Hello. I recently acquired a NetWinder...
Daniel Gimpelevich
daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us
Mon Mar 6 22:41:39 EST 2006
On Mar 6, 2006, at 3:24 PM, Ralph Siemsen wrote:
> Daniel Gimpelevich wrote:
>
>> I was referring to the website of NetWinder, Inc. The site currently
>> at that address appears to be nothing more than a server running
>> blogging software that had a few random quotes from the previous
>> website pasted in. WHOIS shows something in the South Pacific. I can
>> only surmise that at some point, NetWinder, Inc started hemorrhaging
>> assets, and that's who picked up the website.
>
> You know as much as I do at this point!
Regarding the website, perhaps, but you would know more about who ended
up with the licenses and copyrights, which is what I originally asked.
>> I was under the impression that the firmware included a miniature
>> Linux kernel. Wouldn't that make it a derived work?
>
> Indeed, but the situation is complicated, please see old mailing list
> achives if you really want to go there. The short of it is we don't
> have permission from the copyright holder, even though they should
> release it, since there is GPL code inside. Going after them isn't
> likely to help, especially since they seem to not be interested in
> netwinder. It leaves me in an uneasy situation, I don't want to deal
> with legal issues on either side, so the only choice was to pull the
> binaries.
Evidently, any such discussion took place during an era of the mailing
list archives that I have not yet found. This synopsis seems slightly
paradoxical, since a lack of interest in that property is hardly
consistent with actively turning down requests for permission to use it
rather than taking advantage of opportunities to get rid of it.
>> Mark Lord's nw-9 live image is what I installed for the time being.
>> It had some brokenness that needed tweaking (e.g. X was not setuid
>> root), but it seems to be, in a way, the worst of both worlds:
>> missing some of the NetWinder-specific stuff characteristic of the
>> DM images, yet missing the currentness of Debian (I have not yet
>> looked into Gentoo for ARM, but based on my past Gentoo experiences,
>> I don't expect to be choosing that option.). BTW, the "stuff
>> currently missing from the netwinder.org website" also includes a
>> period of mailing list archives that may or may not prove somewhat
>> enlightening to me.
>
> When netwinder.org moved to OSU, only the web and FTP sites moved, and
> this means we have lost access to things like the pipermail list
> archives. I figured with services like gmane and marc this wouldn't
> be a problem; but perhaps I am mistaken. What era of stuff are you
> trying to find?
The list archives in the old FTP site stop in early 2000, but the
current pipermail begins in late 2004. I have not yet seen the
pipermail archives for the intervening time period.
>> Easier said than done, since the board appeared to be multilayered.
>> If I knew why they actually included the connectors instead of just
>> pads like for the chips/magnetics, I might have a better idea.
>
> I believe it was an FCC regulation that you are not allowed empty
> holes on the box, so the connector was populated for this reason.
Interesting. Makes me want to see a schematic even more...
> Helpful photos:
> http://netwinder.osuosl.org/devteam/ralphs/public_html/images/nw-
> top2.jpg
> and also
> http://netwinder.osuosl.org/users/t/tinymoth/public_html/
> daughtercard.htm
So the board was fully populated at one point? Any idea how that
interfaced with software? Also, I don't see a Winbond video codec chip
anywhere in these pictures. Where would it have been? And what kind of
signals would be accessible through that little card-edge connector
under the fan?
>> Only 1.4-3 is available on debian.org, and most recent word on the
>> matter appears to be this:
>> http://lists.debian.org/debian-arm/2005/11/msg00026.html
>> Version 1.8-1 has been "pending upload" for two weeks.
>
> There was a lot of off-list chatter to get all the little bugs worked
> out; 1.8 was the result. I can send you a copy privately if you wish.
> Actually I should just get my mirror master in order...
>
> > BTW, your
>> directory includes some of the NeTTrom binaries you said should not
>> be anywhere.
>
> Hmm, indeed, they are showing up elsewhere too. We had chmod'ed all
> these files to make them inaccessible (we were hoping to resolve the
> issue with NetWinder Inc.), but it seems that the permissions have
> returned. I'll be correcting this ASAP. Thanks for pointing it out.
Ouch! You even deleted the changelogs! I guess now I'd better hope the
firmware in the machine never gets corrupted...
>> In the last kernel RPM available in the updates directory, dated
>> 01/2004, FastFPE is compiled as a module while NWFPE is compiled into
>> the kernel. Boot messages show that NWFPE is in effect with double
>> precision. How are they irrelevant to binaries that may also be used
>> on non-NetWinder ARM hardware with hard-float support? I think using
>> soft-float on those machines is rather dumb, unless libfloat can
>> detect hard-float support at run time and use it.
