Frequently Asked Questions
Why uClinux?
The i960-CA has no MMU. It was kind of a foregone conclusion. It also has no memory protection hardware.
No memory protection hardware; what is to stop processes from stomping all over their text segments, each other, and the kernel?
Absolutely nothing.
Fortunately, there are protected versions of Linux (the mainline), under which one can test programs before compiling them for the ViewStation. There is no such luck for the actual kernel innards, though.
Why am I doing this?
Because it's there.
No, seriously; it would be nice to be able to place some I/O on a LAN with a little bit of intelligence behind them. I also happen to have embedded computing as a hobby.
I have a ViewStation/@WorkStation and can't get uClinux running on it
What exactly is the failure mode? In what way does it fail? Is there an error message?
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Does it fail in the boot monitor? (black text on white background)
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Does it fail in my bootstrap code? (grey text on black background, but Linux hasn't started yet)
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Does it fail while the Linux boot messages are streaming up the screen?
I can't see the boot monitor. The screen is messed up until Linux starts booting.
If your monitor is fixed sync 640x480 (mine is), the display will be a mess until my code gets control. In other words, you won't be able to see the boot monitor. This is normal. Obviously, I had to temporarily connect a multisync monitor to it to get the boot parameters set up correctly.
The display gets messed up or provides no feedback once your code gets control.
There are several models of ViewStation. I only have one of them to develop and test on. I know that there was an option to send them off and have a different frequency generator chip installed. I have tried to anticipate that, but I cannot test it. There is reference to a variation which uses a normal VGA chip instead of the TI palette and jellybeans. My code has no idea how to deal with that.
The text is hard to read.
Not having seen this myself, I'm not sure what is going on here. I do know, however, that the normal text color is light grey (on a black background), which, depending on the settings (brightness, contrast) on your monitor may be difficult to read.
Is there a Graphical User Interface / Does it have X?
No.
Porting XFree86 would be another involved porting project.
It was a feat just to get primitive console support.
Assuming I get around to reporting it to the 2.4 kernel tree, that can have framebuffer support, possibly making this possible. XFree86 is still a huge beastie, though.
But 2.0 can have framebuffer support. The Palm, Atari, Amiga, etc. ports use it.
Ok, ya got me. 2.0 can have framebuffer support, but I have not figured out how to make it work, and there is pretty much no documentation to make it any easier. It is much more modular in 2.4.
Can you provide me with HDSware/netOS?
Nope.
Besides the fact that this site is about a Linux port, there is the matter of intellectual property.
HDSware, which has morphed into netOS, is the property of Neoware.
Calling them and asking nicely for an ancient version is fruitless, as has been proven by myself and several others.
Of course, they'll be glad to sell you the current version on CD for ~$300 US, but I do not know of anyone for whom that was satisfactory.
Can you point me to some documentation for the machine?
Yup. Neoware has some documentation here. Toward the bottom of the page are the docs for netOS 2.02. You probably don't have netOS, but the System Administrator's Guide has some info pertaining to the hardware/firmware. It's not much, but it's as much as you're going to get in the way of official docs.