialize rdtsc [ 1.040] cpu0: Intel 586-class, 132MHz, id 0x543 [ 1.040] cpu0: node 0, package 0, core 0, smt 0 [ 1.040] pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 [ 1.040] pci0: i/o space, memory space enabled, rd/line, rd/mult, wr/inv ok [ 1.040] pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0: Toshiba Host Bridge/Controller (rev. 0x27) [ 1.040] vga0 at pci0 dev 4 function 0: Chips and Technologies 65554 (rev. 0xc2) [ 1.040] wsdisplay0 at vga0 kbdmux
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
On Thu, 21 Dec 2023, jo...@sdf.org wrote: Unfortunately, no PXE BIOS option. This was my first laptop and it ran Win98 originally (yep, scary). It wasn't long before I realized I could run a BSD on it. Maybe it's time to realize I can just enjoy a previous great release: NetBSD 5.1. I have compiler tools on it, so still useful. Thanks - Joel I have always copied the new binaries and the netbsd-INSTALL kernel to the new system. Then boot netbsd-INSTALL.gz, which uses a ram disk, and tell it to do an update. I usually also get a backup of my root partition in case the update fails badly. Mike --- Michael L. Hitchmhi...@montana.edu Operations Consulting, Information Technology Center Montana State University, Bozeman, MT USA
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
"Jeremy C. Reed" writes: > On Wed, 20 Dec 2023, Greg Troxel wrote: > >> - beware that 5->10 is almost certainly not going to work. I have >> generally been doing N->N+1 on most machines, but had occasion to do >> 5->9. I found that the 9 kernel would not boot. I then tried 7, > > Does this mean the /netbsd 9 kernel itself wouldn't boot (never got to > attempting /sbin/init)? > Or that that /netbsd 9 kernel couldn't run NetBSD 7 /sbin/init and > /etc/rc, etc? > Or that the /netbsd 9 kernel couldn't run the NetBSD 9 /sbin/init etc, > maybe due to some left over NetBSD 5 configs or executables? If so, how > did you recover? It means exactly that I tested doing a 5->9 upgrade on duplicate hardware, leaving it in the basement and pretending I couldn't walk down, meaning both not being able to touch the keyboard, power button, reset button and not being able to see the monitor. I got into a wedged state where I couldn't reach the machine enough that I concluded it would not work. I then did 5->7 and 7->9 successfully locally, and remotely. Fuzzy memory that came back to me is that netbsd-5's ifconfig fails to run properly with a netbsd-9. If that fuzzy memory is correct, then one should be able to unpack the user sets and then be ok. But I don't like these sitations of being broken and hoping step 2 will fix it. I prefer to see the system usable with the new kernel. Hence my recommendation to upgrade to 7 and then 9 or 10. If 10 boots to multiuser with remote ssh with 7 userland, then sure, install the 10 userland sets.
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
jo...@sdf.org writes: >> Any chance that BIOS can do netboot? It's a long shot perhaps, >> but I've owned several non-Intel machines of approximately that >> vintage that I've successfully netbooted NetBSD onto, for >> reasons similar to yours: the other possibilities required >> no-longer-functioning hardware. >> >> regards, tom lane >> > > Unfortunately, no PXE BIOS option. > > This was my first laptop and it ran Win98 originally (yep, scary). It > wasn't long before I realized I could run a BSD on it. > > Maybe it's time to realize I can just enjoy a previous great release: > NetBSD 5.1. I have compiler tools on it, so still useful. > > Thanks - Joel I have done a couple of 4->7 updates in one leap without any problems. Since you are on 5 that would be after the Schedular Activation change to threads so if the newer kernel boots about 99% of userland will likely just work (that wasn't the case with 4.x, as anything linked against the older threads shared library would fail badly). I have not tried leaping to 9, but it should be pretty painless to just boot the kernel and see. I would place the 9.x kernel in root fs as something like /netbsd_9.x and put the 9.x modules in /stand. Then I would break into the boot loader when it is booting and do something like "boot netbsd_9.x". As mentioned, some of the networking may not come up, but if the kernel is bootable with your boot blocks and boot loader it has a fair chance of working out for you. If you want to proceed with the update, check dmesg and make sure that your devices are probed and attached correctly. A varient of this would be to set rc_configured to NO in /etc/rc.conf before trying the 9.x kernel as the boot will then stop in single user. You can always do a "mount -u /" later and edit /etc/rc.conf again to get multiuser up (maybe after mounting /var and /usr if needed). With the new kernel running you