NetBSD/sparc news archive


November 2005
2005-11-02: NetBSD 2.1 released
NetBSD 2.1, the first maintenance release of the netbsd-2 release branch, has been released with binary distributions for 48 architectures. More information is available in the 2.1 release announcement.

December 2004
2004-12-09: NetBSD 2.0 released
NetBSD 2.0 released with support for 48 architectures. More information is available in the 2.0 release announcement.

April 2004
2004-04-22: SMP support for hyperSPARC CPUs in -current
Paul Kranenburg has enabled support for multiple hyperSPARC CPUs in models which support this CPU type.

March 2004
2004-03-01: NetBSD 1.6.2 released
NetBSD 1.6.2 released with support for 40 architectures. More information is available in the 1.6.2 release announcement.

December 2003
2003-12-13: JavaStation-NC support now in tree
Martin Husemann has announced that JavaStation-NC support is now in the tree, and no longer requires patches. This means the JavaStation-NC systems will be fully supported in NetBSD 2.0.

July 2003
2003-07-17: sun4c longstanding MMU bug fixed
A very old bug in sun4c MMU functions has been fixed. This impacts stability on all sun4c CPUs and removes the need for very slow software caching on SPARCstation 1, 1+ and IPC models. The fix will be in the next release of NetBSD. See the post by Paul Kranenburg about this issue for more information.

April 2003
2003-04-21: NetBSD 1.6.1 released
NetBSD 1.6.1 released with support for 40 architectures. More information is available in the 1.6.1 release announcement.

January 2003
2003-01-07: SMP enabled in -current
SMP support on sparc has been enabled in -current and has been relatively stable on a SPARCstation 20/712, sun4/690 and other systems. See the FAQ and Matthew Green's message to the port-sparc mailing list.

September 2002
2002-09-14: NetBSD 1.6 released
NetBSD 1.6 released with support for 39 architectures. More information is available in the 1.6 release announcement.

July 2002
2002-07-22: NetBSD 1.5.3 released
NetBSD 1.5.3 released with support for 20 architectures. More information is available in the 1.5.3 release announcement.

March 2002
2002-03-13: Recent hardware support in -current
Martin Husemann has added nell sbus-to-PCMCIA support. See his announcement. Valeriy E. Ushakov has enhanced audiocs support, quashing bugs, adding audio input, and support for JavaStations. See his announcement and the current status.

January 2002
2002-01-08: JavaStation support
Valeriy E. Ushakov has announced experimental support for JavaStation-1 and JavaStation-10 systems with patches to -current. His patches add support for netbooting, keyboards, mice, and X. See the JavaStation status for the current status of JavaStation support and the location of his patches.

November 2001
2001-11-11: New -current snapshot available
A new -current snapshot based on 2001-11-11 sources is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server.

September 2001
2001-09-26: MI softintr(9) implemented
Matthew Green has committed changes to switch the NetBSD/sparc port to the generic MI softintr(9) interface for software interrupts.

2001-09-13: NetBSD 1.5.2 released
NetBSD 1.5.2 released with support for 21 architectures. More information is available in the 1.5.2 release announcement.

August 2001
2001-08-31: New -current snapshot available
A new -current snapshot based on 2001-08-30 sources is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server.

July 2001
2001-07-11: NetBSD 1.5.1 released
NetBSD 1.5.1 released with support for 21 architectures. More information is available in the 1.5.1 release announcement.

May 2001
2001-05-13: 1.5.1_BETA2 snapshot available
A NetBSD/sparc 1.5.1_BETA2 snapshot, based off of 1.5.1 sources as of 2001-05-10, is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.5.1 was released on July 11th, 2001)

April 2001
2001-04-16: 1.5.1_BETA snapshot available
A NetBSD/sparc 1.5.1_BETA snapshot, based off of 1.5.1 sources as of 2001-04-06, is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.5.1 was released on July 11th, 2001)

March 2001
2001-03-26: NetBSD/sparc using a pool cache for pmap allocation
Paul Kranenburg has updated NetBSD/sparc to use a pool cache for pmap allocation. The cached pmap structures include a ready-to-use level 1 page table (on sun4m) and MMU context. A simple `fork()' test shows an improvement in spent system time of around 4 percent.

2001-03-01: Physical memory handling changes
Paul Kranenburg has updated the code that manages physical memory in NetBSD/sparc (see the NetBSD-current versions of pmap.c, machdep.c, and autoconf.c), resulting in these "user visible" changes:

If you encounter any problems, please drop Paul a note.


