OpenBSD Journal

New Hardware Support in 4.2

Contributed by merdely on from the licensed-to-drive dept.

Every release, there is support added for more and more hardware. This release is no different. Among support added, we have 10G network drivers, Serial ATA controllers, bluetooth and various drivers for hppa, sparc64, macppc and zaurus. Read on for details about the new drivers.

  • uts(4), a driver for USB touchscreens
  • ahci(4), Advanced Host Controller Interface for Serial ATA
  • sili(4), a SATA chipset from Silicon Image
  • led(4), a SPARC64 LED driver
  • pmc(4), a driver for the watchdog(4) timer on the National Semiconductor PC87317 SuperIO chip for sparc64
  • bbc(4), a driver for the sparc64 BootBus Controller
  • tht(4), a driver for the Tehuti networks 10Gb ethernet cards
  • xlights(4), a driver for the macppc Xserve LEDs
  • sysbutton(4), a driver for the Xserve G4 and G5 front system identifier button (macppc)
  • astro(4), HPPA Astro Memory and I/O controller
  • elroy(4), HPPA Elroy PCI hostbridge
  • ssio(4), a driver for National Semiconductor PC87560 Legacy IO on HPPA
  • jmb(4), JMicron JMB36x SATA II and PATA Host Controller
  • lcd(4), a front panel LCD display for HPPA
  • piixpcib(4), a driver for Intel PIIX4 ISA bridges on i386
  • pxammc(4), a driver for the MMC/SD/SDIO controller on zaurus
  • pyro(4), a driver for the SPARC64 Host/PCIe bridge
  • sbt(4), a driver for SDIO Bluetooth adapter

Remember, hardware support comes from the developers having the hardware and documentation. Please donate hardware, buy CDs & donate funds, and encourage companies to release documentation so the project can continue improving hardware support!

(Comments are closed)

Comments

  1. By Anonymous Coward (24.89.228.211) on

    The fact that writing LED drivers has, at some point, hit the top of the developers 'todo' list is a likely indicator that hardware support has at this point become pretty damn good =)

    Comments

    1. By Paladdin (213.97.233.52) on

      > The fact that writing LED drivers has, at some point, hit the top of the developers 'todo' list is a likely indicator that hardware support has at this point become pretty damn good =)

      Talking about those little drivers that make a difference, AMD Elan and Geode GPIO support / gpio framework have made a big success in my systems. Nice touch! :D

  2. By Kevin (163.192.21.44) on

    Always happy to see more support for hardware watchdog resets.

    So which UltraSparc models will have watchdog support in 4.2? I see which chips are supported, but I'm not sure which server motherboards have which chips?

    Comments

    1. By Mark Kettenis (82.92.89.47) on

      > So which UltraSparc models will have watchdog support in 4.2? I see which chips are supported, but I'm not sure which server motherboards have which chips?

      pmc(4) is found on the Sun Blade 1000 & 2000 workstations and the Fire 280R, V480 and V880 servers. The V1280, V490, V890 and V1290 might also
      have it.

  3. By Johan Torin (jtorin) jtorin yeah gmail right com on

    While the name is not new, ubt have been greatly updated too.

    Comments

    1. By Mike Erdely (merdely) on http://erdelynet.com/

      > While the name is not new, ubt have been greatly updated too.

      You're right. I went back and forth trying to decide whether to include updated drivers or not. And, while ubt has been re-written, it's not exactly new. So I didn't include it.

  4. By Ray Percival (sng) on http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=search&sort=time&query=sng

    I'll admit to being a bit lazy by asking this here but I've not seen it in casual looking around so I figure it can't hurt much to ask here.

    What's the status of firewire support? Is it just not going to happen? Is hardware a holdup? General lack of interest? Some other reason?

    Thanks and if, as seems likely, I've missed a convo about this someplace else I'd really appreciate a pointer in that direction.

    Comments

    1. By Brad (216.138.195.228) brad at comstyle dot com on

      > I'll admit to being a bit lazy by asking this here but I've not seen it in casual looking around so I figure it can't hurt much to ask here.
      >
      > What's the status of firewire support? Is it just not going to happen? Is hardware a holdup? General lack of interest? Some other reason?
      >
      > Thanks and if, as seems likely, I've missed a convo about this someplace else I'd really appreciate a pointer in that direction.

      Lack of developer interest.

      Comments

      1. By Anonymous Coward (74.13.34.64) on

        In my experience there is also a lack of user interest, I've not ever had a firewire device.

        Comments

        1. By Lennie (82.75.29.106) on

          > In my experience there is also a lack of user interest, I've not ever had a firewire device.
          >

          I've got an Apple iBook with an external harddisk-case that has it.

          It used to be the only simple fast way to access an external harddisk, before there was usb2.

