install on nec mobilepro 780

[Michael Grayson]

Greetings,

I'm attempting to install netbsd9.1, port hpcmips to the NEC mobilepro 780, following the hpcmips install instructions. Although most of the steps seem straightforward, I'm being stymied by the size of the RAM disk (4Mb) created/used by sysinst. This fills up almost immediately with artifacts of the install process such as config files. The guide states that you need at least 7Mb free and I have 24Mb allocated to RAM in Windows CE as stated in the guide. If I manually delete some unnecessary things (like the alternative language error message files) I can get pretty far through the process but it still eventually fails with some background messages about the RAM disk being full. Any suggestions on how to change the size of the RAM disk? Is it possible there's a nuance I'm missing in using the hpc boot utility?


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[Michael Grayson]

Update on this. After quite a bit of tinkering I was able to bootstrap the system by using sysinst to build the filesystem and then manually installing the sets from the shell. I believe sysinst is broken for this architecture; specifically, it is dumping core from the progress utility. Not sure who to talk to about that.

I've still got a lot of work to do to get this fully functional, X is not working yet and the keymap is a little funky but I'm plodding along slowly but surely.
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[Martin Husemann]

Post by Michael Grayson
Update on this. After quite a bit of tinkering I was able to
bootstrap the system by using sysinst to build the filesystem and then
manually installing the sets from the shell. I believe sysinst is
broken for this architecture; specifically, it is dumping core from the
progress utility. Not sure who to talk to about that.

I can help with sysinst specific issues, but I don't have that hardware
and no idea how to easily test. What install medium is used, and
can we run it in gxemul?

If basic tools like progress do not work, then something more serious
is going on and we need to fix that first.

Martin

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[Aaron Peters]

Hi everyone, I've been lurking here for some time with the intent of asking
about this very issue. I'm on a MobilePro 790, essentially the same as the
780 except for a bit of persistent RAM (useful for storing the bootloader).

I'm happy to help troubleshoot/test, I'm in the same situation as Michael.
sysinst worked well until the step where sets are extracted, where that
process always errors out. I took the same path of dropping into a shell
and extracting them manually, I'm stuck trying to get the new filesystem to
boot. I suspect this is as simple as not having made the right
slice/partition active, but since my last attempt was using 9.0 I'm happy
to re-do the whole thing for the newer version.

Aaron

Post by Martin Husemann

Post by Michael Grayson
Update on this. After quite a bit of tinkering I was able to
bootstrap the system by using sysinst to build the filesystem and then
manually installing the sets from the shell. I believe sysinst is
broken for this architecture; specifically, it is dumping core from the
progress utility. Not sure who to talk to about that.

I can help with sysinst specific issues, but I don't have that hardware
and no idea how to easily test. What install medium is used, and
can we run it in gxemul?
If basic tools like progress do not work, then something more serious
is going on and we need to fix that first.
Martin

[Michael Grayson]

Another interesting (?) data point. I went back to NetBSD 3.0 to give that a
shot. Guess what...it installs with no issue and works flawlessly (even X
fired right up with absolutely no effort...although it was at the wrong
resolution). So I'm going to spend a bit of time trying the various releases
between 3.0 and 9.1 and see where it breaks. I figure this might at least
provide a clue as to what happened.

[Aaron Peters]

The above-referenced link is this one, which is a report on the
installation of 3.1:

https://wiki.netbsd.org/tutorials/how_to_install_netbsd_on_a_nec_mobilepro_790/

Would be interesting to see if you could start there and upgrade through
sysinst all the way to the new version...

I couldn't say when I'd have time to try, but based on your report I may
try 4.0 and see if I could get it to v5. Confirming this might inspire me
enough to something current.

The form factor is so killer, I'd love to have it working with working
power management (suspend/resume particularly) and a modern version of
Emacs. A much better, more capable writing environment than the Traveler
Freewrite yet still blissfully distraction free!

