Re: LinkSys NSS4000 NAS w/ RM7000+PMON2000

Andy Ruhl sez;

> Hmm, nice machine. Dual gigabit ethernet controllers and 4 disks...
> 
> Do you know if you can netboot it similar to the NSLU2?

PMON2000 is a feature rich bootloader made by the man who
ported the world first real BSD Unix to R4000.  The port was called
"pica".

http://www.opsycon.se/pmonmain

Started from the original PMON, PMON2000 has been acumulating
many features by importing code from NetBSD and OpenBSD.  I would
not be surprised seeing NASS4000 even boots ELF kernel on FFS
filesys.

> This thing could make a really nice box. It's still a little pricey though.

The 64bit OS capable machine could be made in lower price and I feel
puzzling indeed about the wrong combination of HW.

- PM8172 is SysAD32 system controller.  By replacing it with other
  "industory grade" one like Marvell Discovery LT you can buy
  133MHz/166MHz SysAD64 frontside bus w/ DDR333 memory and
  buildin GbE.
- Having RM9120/9220(dual E9K core) could be instant win (but
  PMC-Sierra abandond the entire RM9000 line)
- then moderate replacement choice would be RM9150.

Toru Nishimura / ALKYL Technology