can place the sets on a thumb drive (from another system) and unpack them onto the target system (this can be tricky, as you may be overwritting the tar command that you are using... usually what I do is make a copy of /rescue/tar somewhere else and use that copy. That would be statically linked and even a 5.x version should be able to unpack the 9.x sets. Just make sure you use something like '-xpf' when you do it to get the permissions correct). Then reboot again with the new kernel to get the new userland running. Then do postinstall (lots of ways to run this one, but something like "postinstall -s /thumb/etc.tar.xz -s /thumb/xetc.tar.xz -d /" is what you want) and then reboot again with the new kernel (somewhere along the way, sway the kernel names around so the 9.x kernel is /netbsd and the older one is /netbsd_5.x). One of the 4->7 updates I did was a very old laptop with a very small hard drive in it that could not be upgraded as its physical size was not standard. It used a cardbus card for networking. There was just enough room for the newer kernel and modules in / but nothing else and no other room for the sets anywhere. I used a thumb drive to transport the sets into the system. Updated in one leap more or less... -- Brad Spencer - b...@anduin.eldar.org - KC8VKS - http://anduin.eldar.org
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
On Wed, Dec 20, 2023 at 23:34:34 -, jo...@sdf.org wrote: > I have a pcmcia 3Com NIC and so internet access (IPv6 only!). But the FD > adapter and the CDROM bay both died years ago. > > I can plug in a pcmcia CF card and mount it. The old BIOS can't boot from > that though. There's also a single USB revision 1.0 port. If you don't mind a bit of manual work, you can just easily upgrade in place. I've recently updated an old Dell Latitude CP of the late 90s vintage (iirc). The big issue was that drivers for the pcmcia network cards seems to have bitrotted w.r.t. infrastructural changes, so you might want to look out for that (one of the cards - ironically, a wifi - worked for me, but I had to set up an open 11b access point :). It's not hard, really. As far as I understand sysupgrade more or less just scripts that scenario, and I never really understood why one would need to script it. Compile a new kernel and get it onto your machine (present day GENERIC might be a bit too fat, make sure the necessary compat options are in place). Probably install it as netbsd.new or something so that if it doesn't work, you can still boot into the old one. Get the sets (from releng or build.sh distribution) onto the machine (or onto some removable medium you can plug into it). Make a backup of /rescue just in case if you don't have one. Boot with the new kenel. You may either boot multiuser into the old userland and give the new kernel a bit of a workout (then "shutdown now" into single user), of you may boot single user right away and go for the upgrade (don't forget to remount root read-write and mount /usr if it's on a separate fs). Go to where your sets are and do something like for f in [!ekx]*.tgz x[!e]*.tgz; do echo === $f ===; tar -C / -zxpf $f; done i.e. unpack all sets except etc, xetc, and kern* if you happen to have them from releng (that's basically a TL;DR of sysupgrade :). Actually on an old i386 you might want to avoid installing gpufw that is fat and not needed on an old machine anyway. Modifying the above to avoid gpufw but to include games is left as an exercise to the reader :) When the sets are unpacked, make sure you have stty rows/cols and TERM set properly and: etcupate -val -s etc.tgz -x xetc.tgz Unless you had some heavy customizations you will mostly just have to press "i" for "install" a bunch of times. The "d" for "delete" might sound a bit scary, but it's actually the safe option of "skip this new file, and leave the old file untouched". If need be you can run etcupdate repeatedly to verify your current state and to incrementally merge more new files. The two files you will have to pay attention to are passwd and groups, b/c for that a long a time gap they will contain changes (new users/groups) and you will have to merge these changes (in the interactive merge press "l" for for "left" for your user(s), "r" for "right" for the new users). After that etcupdate will tell you to run postinstall. If you updated etc, you only need postinstall to fix catpages, obsolete files and create new devices, iirc. Use (that's what etcupate runs at the end): postinstall -s etc.tgz -s xetc.tgz check and your judgement. Doing a round of "fix catpages" first and then "fix obsolete" should get rid of most of the noise. Re-run check after that. PS: "Ask your physician for the information to your individual case." etc, etc... -uwe
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