Post by Aaron Peters

Post by Aaron Peters
I saw a set of install instructions (will send the link when I get the
chance) that suggested in earlier releases lots of things worked as
expected, first and foremost among them suspend/resume. It almost makes

me

Post by Aaron Peters
want to try installing one of those and then upgrade to the newest

version.
Ah, interesting. I would like to take a look at that when you get a chance. I
can confirm that suspend/resume do work in versions 3.0 and 4.0 (although halt
and reboot do not seem to work in any version reliably). I will also
say that of the 8 versions I've now tried to install (3,4,5,6,7,8,9,9.1) only
two (3,4) made it through the installer and worked as expected. After I've had
the chance to try some of the intermediate releases I will send out a table of
all of them and the specific problems encountered with each in case that might
be useful to someone.
In the meantime I'm happily using 4.0 ^_^
--
-Michael

[Michael Grayson]

Post by Aaron Peters
I saw a set of install instructions (will send the link when I get the
chance) that suggested in earlier releases lots of things worked as
expected, first and foremost among them suspend/resume. It almost makes me
want to try installing one of those and then upgrade to the newest version.

Ah, interesting. I would like to take a look at that when you get a chance. I
can confirm that suspend/resume do work in versions 3.0 and 4.0 (although halt
and reboot do not seem to work in any version reliably). I will also
say that of the 8 versions I've now tried to install (3,4,5,6,7,8,9,9.1) only
two (3,4) made it through the installer and worked as expected. After I've had
the chance to try some of the intermediate releases I will send out a table of
all of them and the specific problems encountered with each in case that might
be useful to someone.

In the meantime I'm happily using 4.0 ^_^

[Aaron Peters]

I saw a set of install instructions (will send the link when I get the
chance) that suggested in earlier releases lots of things worked as
expected, first and foremost among them suspend/resume. It almost makes me
want to try installing one of those and then upgrade to the newest version.

Post by Michael Grayson
Another interesting (?) data point. I went back to NetBSD 3.0 to give that a
shot. Guess what...it installs with no issue and works flawlessly (even X
fired right up with absolutely no effort...although it was at the wrong
resolution). So I'm going to spend a bit of time trying the various releases
between 3.0 and 9.1 and see where it breaks. I figure this might at least
provide a clue as to what happened.
--
-Michael

[Michael Grayson]

So I got gxemul and tried running the 9.1 installer etc. It worked fine, so
whatever the issue is with this platform, there's a discrepancy between the
actual system and the gxemul implementation. It's unfortunate because that
would have made it a lot easier to work the issue...

[Michael Grayson]

Thank you very much for the response. I did some web searching after I read your message and I do see that gxemul (at last at one time) was said to have a complete emulation of this device and that it was tested with NetBSD. I do wonder how that would work since these devices come with a ROM chip that loads WinCE which must then be used to boot NetBSD using the hpcboot utility. I'm wondering if there are some variables there that might be different between the gxemul and the actual device.

As far as the install medium, I used a compact flash card with a DOS partition for the bootstrap utility and install kernel. I tried various options to get the sets once I was installing, FTP seemed to be the most reliable.

Anyhow I'm happy to help in whatever way I can from my end.

Post by Martin Husemann

Post by Michael Grayson
Update on this. After quite a bit of tinkering I was able to
bootstrap the system by using sysinst to build the filesystem and then
manually installing the sets from the shell. I believe sysinst is
broken for this architecture; specifically, it is dumping core from the
progress utility. Not sure who to talk to about that.

I can help with sysinst specific issues, but I don't have that hardware
and no idea how to easily test. What install medium is used, and
can we run it in gxemul?
If basic tools like progress do not work, then something more serious
is going on and we need to fix that first.
Martin

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[Martin Husemann]

Post by Michael Grayson
Thank you very much for the response. I did some web searching after
I read your message and I do see that gxemul (at last at one time) was
said to have a complete emulation of this device and that it was tested
with NetBSD. I do wonder how that would work since these devices come
with a ROM chip that loads WinCE which must then be used to boot NetBSD
using the hpcboot utility. I'm wondering if there are some variables
there that might be different between the gxemul and the actual device.

I see - and that is good enough: gxemul loads the kernel directly, so
we totaly skip the WinCE part. Great, I'll create a test env and see what
I can find out.

Post by Michael Grayson
As far as the install medium, I used a compact flash card with a DOS
partition for the bootstrap utility and install kernel. I tried various
options to get the sets once I was installing, FTP seemed to be the
most reliable.

OK, hpcmips install kernel - that makes it clear.

Post by Michael Grayson
Anyhow I'm happy to help in whatever way I can from my end.

Let's see if I can reproduce it (but will take a bit).

Martin

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[Michael Grayson]

Awesome, thanks.

I'm using it with RAM set to around 24Mb if that makes any difference. Mostly been testing with 9.1 but I also tried a few older versions for kicks. Let me know if you need any more info.