          Comments

          1. By Anonymous Coward (64.81.246.230) on

            >... It used to be the only simple fast way to access an external harddisk, before there was usb2.

            Firewire STILL IS significantly faster than USB, easily 30% everytime I measured. I have plenty of dual/triple-interfaces enclosures that I wish I could use with Firewire on OpenBSD mostly for that one reason -- throughput.

            Yeh yeh I know, 400Mb/s is lower than 480, but Firewire transfers data full-duplex and does without all the hacks and inefficiencies of USB 2.0, and the net result is clear: I can move 35 MB/s over Firewire, whereas USB maxes out around 20~22.
            (measured with several PATA drives in various external enclosures, from Vantec [Prolific chipset - corrupts data, avoid!], no-name [Oxford - good] and Seagate [unknown chipset but no problem]; results are consistent)

            ...Now, I can already hear "but why Firewire when you can have eSATA?" One, Firewire isn't for HDs only; two, laptops don't come with eSATA; three, I can daisy-chain a bunch of drives (and other devices) using Firewire, very cool for cheap & modular multi-TB storage.
            In short, although my only support to the project so far has been some modest financial contribution (3-digit$), I share Ray's hope to see Firewire for OpenBSD in our lifetime and I'm sure plenty of others do too.

    2. By Nickolay A. Burkov (84.47.138.240) on

      > I'll admit to being a bit lazy by asking this here but I've not seen it in casual looking around so I figure it can't hurt much to ask here.
      >
      > What's the status of firewire support? Is it just not going to happen? Is hardware a holdup? General lack of interest? Some other reason?
      >
      > Thanks and if, as seems likely, I've missed a convo about this someplace else I'd really appreciate a pointer in that direction.

      I think another reason may be in that fact that FireWire technology is very insecure because it allows direct device <-> host memory access.

      Comments

      1. By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on

        > I think another reason may be in that fact that FireWire technology is very insecure because it allows direct device <-> host memory access.

        For development that might not be a bad thing

        http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=597886+0+archive/2002/freebsd-hackers/20020414.freebsd-hackers

        Comments

        1. By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on

          It can also be locked down

          http://rentzsch.com/macosx/securingFirewire

  5. By Anonymous Coward (129.174.63.88) on

    What's the progress on the ata -> scsi work? 4.3?

    Comments

    1. By David Gwynne (dlg) on

      > What's the progress on the ata -> scsi work? 4.3?

      it's working fine right now. the new ata drivers (ahci and sili) rely on it.

  6. By Anonymous Coward (66.90.103.37) on

    I was wondering, I read the marc.info archives on the OpenBSD CVS commits.. I also noticed that OPENBSD_4_2 tag/branch is there now.. does this mean all new commits won't make it into the 4.2 release?

    Comments

    1. By Brad (2001:4830:122b:4:216:6fff:fe3e:6327) brad at comstyle dot com on

      > I was wondering, I read the marc.info archives on the OpenBSD CVS commits.. I also noticed that OPENBSD_4_2 tag/branch is there now.. does this mean all new commits won't make it into the 4.2 release?

      Yes. This is the same process used for every release.

  7. By anontrol (203.160.31.227) anontrol@gmail.com on

    ...still no support for Routerboard Hardware.

    Comments

    1. By Anonymous Coward (70.173.172.228) on

      > ...still no support for Routerboard Hardware.
      >
      >

      So you've donated money/time/hardware/documentation/code to enable support for this hardware?

      Comments

      1. By anontrol (203.160.31.227) anontrol@gmail.com on

        > > ...still no support for Routerboard Hardware.
        > >
        > >
        >
        > So you've donated money/time/hardware/documentation/code to enable support for this hardware?

        I'd love to... show me where I can get a trustworthy source that can provide reasonable forward looking cost estimate for porting OBSD feature by feature to designated Routerboard hardware platforms.

        Comments

        1. By Anonymous Coward (216.68.198.57) on

          Re:~trustworthy source router ~:

          Well, trust only what you can verify to your risk management needs, so learn or hire someone YOU trust to review OpenBSD and router needs.
          Get what you pay for, provided you play the game right.
          Even Irix B, had little flaws here and there...pay or learn, thats how it works with trust and complex systems, that do not fit into a normal market.

          Best of luck.

          Best regards to OpenBSD developers.

          Peace all.

        2. By Ray Percival (sng) on http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=search&sort=time&query=sng

          > > > ...still no support for Routerboard Hardware.
          > > >
          > > >
          > >
          > > So you've donated money/time/hardware/documentation/code to enable support for this hardware?
          >
          > I'd love to... show me where I can get a trustworthy source that can provide reasonable forward looking cost estimate for porting OBSD feature by feature to designated Routerboard hardware platforms.