On Thu, Dec 21, 2023 at 4:07 AM wrote: > > > Hi I would say to take to hard drive out and use some other computer to > > install NetBSD 10 on it or use qemu. > > to use qemu install the drive in a linux machine with the linux boot drive > > and run "qemu-system-i386 -cpu pentium -m 64 -cdrom > > NetBSD-10.0rc1-i386.iso -hda /dev/oldlaptopsdisk" > > where NetBSD-10.0rc1-i386.iso is the netbsd install iso and > > "/dev/oldlaptopsdisk" is the device to the old laptops drive > > xu...@sdf.org > > SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.org There are several more things you could do: 1. Install NetBSD 10 onto a CF card. Update the bootloader on the HDD, then boot with "boot /netbsd10 root=sd0a" or something like that. That will show you if NetBSD 10 works at all. 2. Update the bootloader, install the NetBSD 10 kernel and https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-10.0_RC1/i386/installation/miniroot/miniroot.kmod. Load the miniroot module from the bootloader, and you will have an installer. You could perhaps use that installer to do the installation as per #1. 3. Instead of gdt's scripts, there is also sysupgrade from pkgsrc. You can do "sysupgrade fetch kernel modules", reboot, then do the other steps. -- Benny
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
> Hi I would say to take to hard drive out and use some other computer to > install NetBSD 10 on it or use qemu. > to use qemu install the drive in a linux machine with the linux boot drive > and run "qemu-system-i386 -cpu pentium -m 64 -cdrom > NetBSD-10.0rc1-i386.iso -hda /dev/oldlaptopsdisk" > where NetBSD-10.0rc1-i386.iso is the netbsd install iso and > "/dev/oldlaptopsdisk" is the device to the old laptops drive > xu...@sdf.org > SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.org > Yes, this is what I was originally leaning towards -- use another computer to install a bootable install image. Been meaning to learn more about qemu too. Sure, the original 35 year old HD is on borrowed time and this whole project can end quickly. But it's a simple joy to get these old devices working on current NetBSD. Thanks for this great info. -Joel
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
Hi I would say to take to hard drive out and use some other computer to install NetBSD 10 on it or use qemu. to use qemu install the drive in a linux machine with the linux boot drive and run "qemu-system-i386 -cpu pentium -m 64 -cdrom NetBSD-10.0rc1-i386.iso -hda /dev/oldlaptopsdisk" where NetBSD-10.0rc1-i386.iso is the netbsd install iso and "/dev/oldlaptopsdisk" is the device to the old laptops drive xu...@sdf.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.org On Wed, 20 Dec 2023, jo...@sdf.org wrote: The days are short and work has slowed down. 'Tis the season to get the old hardware out! I have a '98 Toshiba Satellite Pro laptop running a 2010 build of NetBSD 5.1. It runs great including X11. No tmux though :( So how do I get NetBSD 10 on this? There are some challenges. I have a pcmcia 3Com NIC and so internet access (IPv6 only!). But the FD adapter and the CDROM bay both died years ago. I can plug in a pcmcia CF card and mount it. The old BIOS can't boot from that though. There's also a single USB revision 1.0 port. Take the old HD out and try to put a boot image on it? Below is dmesg. Thanks - Joel Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. NetBSD 5.1.0_PATCH (ROCK) #5: Tue Dec 21 08:31:59 PST 2010 joelp@baker.westlab:/usr/obj/sys/arch/i386/compile/ROCK total memory = 81660 KB avail memory = 75672 KB timecounter: Timecounters tick every 10.000 msec timecounter: Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 100 Generic PC mainbus0 (root) cpu0 at mainbus0: Intel 586-class, 132MHz, id 0x543 pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 pci0: i/o space, memory space enabled, rd/line, rd/mult, wr/inv ok pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 pchb0: vendor 0x1179 product 0x0601 (rev. 0x27) vga1 at pci0 dev 4 function 0: vendor 0x102c product 0x00e4 (rev. 0xc2) wsdisplay0 at vga1 kbdmux 1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation) wsmux1: connecting to wsdisplay0 drm at vga1 not configured ohci0 at pci0 dev 11 function 0: vendor 0x1033 product 0x0035 (rev. 0x01) ohci0: interrupting at irq 11 ohci0: OHCI version 1.0 usb0 at ohci0: USB revision 1.0 isa0 at mainbus0 lpt0 at isa0 port 0x378-0x37b irq 7 com0 at isa0 port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4: ns16550a, working fifo com1 at isa0 port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3: ns16550a, working fifo pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60-0x64 pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot) pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard, using