Post by Martin Husemann

Post by Michael Grayson
Thank you very much for the response. I did some web searching after
I read your message and I do see that gxemul (at last at one time) was
said to have a complete emulation of this device and that it was tested
with NetBSD. I do wonder how that would work since these devices come
with a ROM chip that loads WinCE which must then be used to boot NetBSD
using the hpcboot utility. I'm wondering if there are some variables
there that might be different between the gxemul and the actual device.

I see - and that is good enough: gxemul loads the kernel directly, so
we totaly skip the WinCE part. Great, I'll create a test env and see what
I can find out.

Post by Michael Grayson
As far as the install medium, I used a compact flash card with a DOS
partition for the bootstrap utility and install kernel. I tried various
options to get the sets once I was installing, FTP seemed to be the
most reliable.

OK, hpcmips install kernel - that makes it clear.

Post by Michael Grayson
Anyhow I'm happy to help in whatever way I can from my end.

Let's see if I can reproduce it (but will take a bit).
Martin

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[Warner Losh]

I also have two NetBSD/hpcmips capable MobilePro 780 (and the japanese
version of the 770) I can donate to the efforts, though I have little to no
time to make it work myself.

Warner

Post by Michael Grayson
Thank you very much for the response. I did some web searching after I
read your message and I do see that gxemul (at last at one time) was said
to have a complete emulation of this device and that it was tested with
NetBSD. I do wonder how that would work since these devices come with a ROM
chip that loads WinCE which must then be used to boot NetBSD using the
hpcboot utility. I'm wondering if there are some variables there that might
be different between the gxemul and the actual device.
As far as the install medium, I used a compact flash card with a DOS
partition for the bootstrap utility and install kernel. I tried various
options to get the sets once I was installing, FTP seemed to be the most
reliable.
Anyhow I'm happy to help in whatever way I can from my end.

Post by Martin Husemann

Post by Michael Grayson
Update on this. After quite a bit of tinkering I was able to
bootstrap the system by using sysinst to build the filesystem and then
manually installing the sets from the shell. I believe sysinst is
broken for this architecture; specifically, it is dumping core from the
progress utility. Not sure who to talk to about that.

I can help with sysinst specific issues, but I don't have that hardware
and no idea how to easily test. What install medium is used, and
can we run it in gxemul?
If basic tools like progress do not work, then something more serious
is going on and we need to fix that first.
Martin

[Michael]

Hi Aaron!

I'm happy that I'm not the only one trying to get this going!

At this point I have a working install on my 780, though I'm still struggling with some configuration issues.

Where in the boot process are you getting hung up?

Once you got your partitions/labels set up and your sets extracted, did you remember to switch the kernel in your hpc boot utility from the install kernel (netbsd.gz) to the boot kernel (netbsd-GENERIC.gz)? That was one of the steps I didn't catch on to the first time through the install docs as it's not explicitly mentioned.

Post by Aaron Peters
Hi everyone, I've been lurking here for some time with the intent of asking
about this very issue. I'm on a MobilePro 790, essentially the same as the
780 except for a bit of persistent RAM (useful for storing the bootloader).
I'm happy to help troubleshoot/test, I'm in the same situation as Michael.
sysinst worked well until the step where sets are extracted, where that
process always errors out. I took the same path of dropping into a shell
and extracting them manually, I'm stuck trying to get the new filesystem to
boot. I suspect this is as simple as not having made the right
slice/partition active, but since my last attempt was using 9.0 I'm happy
to re-do the whole thing for the newer version.
Aaron

Post by Martin Husemann

Post by Michael Grayson
Update on this. After quite a bit of tinkering I was able to
bootstrap the system by using sysinst to build the filesystem and then
manually installing the sets from the shell. I believe sysinst is
broken for this architecture; specifically, it is dumping core from the
progress utility. Not sure who to talk to about that.

I can help with sysinst specific issues, but I don't have that hardware
and no idea how to easily test. What install medium is used, and
can we run it in gxemul?
If basic tools like progress do not work, then something more serious
is going on and we need to fix that first.
Martin

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Please direct questions, flames, donations, etc. to news-***@muc.de

[Michael Grayson]

Did some more tinkering last night and reinstalled on a larger CF card. The system
is fairly unstable, with a lot of core dumps happening in seemingly mundane
operations (such as boggle LOL). It seems that the cores might be rtc related. I'm
still investigating.

