NetBSD/Dreamcast Distribution

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Bob Dobbs
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NetBSD/Dreamcast Distribution

Post#1 » Wed Jul 11, 2012 8:01 pm

NetBSD Dreamcast Distribution
by David Brownlee of the NetBSD Community

If you have a Windows PC you can:

1. Download BootDreams from http://code.google.com/p/bootdreams/downloads
2. Download and uncompress a NetBSD/dreamcast .bin kernel (*)
3. Create a new directory and put the NetBSD/dreamcast .bin kernel into it - you may need to rename it to ensure it is no longer than 12 characters + .bin.
4. Put a blank CD-R in the drive.
5. Run "Bootdreams".
6. Select "CDRecord" (4th icon).
7. Click "Browse" and select the new directory above.
8. Click "Process" and answer "Yes" to any questions.

(*) NetBSD/dreamcast kernels are available in two forms, as netbsd-GENERIC.bin.gz which is just the kernel and netbsd-GENERIC_MD.bin.gz which includes a ramdisk with basic shell tools. Remember to gunzip the file to get the .bin. (a tool like 7zip should handle that).

A GENERIC_MD kernel will boot up directly to a shell. a GENERIC kernel will prompt for the root filesystem, which will be rtk0 if you have a BBA and NFS serving machine, and gdrom0a for root-on-cd.

The latest released kernel is in:
http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD ... ry/kernel/

The BETA2 test kernel for the upcoming NetBSD-6 release is in:
http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD ... ry/kernel/

There are also nightly builds of -current and the various netbsd- branches at:
http://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/

As a bonus any files you put into the same directory as the kernel should be accessible to the booted NetBSD image, offering some interesting possibilities of "root on CD". Extracting base.tgz into *almost* works as is - it just fails when init tries to run /dev/MAKEDEV as the case-insensitivity of Windows has caused /dev/MAKEDEV to become /dev/makedev :)
Regards,
Bob Dobbs

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elmagicochrisg
Metallic
Posts: 888

Re: NetBSD/Dreamcast Distribution

Post#2 » Wed Jul 11, 2012 9:04 pm

I feel stupid now...
Come, bow before your King!... Bow ya shits!...

Dreamcast DUX Limited Edition for sale (new and sealed)

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dark
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Posts: 2077

Re: NetBSD/Dreamcast Distribution

Post#3 » Wed Jul 11, 2012 9:11 pm

So are there any interesting applications to run on the DC via NetBSD? I fooled around with it 10 years ago and it was neat to have a fully functioning command line OS on the DC - but I just didn't see any interesting use for it. You can't go online so webbrowsers are out, you can't save to harddisk or write to removable media easily so office tools, art tools, graphics tools, are all not so usable. I didn't research much, but NetBSD doesn't seem to have much going in terms of games. Maybe there would be an app that could be compiled to play movies - that might have some utility except that we already have some good homebrew media players on DC already.

I think it's cool that NetBSD is on DC... but it's cool in a "wow you wouldn't expect this" kind of way, rather than a "this is entertaining and useful to me" kind of way.

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Bob Dobbs
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Re: NetBSD/Dreamcast Distribution

Post#4 » Thu Jul 12, 2012 1:00 am

As a whole, you are correct in all that you have written. If you had a NetBSD server to log into, then you open the door for things. This is what they do at NetBSD. This post is meant only to put that info out there if anyone is interested, instead of "not sharing" this info, even if no one is interested.

I do find it fascinating that the NetBSD organization is still supporting the Dreamcast for over a decade and are still going strong. I do find it like using the Linux-DC distribution.
Regards,
Bob Dobbs

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alex
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Re: NetBSD/Dreamcast Distribution

Post#5 » Thu Jul 12, 2012 8:06 pm

Does anybody know how to add HDD support to NetBSD/Dreamcast?

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dark
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Re: NetBSD/Dreamcast Distribution

Post#6 » Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:10 pm

The guy who did it before like 10 years ago, built a custom connection from the modem port and wrote custom drivers for it. A lot of the old links are dead, but that's what I remember.

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BlueCrab
Developer
Posts: 843

Re: NetBSD/Dreamcast Distribution

Post#7 » Sun Jul 15, 2012 12:27 pm

http://www.fuzzymuzzle.com/Kiyoshi/IDE_HDD.htm

^ There's a link to a mirror of the site of the guy who made the driver for NetBSD. The schematic seems to be there, as does the patch itself. Of course, that's against a pretty old version of NetBSD at this point, so I have no idea if you'd be able to apply it to a newer version of the kernel.

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alex
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Re: NetBSD/Dreamcast Distribution

Post#8 » Sun Jul 15, 2012 1:25 pm

I'm know about this site, but i have no idea how to add this patch to NetBSD kernel.

On this video it run NetBSD/dreamcast 5.1_RC2 (with local patch)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctxijoP2gqo

But where i can download this local patch and how to add it to netBSD?

P.S. It needed to test this hardware http://www.dc-swat.ru/forum/thread-977- ... l#pid21854 and if it work correctly SWAT add HDD support to Dreamshell.

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BlueCrab
Developer
Posts: 843

Re: NetBSD/Dreamcast Distribution

Post#9 » Sun Jul 15, 2012 1:41 pm

The patch is linked to from the page I linked to. Here's a direct link.

As to how one would apply it to NetBSD, I have no idea. I've never worked with NetBSD to comment any further on it.

As for using it in homebrew, Dan Potter had added some support to KOS already to deal with that (I assume DreamShell uses KOS). Its in the "navi" subarch in the KOS tree. That said, its really just the low-level stuff. No filesystem access or anything like that. Also, I have no idea if the code still works (although, I don't have any reason to believe it wouldn't). In theory, it should be pretty easy to rig up a filesystem driver to it and have everything working. I've never built the hardware, so I really can't be of much help in regard to anything with it.

That said, if not handled properly, it would likely interfere with any support for the BBA or Lan Adapter, so you have to be careful there.

In the end though, there's far less people who have built such a thing than those that have SD Card adapters. Any support for it in such a program would probably go completely unnoticed and unappreciated by pretty much everyone for that reason. Not many people have the skill or desire to build such hardware, after all.

abs
shadow
Posts: 7

Re: NetBSD/Dreamcast Distribution

Post#10 » Sun Jul 29, 2012 10:20 am

dark wrote:So are there any interesting applications to run on the DC via NetBSD? I fooled around with it 10 years ago and it was neat to have a fully functioning command line OS on the DC - but I just didn't see any interesting use for it. You can't go online so webbrowsers are out, you can't save to harddisk or write to removable media easily so office tools, art tools, graphics tools, are all not so usable. I didn't research much, but NetBSD doesn't seem to have much going in terms of games. Maybe there would be an app that could be compiled to play movies - that might have some utility except that we already have some good homebrew media players on DC already.

I think it's cool that NetBSD is on DC... but it's cool in a "wow you wouldn't expect this" kind of way, rather than a "this is entertaining and useful to me" kind of way.


If you have a BBA you can go online - I had a web server running on my DC (offline atm as I move office). If you have a serial cable you could go online via ppp or slip. NetBSD/dreamcast ships with a set of very old school text console unix games, plus can a whole bunch of unix apps.

As for the DCEXT IDE adaptor - just posted an update on http://dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&p=54743

:)

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