>
> Granted, if you want to share binaries across machines, there are
> issues, however, as there are very few ARM systems with FPE's (the
> StrongARM doesn't support one at all), I think you'll find that
> soft-float will become the dominant way of doing things on ARM.
Seems slightly wasteful if libfloat can't use hard-float support even
in the few instances when it's there...
>> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/610127
>
> So we're in unsupported land. Wonderful! Most of my netwinders run
> 2.4.25 kernel so I haven't noticed what's missing in 2.6.x...
The actual post that shows up in Google is this one:
http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/1/20/427
It's not all that discouraging, yet...
>> That would explain why I couldn't get VGA mode to work with the
>> 01/2004 kernel RPM. I would expect VGA mode to be faster. Should I
>> expect it to ever be fixed?
>
> Probably not. Framebuffer is necessary for running X, as there is no
> cyberpro support in X.org to my knowledge. The DM disk images had a
> hacked-up X server, but this work never got merged back, AFAIK.
That's the most disappointing thing I've heard so far. I think
framebuffer reliance is a rather steep price for a software upgrade.
>> I was under the impression that those apps used the Philips and/or
>> CyberPro chips, ignoring the Winbond. Am I wrong? I would expect the
>> Winbond to improve performance over the Philips/CyberPro alone.
>
> Not sure to be honest. The chip may be depopulated on later boards.
I would think its presence would be coupled with the presence of the
Philips chip. Where on the board was this Winbond chip supposed to be?
>> Since NW9 and beyond (e.g. Debian) are the established future of the
>> NetWinder, I believe that it would be worthwhile to preserve its past
>> in that manner.
>
> Agreed, and the recent work on nwutils is a step in that direction.
Maybe the first step, but everything Corel-specific and Rebel-specific
in the DM images should ideally be available.
>> I may obtain an IDE flash drive, which I was considering for the
>> NetWinder, but I can't figure out a way to have it physically inside
>> the case along with a hard disk. Any ideas?
>
> The modern IDE drives are much thinner than the original ones; 9mm
> versus 15mm if memory serves. If you have an original drive, its
> probably past its service life anyways.
It is the original drive. Since it hadn't even had power applied to it
for a period of at least 5 years (as mentioned in the thread to which I
linked at the top of my first post), I would assume it still has some
service life left. The drive I was originally planning to replace it
with is a DeskStar, which it says on your site that I can't use for
that. The alternative drive I had in mind was the original drive pulled
from a laptop that has been heavily used since it was new in 2000. It's
not much thinner. The flash drive is a bit dated as well. Even two 9mm
drives could not be easily sandwiched in that space AFAICT.
> You can also do some clever cable-folding to make use of "free" space
> in the case. Using a two-headed IDE cable, run it on top of the HDD,
> then do a 90 degree diagonal bend, and you'll have room on the side.
> The only issue is supporting it mechanically.
Room on the side? You mean put the second drive in sideways? I don't
quite see how that's possible...
As for the power supply, I have two with the Corel label, and their
plugs barely fit the power connector, becoming entirely dislodged at
the slightest touch. One of them I have not tried with the unit because
I was told that its operational status was unknown, and indeed, its
voltage without load is slightly lower than that of the one that
currently works.
>> Even today, 64-bit 256MB SODIMMs are not all that cheap. I figure
>> very few NetWinders ever had 256MB in them, even though they could
>> really use the boost. I think some type of banana-board would
>> certainly be no less feasible than some of the other RAM upgrade
>> options that have been proposed. I'd bet that some units are still
>> stuck with only 32MB. Some type of light at the end of the NetWinder
>> RAM non-availability tunnel would greatly expand the possibilities
>> of NetWinder use. While the prospect of every remaining unit getting
>> upped to 256MB may only serve to increase software bloat, their
>> potential as internet appliances may offset that if concurrent
>> processes to run are carefully chosen.
>
> If you're adventurous and want to try it, sure :) I have lots of 32MB
> machines that would love more memory, then again, going from 64 to 128
> didn't really give me the kind of boost I was expecting; I think
> applications just assume you've got a gig nowadays.
An app's memory consumption expectations are really
architecture-dependent. Going from 64 to 128 wouldn't sound as
attention-grabbing to me as 32 to 256 or even 64 to 256. Anyway, at
this point I have no clue what info would be needed to bring a
banana-board solution any closer to reality.
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