Have tried Plan9 on Intel D945PLrn mainboard P4 Dualcore and
MP, Network and AHCI doesnt work out of the box.

ok, i try to resolve AHCI first...

the pci ids are 0x8086/0x27c0 for the SATA controller (82801GB) and
i tried to add this to the match function as Tich in sdiahci.c, but this
fails on:

if (p->mem[Abar].bar == 0)
continue;

SATA mode is on [Enhanced] not [Legacy].

any ideas to progress further here?

This machine also fails MP. I get mpintrenable() errors for any devices
including the keyboard and then i end up on the boot prompt unable
to type anything.

mpintrenable: out of choices -1 -1

cinap

there's a reason for this check. :-) if bios isn't setting up Abar, then
either you're chipset doesn't support ahci or it isn't configured for
ahci. generally the options are Enhanced mode with Ahci enabled.
they're different for esb southbridges.

then it's highly likely that your mp table is incorrect. in bios there is often an
option for mp specification version or some such. you want to set that to 1.4
if you have it. unfortunately, i suspect this is not your problem.

i put a version of mp.c on sources (/n/sources/contrib/quanstro/mp.c) that
provides the file #P/mpirq which prints out the mp table irq assignments.
if you can figure out how to save this stuff automatically with mp irqs enabled,
this should have enough information to say for sure.

i feel your pain. i have a new motherboard with some bad entries in the mp
table, too.

On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 8:29 PM, erik quanstrom quanstro.net> wrote:

Not surprising. What we see, all the time, is that the mobo makers
just barely understand these tables, and usually get them quite wrong.
We've also seen cases where the MP table for one board was used,
verbatim, on a very different board. Finally, the vendors are always
willing to rewire bits of the board, but don't quite get around to
updating the table.

Short form: PC hardware is crap.

ron

Caveat emptor. I thought we lived in a world that aimed to please the
consumer...

++L

On 2008-Feb-23, at 21:41 , lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:

There is a lot of PPC-based Apple gear coming on the used equipment
market. Considering the tight control Apple placed on the hardware,
porting the MD kernel bits has many fewer moving targets. And the lack
of hardware documentation sucks equally between the two platforms.

That ought to be good news and I am pleased to hear it. I presume,
but I have no experience, that there is already a growing performance
gap? Yet you'd think something like Plan 9 would bridge that gap by
making more efficient use of the hardware (less cpu-devouring
eye-candy) and therefore would attract at least some developers.

The ways of this grave new world are so very mysterious...

++L

On 2008-Feb-23, at 22:16 , lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:

Sure. The Apple hardware is leaping behind the latest and greatest of
the Intel/AMD world.

And Plan 9 doesn't need to be there, either.

I have a 1.x G4 GHz Mac Mini that can't realistically keep up with
Leopard (server). But it will make a kick ass Plan 9 CPU server.

My point is that it's easier to fight the static Apple hardware, with
it's absent hardware doc, than to fight the dynamic Intel/AMD
hardware, with its/their also missing doc. At least the obsolete Apple
gear is a non-moving target, so we stand a chance ... The x86 stuff
changes on an hourly basis, and cannot be kept up with :-(

We violently agree on this point. There may be less agreement as to
how to port Plan 9 to such hardware: there seems to be a drift towards
virtualisation which of course eliminates any efficiencies (yes, I
know I'm exaggerating) contributed by Plan 9.

I think the philosophy (who said it first?) that something isn't
finished as long as there are features that can be removed - which
very clearly applies to Plan 9 - is being replaced by a culture where
Plan 9 is needed to squeeze the last teraflop out of the fastest
ultracomputing platform available at any time. I'm not sure that even
a middle ground is possible, while it is a matter of faith that the
first philosophy will eventually triumph over the opposing culture.

Some, of course, do not see the conflict here at all.

++L