[9fans] Plan 9 installation

[9fans] Plan 9 installation

[Lucio De Re]

The problem host is a DELL Optiplex Gs+ 5120L.

The problem hardware bits are the 3Com ethernet adapter and the
Trio VGA adapter.

The S3 Trio 64V+ (N1C3CF - if that means anything, the 86C765 may
well) doesn't have a matching entry in vgadb, bit I found something
else that resembled it.  The results were disappointing, the screen
mapping seemed totally wrong, to the extent that I cannot really
describe it.  What I do remember, though, is the band of random-looking
bits across the middle of the screen.  I only tried 800x600x8 with
any success.

Even more intriguing is the Ethernet card.  The chip is marked
Lucent, the Parallel Tasking version, and on it I found 9640S and,
in case it again means anything, 40-01304.

The only noticeable effect of having ether0=elnk3 in plan9.ini has
been to freeze the display at the point where 9load would scan the
ethernet adapter (that's what it looked like to me).  Strangely,
but maybe not so strangely, I have seven 3C509B-TPOs here and in
trying to determine why the NetBSD netboot complained about not
being able to reset the eeprom, I found that plan9 (or more likely
9load) behaved similarly on one of these adapters as it did on the
Dell.

It sounds to me like there is a bete noir amongst the 3Com adapters
and any suggestions on resolving this problem (from sources closer
to the designers, I imagine) will be very welcome.  The 3C509B-TPOs
have a Lucent chip very similar to the Dell's, except that there
is no device-like number:

	3COM
    40-0411-001
 9804KGA25

more or less in the above fashion is all I can see besides the
Parallel Tasking logo (I see no "LUCENT" in this here case, amazing
how one makes invalid assumptions).

++L

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 installation

[Martin Harriss]

A while back, just for giggles, I threw the install diskette into a
GXi.  Similar VGA and ethernet to what you have.  I got the VGA to come
up simply by inserting the appropriate string into vgalib; it was some
S3 variant.  Since this was only a basic sanity check to see if the
machine would run Plan9, I never did the full install - thus I didn't
get to check out the ethernet.  However, as that machine is no longer
serving its original purpose I will soon be trying to do the full
install.

As far as the ethernet is concerned, have you tried turning off the plug
and play?  (To do that you need the configuration program which you can
download from 3Com.)

Martin


Lucio De Re wrote:
> 
> The problem host is a DELL Optiplex Gs+ 5120L.
> 
> The problem hardware bits are the 3Com ethernet adapter and the
> Trio VGA adapter.
> 
> The S3 Trio 64V+ (N1C3CF - if that means anything, the 86C765 may
> well) doesn't have a matching entry in vgadb, bit I found something
> else that resembled it.  The results were disappointing, the screen
> mapping seemed totally wrong, to the extent that I cannot really
> describe it.  What I do remember, though, is the band of random-looking
> bits across the middle of the screen.  I only tried 800x600x8 with
> any success.
> 
> Even more intriguing is the Ethernet card.  The chip is marked
> Lucent, the Parallel Tasking version, and on it I found 9640S and,
> in case it again means anything, 40-01304.
> 
> The only noticeable effect of having ether0=elnk3 in plan9.ini has
> been to freeze the display at the point where 9load would scan the
> ethernet adapter (that's what it looked like to me).  Strangely,
> but maybe not so strangely, I have seven 3C509B-TPOs here and in
> trying to determine why the NetBSD netboot complained about not
> being able to reset the eeprom, I found that plan9 (or more likely
> 9load) behaved similarly on one of these adapters as it did on the
> Dell.
> 
> It sounds to me like there is a bete noir amongst the 3Com adapters
> and any suggestions on resolving this problem (from sources closer
> to the designers, I imagine) will be very welcome.  The 3C509B-TPOs
> have a Lucent chip very similar to the Dell's, except that there
> is no device-like number:
> 
>         3COM
>     40-0411-001
>  9804KGA25
> 
> more or less in the above fashion is all I can see besides the
> Parallel Tasking logo (I see no "LUCENT" in this here case, amazing
> how one makes invalid assumptions).
> 
> ++L

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 installation

[Lucio De Re]

On Wed, Oct 03, 2001 at 11:31:38AM -0400, Martin Harriss wrote:
> 
> A while back, just for giggles, I threw the install diskette into a
> GXi.  Similar VGA and ethernet to what you have.  I got the VGA to come
> up simply by inserting the appropriate string into vgalib; it was some
> S3 variant.  Since this was only a basic sanity check to see if the
> machine would run Plan9, I never did the full install - thus I didn't
> get to check out the ethernet.  However, as that machine is no longer
> serving its original purpose I will soon be trying to do the full
> install.
> 
I thought I'd done that properly, but I wasn't really trying very
hard.  I'll try it once more.  It certainly goes into graphic mode and
I can even run rio, but it isn't useable.  I don't think it's a
monitor thing, more likely memory mapping.

> As far as the ethernet is concerned, have you tried turning off the plug
> and play?  (To do that you need the configuration program which you can
> download from 3Com.)
> 
I'll give that a try.  I'll also give it a shove with NetBSD just in
case I find something new about it.

Thanks for the reply, I'll keep you posted.  And if you do come up
with a plan9.ini that goes the distance, please let me know.

++L

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 installation

[Lucio De Re]

On Wed, Oct 03, 2001 at 11:31:38AM -0400, Martin Harriss wrote:
> 
> As far as the ethernet is concerned, have you tried turning off the plug
> and play?  (To do that you need the configuration program which you can
> download from 3Com.)
> 
Done, with understandable success (20/20 hindsight).

And got out of VGA hell by assuming that vagdb's Trio64V+ (associated
with a Diamond Stealth card) was incorrect so I moved my entry to an
86C765 controller.  A small change to vgadb would stop misleading the
unwary...

The machine is not yet perfectly functional, but I'm making good
progress.

++L

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 installation

[Lucio De Re]

On Wed, Oct 03, 2001 at 11:31:38AM -0400, Martin Harriss wrote:
> 
> As far as the ethernet is concerned, have you tried turning off the plug
> and play?  (To do that you need the configuration program which you can
> download from 3Com.)
> 
Oops, I meant to thank you, the rest was just chaff, but I got
distracted.  Your help was greatly appreciated.

In passing, it helped me with the NetBSD problem too.  The bootstrap
loader doesn't do PnP, although the kernel obviously does.  But I had
to dedicate IRQ 10 to a legacy card in the BIOS before I got things
working.  That is worth being aware of.

++L