Tadpole TP34V VME board Linux Port
This is the second release of a not so buggy linux port for the Tadpole TP34V
VME board. This is a 68030 33MHz board with dual 53c710 SCSI interfaces,
82596 Ethernet, and six serial ports.
My tp34v runs 24 hours per day in the garage, with one 200MB disk on each
scsi interface. I use it as a file server (it exports one of the disks),
and as a way of driving the serial ports of several other VME systems. I
run several copies of 'minicom' inside 'screen'. Record so far is a 90
day uptime (before the serial driver hung the kernel).
To try this out grab the following:
- tpldr.tgz - A simple kernel loader module. IMPORTANT: Updated 8th Feb, ealier version didn't work.
- debian.txt - Instructions on setting up a root file system.
- vmlinux.gz - A kernel image, must be uncompressed
before writing it to disk.
- diffsvme-221p1a.gz - Kernel diffs,
relative to a m68k/linux 2.2.1pre1 kernel source, which you might be able to
find here.
From debian.txt you need to follow the instructions for setting up a disk
on a Linux PC, and then transferring the disk to the TP34V. Read the README
from tpldr.tgz FIRST, as that tells you to leave 3MB free before the first
partition.
This is a 2.2.1pre1 based kernel, so dpkg may give problems with symlinks,
and you do need to set /dev/console to major 5 minor 1.
This kernel image is somewhat improved over the last one:
- Now runs with data cache turned on, except for top 256K of DRAM
- MAC address is still hardwired, so dont try and run two on the same network
- Fixed to use just the first 8MB of RAM (must have at least 8MB)
- SCSI driver now has scatter/gather
- Supports all SCSI IDs on both SCSI interfaces (terminators in the second i/f may be needed if nothing is connected)
- No disconect/reselect on SCSI, async only
- RTC driver works well enough to read the clock at startup, you have to set it by poking the chip directly somehow
- All six serial ports supported, speeds up to 19.2KB, but the serial driver
does tend to hang the kernel from time to time.
- Ethernet driver now works pretty well for me
Richard@sleepie.demon.co.uk - last update 7th Aug 1999