NetBSD/hpcmips Developer How-To page

Developing NetBSD/hpcmips

Environment for developers

NetBSD/hpcmips kernel hacking

pbsdboot.exe - boot program from CE environment

About this page

This page contains information that current and potential developers of NetBSD/hpcmips might find useful.

Environment for developers

Self compile Environment

Developers needs Ethernet cards and Large disks. Typical CE system has CF slot and PCMCIA slots. Assign CF to Ethernet card and PCMCIA to ATA/SCSI Interface.

CF Ethernet card
Type1:

Socket Communications CF Ethernet Cards

TDK CF Ethernet Cards

Type2:

Xircom CF Ethernet Cards

PCMCIA SCSI Card
Adaptec SlimSCSI 1460 series Card with any SCSI Disk works fine.
Adaptec SlimSCSI 1480 is Cardbus version,CardBus won't work.

If you want to build NetBSD/hpcmips system from source file. you have 2G SCSI Disks.

If you want to build NetBSD/hpcmips system with all packages from source file,5-10G Disks required.

PCMCIA ATA Card

some ATA-PCMCIA cards works fine, but I recommended SCSI system.

Cross compile Environment

To make Cross Compiler, you can use pkgsrc/cross/mipsel-netbsd package from the The NetBSD packages collection (pkgsrc). After you've installed the mipsel-netbsd package, use the cross make script by .

There's also an experimental ELF binary for a NetBSD/i386 cross compile environment. It is located at /pub/NetBSD/arch/hpcmips/cross/i386-hpcmips/mipsel-netbsd.tgz.

NetBSD/hpcmips kernel hacking

Adding support for a new system

commit syssrc/sys/arch/hpcmips/hpcmips: platid.def
make syssrc/sys/arch/hpcmips/hpcmips dir.
regen syssrc/sys/arch/hpcmips/include: platid_generated.h platid_mask.h
commit syssrc/sys/arch/hpcmips/ dir.
add entry /syssrc/sys/arch/hpcmips/stand/pbsdboot/main.c and commit
keyboard translation table
commit /syssrc/sys/arch/hpcmips/vr/vrkiu.c

console frame buffer

  • virtual TEXT vram implementation
  • optimize scroll
  • hardware accelerator hooking mechanism
  • multiscreen (some bugs, so currently disabled)
  • if you want disable above codes, #define HPCFB_DISABLE

pbsdboot.exe - boot program from CE environment

Preparing to build Windows CE programs

To build the NetBSD/hpcmips Windows CE "standalone" programs, you will need to use a properly configured Windows NT 4.0 system. This section will tell you what you tools you need and how you should configure your system to build the standalone programs. You should read the whole section before you proceed, but beware, some of the names of the products mentioned here are a bit confusing.

Building the NetBSD/hpcmips standalone programs requires Japanese language character encoding ("code page") support in Windows NT. If your installation of Windows NT does not already support Japanese language character encoding, you will need to install the Japanese Language Pack. (Windows NT installations in the United States will typically not include this support, even if you've installed Japanese language support for recent versions of Internet Explorer.) To install the Japanese Language Pack:

  1. Put your Windows NT 4.0 CD-ROM into your PC's CD-ROM drive.
  2. With the Windows NT Explorer, enter the "langpack" directory in the root of the CD-ROM.
  3. Right-click on the file named "Japanese" ("Japanese.inf" if you have Explorer set to display known file extensions), and select the "Install" menu option to install the language pack.
  4. When the system has finished installing the language pack, reboot your system.

Microsoft Visual C++ and the Windows CE Toolkit for Visual C++ are required to build the NetBSD/hpcmips standalone programs. Versions 5.0 and 6.0 of Visual C++ are known to build the standalone programs correctly. (You might be able to substitute the Windows CE Platform Builder or the Windows CE Embedded Toolkit in place of the Windows CE Toolkit if you don't have the latter, but this documentation assumes that if you have the expensive tools you know how to use them.) To prepare these tools:

  1. Install Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 or 6.0.
  2. Install the Windows CE Toolkit for Visual C++ corresponding to your version of Visual C++ (e.g., the Windows CE Toolkit for Visual C++ 6.0, if you're using Visual C++ 6.0. (If you are doing a custom installation, you do not have to install the cross-compilation tools for platforms other than "WCE MIPS." You should install both the Palm-size PC and Handheld PC components of the Toolkit.)

Finally, in order to build a boot loader with support for directly reading kernels from BSD FFS disk partitions, you will need the Windows CE raw disk I/O control header, diskio.h, to be present in the "sys/arch/hpcmips/stand/include" directory of your source tree. (This header is not required if you're content to build a version of the boot loader which only supports reading kernels from FAT file systems.) diskio.h is part of the Windows CE Platform Builder (formerly known as the "Embedded Toolkit"), and can be found in one of the following locations depending on Platform Builder/Embedded Toolkit version:

Windows CE Embedded Toolkit for Visual C++ 5.0:
Unknown. If you know, send us mail.
Windows CE Platform Builder 2.11:
On Disk 1, at the path "\public\common\oak\inc\diskio.h."
Windows CE Platform Builder 2.12:
On Disk 2, at the path "\public\common\oak\inc\diskio.h."

Building the Windows CE Boot Program (pbsdboot.exe)

TODO

Further references for the Microsoft tools

Japanese characters in menu

Having Japanese characters in menu is very important for Japanese version Windows CE users. Because, newer version of Windows CE (Japanese version; 2.11?) treats CF/PC Card folder as 'MEMORIKA-DO' (spelled in Japanese, Katakana), not 'Storage Card'.

On the other hand, older version of Windows CE(Japanese version; 1.0 and 2.0?) treats them as 'Storage Card'.

Therefore, both of 'Storage Card' and 'MEMORIKA-DO' are necessary for Japanese users.

(Does GetLocaleInfo API of WindowsCE help us?)

frame buffer type names

D2

2bpp

Dxx_yyyy and M2L_y

xx means frame buffer depth

y means the pixel value of the foreground color in hexadecimal

'M2L means most significant bit to least significant bit. The MSB is left pixel and LSB is right pixel if a byte represents two or more pixels. 'L2M means reverse order. The 'x2' option provides virtual double width screen. For example, Palm Size PC, Freestype, which has LCD of 320x240, pretend to has LCD of 640x480. It had been hack for debugging until serial port got available. Please don't mind about it.

Share source tree with other ports

set OBJMACHINE environment to create object directories namend obj.${MACHINE} instead of obj.

binutils support WinCE

binutils support WinCE for arm, sh3, mips. Does anybody try to build pbsdboot with binutils? What shall we do?

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