          That's not the way things work. I'd get the bit of hardware you'd like to see supported, get doc for it, then start asking around if any of the devs would like to be given a new toy. They'll write a driver for it. It's a donation.

          See my above question. I'd love to see firewire support. Cause I still think it's better than USB2, in particular, in power over bus devices, I'd happily give a drive or whatever to any dev who wanted it. Stop thinking so much like a suit.

          Comments

          1. By Anonymous Coward (207.59.237.99) on

            > That's not the way things work. I'd get the bit of hardware you'd like to see supported, get doc for it, then start asking around if any of the devs would like to be given a new toy. They'll write a driver for it. It's a donation.

            Actually, it's not a driver; it's another arch. The routerboards are based on 32-bit MIPS hardware (or, at least, the last time I checked they were). The code's in the CVS attic, but is (I think) of ~3.2 vintage.

            Which doesn't get around the fact that it boots off of flash, which OpenBSD doesn't do right now; and even if the flash image were dummied up into a bootloader (as in the Zaurus), a lot of those boards dont' have CF drives, and a number don't have USB ports, either. So, in order to have a tiny router, you've gotta run a boot server. And then it starts becoming stupidly complex to just have a few ethernet ports on a box.

            Comments

            1. By Ray Percival (sng) on http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=search&sort=time&query=sng

              > > That's not the way things work. I'd get the bit of hardware you'd like to see supported, get doc for it, then start asking around if any of the devs would like to be given a new toy. They'll write a driver for it. It's a donation.
              >
              > Actually, it's not a driver; it's another arch. The routerboards are based on 32-bit MIPS hardware (or, at least, the last time I checked they were). The code's in the CVS attic, but is (I think) of ~3.2 vintage.
              >
              > Which doesn't get around the fact that it boots off of flash, which OpenBSD doesn't do right now; and even if the flash image were dummied up into a bootloader (as in the Zaurus), a lot of those boards dont' have CF drives, and a number don't have USB ports, either. So, in order to have a tiny router, you've gotta run a boot server. And then it starts becoming stupidly complex to just have a few ethernet ports on a box.

              Changes nothing about what I said to do if you want it supported.

              So my Soekris with flash doesn't boot? Will having read this make it decide to stop working?

              It takes all of five minutes to set up a boot server to get a box far enough up to do an OpenBSD install.

              So your point is?

            2. By anontrol (203.160.31.227) anontrol@gmail.com on

              > Actually, it's not a driver; it's another arch. The routerboards are
              > based on 32-bit MIPS hardware

              Actually, the latest round is PPC (power PC), but it would be nice of having a OBSD working on the MIPS hardware as well (lots of folks with existing hardware investment). I think one of the sticking points might be the wireless driver support, but personally, I will kill to get my hands on a nice RB150 (5 port jobbie@sub 10 watts) with OBSD. It would make an extremely handy security appliance that could be plugged into the middle of any random ethernet infrastructure.


              > Which doesn't get around the fact that it boots off of flash, which
              > OpenBSD doesn't do right now; and even if the flash image were dummied
              > up into a bootloader (as in the Zaurus), a lot of those boards dont't
              > have CF drives, and a number don't have USB ports, either. So, in order
              > to have a tiny router, you've gotta run a boot server. And then it
              > starts becoming stupidly complex to just have a few ethernet ports on
              > a box.

              Bingo! Spot on. The problem in a nutshell. I would have thought that the OBSD community would have latched on to the RB equipment a long, long time ago (it's good value/performance for money and the OBSD community tends to focus on the embedded end of the computing spectrum), but I guess I was wrong. The RB equipment (MIPS or otherwise) beats the hell out of the WRAP board crap currently being foisted on the pseudo-embedded market.

              Now that Routerboard is about to release an entire line of Power PC based routers (some of them even in rack-mount form factor), I think that the OBSD community would be wise to jump on that bandwagon. A lot of this gear is really in expensive, low power and fits perfectly into emerging markets. Let's face it, that's where the real growth is. Use the assumptions of the status quo to keep it out of growth areas.

              RouterOS is an OK product at all, but there are certain things about it which I just can not stand. OBSD would be a breath of fresh air.

  8. By Anonymous Coward (59.167.41.66) on

    I been using 4.1 on this laptop with a modified kernel without which the system wouldn't poweroff with halt -p. There's also no battery support. Other than these 2 issues, the rest of the system works great. Any work has been done to fix these issues in 4.2? Thanks for the great OS.

    Comments

    1. By Anonymous Coward (74.13.59.40) on

      > I been using 4.1 on this laptop with a modified kernel without which the system wouldn't poweroff with halt -p. There's also no battery support. Other than these 2 issues, the rest of the system works great. Any work has been done to fix these issues in 4.2? Thanks for the great OS.