Post by Michael
Hi Aaron!
I'm happy that I'm not the only one trying to get this going!
At this point I have a working install on my 780, though I'm still struggling with some configuration issues.
Where in the boot process are you getting hung up?
Once you got your partitions/labels set up and your sets extracted, did you remember to switch the kernel in your hpc boot utility from the install kernel (netbsd.gz) to the boot kernel (netbsd-GENERIC.gz)? That was one of the steps I didn't catch on to the first time through the install docs as it's not explicitly mentioned.

Post by Aaron Peters
Hi everyone, I've been lurking here for some time with the intent of asking
about this very issue. I'm on a MobilePro 790, essentially the same as the
780 except for a bit of persistent RAM (useful for storing the bootloader).
I'm happy to help troubleshoot/test, I'm in the same situation as Michael.
sysinst worked well until the step where sets are extracted, where that
process always errors out. I took the same path of dropping into a shell
and extracting them manually, I'm stuck trying to get the new filesystem to
boot. I suspect this is as simple as not having made the right
slice/partition active, but since my last attempt was using 9.0 I'm happy
to re-do the whole thing for the newer version.
Aaron

Post by Martin Husemann

Post by Michael Grayson
Update on this. After quite a bit of tinkering I was able to
bootstrap the system by using sysinst to build the filesystem and then
manually installing the sets from the shell. I believe sysinst is
broken for this architecture; specifically, it is dumping core from the
progress utility. Not sure who to talk to about that.

I can help with sysinst specific issues, but I don't have that hardware
and no idea how to easily test. What install medium is used, and
can we run it in gxemul?
If basic tools like progress do not work, then something more serious
is going on and we need to fix that first.
Martin

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Please direct questions, flames, donations, etc. to news-***@muc.de

[Michael Grayson]

If it's clock related it could also explain why "progress" crashes in the install.

Post by Michael Grayson
Did some more tinkering last night and reinstalled on a larger CF card. The system
is fairly unstable, with a lot of core dumps happening in seemingly mundane
operations (such as boggle LOL). It seems that the cores might be rtc related. I'm
still investigating.

Post by Michael
Hi Aaron!
I'm happy that I'm not the only one trying to get this going!
At this point I have a working install on my 780, though I'm still struggling with some configuration issues.
Where in the boot process are you getting hung up?
Once you got your partitions/labels set up and your sets extracted, did you remember to switch the kernel in your hpc boot utility from the install kernel (netbsd.gz) to the boot kernel (netbsd-GENERIC.gz)? That was one of the steps I didn't catch on to the first time through the install docs as it's not explicitly mentioned.

Post by Aaron Peters
Hi everyone, I've been lurking here for some time with the intent of asking
about this very issue. I'm on a MobilePro 790, essentially the same as the
780 except for a bit of persistent RAM (useful for storing the bootloader).
I'm happy to help troubleshoot/test, I'm in the same situation as Michael.
sysinst worked well until the step where sets are extracted, where that
process always errors out. I took the same path of dropping into a shell
and extracting them manually, I'm stuck trying to get the new filesystem to
boot. I suspect this is as simple as not having made the right
slice/partition active, but since my last attempt was using 9.0 I'm happy
to re-do the whole thing for the newer version.
Aaron

Post by Martin Husemann

Post by Michael Grayson
Update on this. After quite a bit of tinkering I was able to
bootstrap the system by using sysinst to build the filesystem and then
manually installing the sets from the shell. I believe sysinst is
broken for this architecture; specifically, it is dumping core from the
progress utility. Not sure who to talk to about that.

I can help with sysinst specific issues, but I don't have that hardware
and no idea how to easily test. What install medium is used, and
can we run it in gxemul?
If basic tools like progress do not work, then something more serious
is going on and we need to fix that first.
Martin

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[Michael Grayson]

Another interesting data point, first time I try to set root password it
cores with signal 8 (SIGFPE).

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[Michael Grayson]

So I got in contact with a couple of folks who had posted on the old hpcmips
mailing list before it was closed and asked about working versions etc. Both
stated that using cross-compiling they had working versions (albeit without
PCMCIA or without working suspend/resume). Based on the kinds of errors I've
seen trying to get 7/8/9 working, I'm thinking kernel modification and cross
compile is the only way we'll get this working. I've never built the NetBSD
kernel or system before but I'm gonna give it a shot :-)