February 2001
2001-02-04: New compat14 package available
Matthew Green has added a compat14 package to pkgsrc. This package contains NetBSD 1.4.3 shared libraries, and can add compatibility for dynamically linked executables compiled under NetBSD/sparc 1.4 (a.out) to a NetBSD/sparc 1.5 (elf) machine.

January 2001
2001-01-30: New -current snapshot available
A new -current snapshot based on 2001-01-30 sources is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server.

December 2000
2000-12-06: NetBSD 1.5 released
NetBSD 1.5 released with support for 20 architectures. More information is available in the 1.5 release announcement.

2000-12-04: New -current snapshot available
A new -current snapshot based on 2000-12-01 sources is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server.

November 2000
2000-11-25: NetBSD 1.4.3 released
NetBSD 1.4.3 released with support for 16 architectures. More information is available in the 1.4.3 release announcement.

2000-11-07: 1.5_BETA2 snapshot
A NetBSD/sparc 1.5_BETA2 snapshot is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.5 was released on December 6th, 2000)

October 2000
2000-10-31: New Mozilla port available
Charles Hannum has ported Mozilla to the SPARC CPU type. A prebuilt package for NetBSD/sparc 1.5 is available, see the mozilla page under the NetBSD Packages Collection. More information on this, and the other CPU types that there are new Mozilla ports for, is available in Charles' message in the netbsd-announce mail archive.

2000-10-20: Third 1.5_ALPHA2 snapshot
The third NetBSD/sparc 1.5_ALPHA2 snapshot is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.5 was released on December 6th, 2000)

2000-10-16: Second 1.5_ALPHA2 snapshot
The second NetBSD/sparc 1.5_ALPHA2 snapshot is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.5 was released on December 6th, 2000)

August 2000
2000-08-30: First 1.5_ALPHA2 snapshot
The first NetBSD/sparc 1.5_ALPHA2 snapshot is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.5 was released on December 6th, 2000)

July 2000
2000-07-13: First 1.4.3_ALPHA snapshot
The first sparc 1.4.3_ALPHA snapshot, based off of 1.4.3 sources as of 2000-07-07, is now available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.4.3 was released on November 25th, 2000)

June 2000
2000-06-24: Sun 4/400 machine support
NetBSD/sparc 1.5 (currently in testing stage) now supports the sun 4/400 class of machines. Thanks to the Luleå Academic Computer Society for providing access to a sun4/490 that enabled this work to be completed.

2000-06-22: First 1.5_ALPHA snapshot
The first sparc 1.5_ALPHA snapshot, based off of 1.5 sources as of 2000-06-20, is available in the NetBSD/sparc snapshot area of the ftp server. (snapshot deprecated. NetBSD 1.5 was released on December 6th, 2000)

April 2000
2000-04-12: Hardware acceleration under RASTERCONSOLE
Hardware acceleration features for use with the RASTERCONSOLE option have been added.

March 2000
2000-03-25: NetBSD/current has been verified to run
on Sun's Javastation 1, which is a sun4m class machine, based on a microSPARC II processor.

2000-03-19: NetBSD 1.4.2 released
NetBSD 1.4.2 released with support for 16 architectures.

2000-03-14: Tadpole SPARCbook 3GS and 3GX serial support
Tadpole SPARCbook 3GS and 3GX models have working serial ports in NetBSD -current. The serial ports can be set to always on / on when open (default) / always off using tadpolectl(8).

December 1999
1999-12-23: NetBSD-current snapshot
Based on 1999-12-23 sources, at: ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/sparc/snapshot/.

August 1999
1999-08-02: Tadpole SPARCbook 3GS and 3GX console support
Tadpole SPARCbooks 3GS and 3GX models have a working console driver in NetBSD -current. The driver emulates a Sun cgthree video so that the unmodified Xsun server will work.

May 1999
1999-05-20: hyperSPARC support
hyperSPARC machines should now work in NetBSD -current. Plans are underway to provide patches for 1.4.1

1999-05-12: NetBSD-1.4 released
The NetBSD 1.4 release supports sixteen architectures, and was distributed free by Usenix to all 1999 ATC attendees.

August 1998
1998-08-29:
Sbus `esp' and `le' and their DMA engines restructured to live in sys/dev/sbus and use a common LSI64954 DMA engine driver

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