wsdisplay0 pms0 at pckbc0 (aux slot) pckbc0: using irq 12 for aux slot wsmouse0 at pms0 mux 0 attimer0 at isa0 port 0x40-0x43: AT Timer wdc0 at isa0 port 0x1f0-0x1f7 irq 14 atabus0 at wdc0 channel 0 sb0 at isa0 port 0x220-0x237 irq 5 drq 1: dsp v3.01 audio0 at sb0: half duplex, playback, capture, mmap, independent opl0 at sb0: model OPL3 midi0 at opl0: SB Yamaha OPL3 (CPU-intensive output) wss0 at isa0 port 0x530-0x537 irq 10 drq 0,1: CS4231 audio1 at wss0: full duplex, playback, capture, mmap pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61 midi1 at pcppi0: PC speaker (CPU-intensive output) sysbeep0 at pcppi0 isapnp0 at isa0 port 0x279: ISA Plug 'n Play device support npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0-0xff npx0: reported by CPUID; using exception 16 fdc0 at isa0 port 0x3f0-0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2 pcic0 at isa0 port 0x3e0-0x3e1 iomem 0xd-0xd irq pcic0: controller 0 (Intel 82365SL Revision 1) has sockets A and B pcmcia0 at pcic0 controller 0 socket 0 pcmcia1 at pcic0 controller 0 socket 1 attimer0: attached to pcppi0 isapnp0: no ISA Plug 'n Play devices found apm0 at mainbus0: Advanced Power Management BIOS: Power Management spec V1.2 timecounter: Timecounter "clockinterrupt" frequency 100 Hz quality 0 timecounter: Timecounter "TSC" frequency 132643830 Hz quality 3000 fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB, 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec pcic0: controller 0 detecting irqs with mask 0xdeb8:..9..15 pcic0: using irq 9 for socket events pcic0: WARNING: powerhook_establish is deprecated pcic0: WARNING: powerhook_establish is deprecated uhub0 at usb0: vendor 0x1033 OHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1 uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered wdc1 at pcmcia0 function 0: pcic0: port 0x400-0x40f wdc1: i/o mapped mode pcmcia0: card irq 15 atabus1 at wdc1 channel 0 ep0 at pcmcia1 function 0: <3Com, Megahertz 574B, B, 001> pcic0: port 0x420-0x43f pcmcia1: card irq 9 ep0: address 00:50:04:fd:31:c2, 64KB word-wide FIFO, 1:1 Rx:Tx split tqphy0 at ep0 phy 0: 78Q2120 10/100 media interface, rev. 10 tqphy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto wd0 at atabus0 drive 0: wd0: drive supports 16-sector PIO transfers, LBA addressing wd0: 1160 MB, 2358 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 2376864 sectors wd0: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 1 wd1 at atabus1 drive 0: wd1: drive supports 1-sector PIO transfers, LBA addressing wd1: 7647 MB, 15538 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec,
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
> > I have been doing inplace upgrades on systems for years, almost entirely > successfully. My scripts are in pkgsrc/sysutils/etcmanage, which in > addition to etcmanage has BUILD-NetBSD and INSTALL-NetBSD. This will > seem like a lot, but I find once I'm set up, updating is very easy and > reliable. Okay, really great info and this looks like a reasonable path to have staged version upgrades. If I get motivated this is the option. Still. So nice to enjoy NetBSD 5.1. And Python 2.6.6 Thanks everyone. -Joel
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
> Any chance that BIOS can do netboot? It's a long shot perhaps, > but I've owned several non-Intel machines of approximately that > vintage that I've successfully netbooted NetBSD onto, for > reasons similar to yours: the other possibilities required > no-longer-functioning hardware. > > regards, tom lane > Unfortunately, no PXE BIOS option. This was my first laptop and it ran Win98 originally (yep, scary). It wasn't long before I realized I could run a BSD on it. Maybe it's time to realize I can just enjoy a previous great release: NetBSD 5.1. I have compiler tools on it, so still useful. Thanks - Joel
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
On Wed, 20 Dec 2023, Greg Troxel wrote: > - beware that 5->10 is almost certainly not going to work. I have > generally been doing N->N+1 on most machines, but had occasion to do > 5->9. I found that the 9 kernel would not boot. I then tried 7, Does this mean the /netbsd 9 kernel itself wouldn't boot (never got to attempting /sbin/init)? Or that that /netbsd 9 kernel couldn't run NetBSD 7 /sbin/init and /etc/rc, etc? Or that the /netbsd 9 kernel couldn't run the NetBSD 9 /sbin/init etc, maybe due to some left over NetBSD 5 configs or executables? If so, how did you recover? > and 5->7 worked, and 7->9 worked. The downside is just boot > netbsd.ok, so it's not that bad, but I would go to 7 first, and then > to 9 or 10. I have a 7.0.2 system to update so thank you for your suggestions here. (I usually just extract the tar sets in place once I confirm the kernel boots, and postinstall and etcupdate.)
