Re: Expectations for a performa (was [tech]Re: gcc 3.x with Openbsd src tree)

Joel Rees wrote:
> 
> > (watching a mac68k build go...  So far, kicked a network cable out
> > once two days into it (choke! die!) and forgot one thing from
> > upgrade-minifaq.  *sigh*)
> 
> Thanks for the warning, Nick. Which CPU/speed is it?

That is a Quadra 610, 68040/25MHz, 56M RAM, 2G 3600rpm drive.
My Quadra 650 is a 68040/33MHz 72M RAM 4G 5400rpm drive.

I have a 7200rpm 4G drive to put in one of them when I get a round
tuit.

> I've been thinking of toying with openBSD/68k on a performa 550 (33MHz,
> 20MB, 160M internal HD, 2G external HD, no FPU). 

For reference, the Performa 550 is a 68030...

The internal HD is not going to be useful.  Unfortunately,
mac68k/OpenBSD seems to have problems with multiple HDs (macOS on the
small drive and OpenBSD on the external *might* work, I don't recall
if I have tried it).

OpenBSD/mac68k is reported to require the FPU.  My testing sometime
back indicated this was true only for INSTALL -- the installer choked
on my LCIII (no FPU) with a cryptic error message, but if I installed
on the Quadra 610 then moved the HD to the LCIII, it worked fine. 
Past tense, however -- some time back, newer versions of OpenBSD quit
working on the LCIII and my IIsi (which I *do* have a FPU in (add-on
on the NIC).

You don't indicate what if any ethernet card you have -- you may also
have trouble with that...

So, potential problem points: 
* performance
* no FPU
* May not work anyway on your system (or may work fine)
* Network adapter.

> How long can I expect
> it to take to get up on such a box, if at all? 

Days. 8)
(if at all)
 
The key with Mac68k is have other things to do... You start something,
walk away, do something else, come back, start the next step, walk
away, do something else...  This results in not overly disrupting your
life, but it may take days to get the machine loaded and
configured...and a pad of paper to write down where you currently are
in the process is probably not a bad thing. 8)

I tend to do things on a twice-a-day system with the Mac68k's -- check
on 'em in the morning and again in the evening to see if they are
ready for the next step.  My building scripts include e-mailing me
when the job is done (and when the job began, so I can make sure when
I tell war stories that I have my facts right. 8)

> I'd probably have to do
> something like use my iBook to drop the tarball onto the HD to load it.

SCSI on your iBook?  If you can do it, yes -- I used a old PowerPC
machine to set up HDs for my LCIII before I got the (cd booting)
Quadras.

Your machine has a CDROM, so that's an option.  On my early installs,
I loaded a 100M MacOS partition, loaded an FTP client and retrieved
the tar files there...

> Am I looking at too much work?

i386 is certainly easier...but working on different HW is fun, too. 
(hair is really overrated 8-)

Nick.
-- 
http://www.holland-consulting.net