      You'd need to let people know the make and model for anyone to have even the vaguest of ideas if anything has been done.

      Comments

      1. By Anonymous Coward (69.207.171.114) on

        > You'd need to let people know the make and model for anyone to have even the vaguest of ideas if anything has been done.

        Didn't he include this in the subject line? Granted, he'd probably need to be more specific, since "Thinkpad T60" in reality probably means a dozen or more different motherboard configurations...

  9. By Anonymous Coward (85.178.96.116) on

    Somebody may do know something about the ACPI Status? Is it working? Is it enabled by default?

    And: I've read FFS2 isn't used by default: What are the reasons for this decission? Is it planed to may change this some day? (Well the FS has to do with HW support for me because HDDs get bigger... :) )

    Comments

    1. By Otto Moerbeek (otto) on http://www.drijf.net

      > And: I've read FFS2 isn't used by default: What are the reasons for this decission? Is it planed to may change this some day? (Well the FS has to do with HW support for me because HDDs get bigger... :) )

      Basically FFS2 is not the default because it's new code, only very large filesystems benefit from it, and the bootloaders do not support it.


      Comments

      1. By Anonymous Coward (85.178.96.116) on

        > > And: I've read FFS2 isn't used by default: What are the reasons for this decission? Is it planed to may change this some day? (Well the FS has to do with HW support for me because HDDs get bigger... :) )
        >
        > Basically FFS2 is not the default because it's new code, only very large filesystems benefit from it, and the bootloaders do not support it.

        So it's simply impossible to create a FFS2 rootdisk?!
        Seriously: WTF? :/

        Comments

        1. By Brad (2001:4830:122b:4:216:6fff:fe3e:6327) brad at comstyle dot com on

          > > > And: I've read FFS2 isn't used by default: What are the reasons for this decission? Is it planed to may change this some day? (Well the FS has to do with HW support for me because HDDs get bigger... :) )
          > >
          > > Basically FFS2 is not the default because it's new code, only very large filesystems benefit from it, and the bootloaders do not support it.
          >
          > So it's simply impossible to create a FFS2 rootdisk?!
          > Seriously: WTF? :/

          Ya, seriously, wtf?! Are you that retarded?

        2. By Otto Moerbeek (otto) on http://www.drijf.net

          > > > And: I've read FFS2 isn't used by default: What are the reasons for this decission? Is it planed to may change this some day? (Well the FS has to do with HW support for me because HDDs get bigger... :) )
          > >
          > > Basically FFS2 is not the default because it's new code, only very large filesystems benefit from it, and the bootloaders do not support it.
          >
          > So it's simply impossible to create a FFS2 rootdisk?!
          > Seriously: WTF? :/

          yes, and it probably will remain that way for quite some time.

          really, I can really think of no reason to want to run / on FFS2.

          So you can leave the WTF out.

          Thank you.




  10. By Cabal (Cabal) Cabal on http://www.enginuity.org/

    Any idea when we might see the next OpenSSH release incorporating some of the 4.2 changes? Just curious myself.

  11. By Anonymous Coward (74.13.59.40) on

    What about the nx driver?

    Comments

    1. By Mike Erdely (merdely) on http://erdelynet.com/

      > What about the nx driver?

      It will be in 4.3.

  12. By baldusi (24.232.180.146) on

    Does this means that all the WPA work that's been going around won't make it into 4.2?

    Comments

    1. By Brad (2001:4830:122b:4:216:6fff:fe3e:6327) brad at comstyle dot com on

      > Does this means that all the WPA work that's been going around won't make it into 4.2?

      The code is there, but WPA is not working yet so it doesn't make any
      difference.

      Comments

      1. By Anonymous Coward (80.235.34.116) on

        > > Does this means that all the WPA work that's been going around won't make it into 4.2?
        >
        > The code is there, but WPA is not working yet so it doesn't make any
        > difference.

        Np,

        I think I will donate another amount of money during 2-3 months :)

        All the best,

        Comments

        1. By Anonymous Coward (24.37.242.64) on

          > > > Does this means that all the WPA work that's been going around won't make it into 4.2?
          > >
          > > The code is there, but WPA is not working yet so it doesn't make any
          > > difference.
          >
          > Np,
          >
          > I think I will donate another amount of money during 2-3 months :)
          >
          > All the best,
          >
          >

          Same here.

        2. By Anonymous Coward (89.240.32.207) on

          > > > Does this means that all the WPA work that's been going around won't make it into 4.2?
          > >
          > > The code is there, but WPA is not working yet so it doesn't make any
          > > difference.
          >
          > Np,
          >
          > I think I will donate another amount of money during 2-3 months :)
          >
          > All the best,
          >
          >
          Wifi hardware is good too :)

          (and the driver will be BSD, unlike a donation to linux which will just give you GPLed one)

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