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
jo...@sdf.org writes: > I have a '98 Toshiba Satellite Pro laptop running a 2010 build of NetBSD > 5.1. It runs great including X11. No tmux though :( > So how do I get NetBSD 10 on this? There are some challenges. > I have a pcmcia 3Com NIC and so internet access (IPv6 only!). But the FD > adapter and the CDROM bay both died years ago. Any chance that BIOS can do netboot? It's a long shot perhaps, but I've owned several non-Intel machines of approximately that vintage that I've successfully netbooted NetBSD onto, for reasons similar to yours: the other possibilities required no-longer-functioning hardware. regards, tom lane
Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM
jo...@sdf.org writes: > The days are short and work has slowed down. 'Tis the season to get the > old hardware out! I know what you mean. > I have a '98 Toshiba Satellite Pro laptop running a 2010 build of NetBSD > 5.1. It runs great including X11. No tmux though :( > > So how do I get NetBSD 10 on this? There are some challenges. > > I have a pcmcia 3Com NIC and so internet access (IPv6 only!). But the FD > adapter and the CDROM bay both died years ago. > > I can plug in a pcmcia CF card and mount it. The old BIOS can't boot from > that though. There's also a single USB revision 1.0 port. > > Take the old HD out and try to put a boot image on it? I have been doing inplace upgrades on systems for years, almost entirely successfully. My scripts are in pkgsrc/sysutils/etcmanage, which in addition to etcmanage has BUILD-NetBSD and INSTALL-NetBSD. This will seem like a lot, but I find once I'm set up, updating is very easy and reliable. - set up etcmanage. It seems to take people a while to get their head around it but the point is that on update, if there is a file in /etc which is unmodified relative to what some previous install/update did, then it will be made to match the new install. And if not, it will be left alone. Then the human can review/merge/fix. You need it on the machine to be updated and sort of the release build machine. - Read BUILD-NetBSD and INSTALL-NetBSD. They are not mysterious. - Run BUILD-NetBSD someplace to build. It's basically a vanilla build.sh, but it prepares etcmanage checksums suitable for bootstrapping. etcmanage lacks support for xz sets, simply due to round tuits and the "USE_XZ_SETS=no" workaround working very well. - Bring the sets to the computer to be updated. Bring them all; do not bring a kernel and try that. Instead, get all the bits safely there so when you do install the kernel and reboot the rest will be there already. Backup /netbsd to /netbsd.ok. Run "INSTALL-NetBSD installkernel" and reboot. If it is ok, run "INSTALL-NetBSD installuser". Then "postinstall -s /usr/netbsd-etc fix", as the installuser step. Note that installuser will unpack the etc and xetc sets to /usr/netbsd-etc, and the rest to /. - When things are ok clean out /stand (old modules). - beware that 5->10 is almost certainly not going to work. I have generally been doing N->N+1 on most machines, but had occasion to do 5->9. I found that the 9 kernel would not boot. I then tried 7, and 5->7 worked, and 7->9 worked. The downside is just boot netbsd.ok, so it's not that bad, but I would go to 7 first, and then to 9 or 10. I advise learning all this especially etcamange on a faster machine on which it is easier to deal with problems. I don't really expect much, but still. I did the 5->7->9 upgrade on a remote machine where I lacked console access. That was of course scary, and it only succeeded because I tested the steps on duplicate hardware. Had there not been a 5->9 hiccup it would have been fine You are doing local, so beware that a 7 kernel might not work with 5 userland to configure networking, perhaps firewall. It's coming to me that my issue was that 5 ifconfig could not set up networking with a 9 kernel. So it's possible you could do 5->9 since you can type on it. Of course, you can do this all by hand. I find it more reliable to have debugged the scripts and then use them. BTW 5 was amazing. It was a release that ran forever absent power/hw issues. I know that's the netbsd way but it seemed extra solid. > total memory = 81660 KB > avail memory = 75672 KB That's tight. I do wonder how the newer systems will go. You may want to build a slimmed-down kernel. You might even want MODULAR but I'm not sure that's really baked enough for production. It may well be; I just haven't tried it. > apm0 at mainbus0: Advanced Power Management BIOS: Power Management spec V1.2 I dimly think apm might have been deleted. Probably doesn't matter.
