NetBSD: how to configure its X server?

[vxm]

I recently installed NetBSD v6.1.5 via WinUAE. But I can not start X.
I greatly appreciate a step by step guide or any other help.
Thank you.

[Locutus]

I'm not sure, but as a quick attempt you could do as root:

"X -configure" this might actually give you a X config file, depending on the X version it will have as filename xorg.conf or XF86Config and be dumped in /root/.

You can try to start this with X -config $filename, from there you can edit the config file to become more usable.

[vxm]

X -configure returns online help of this server and there is no reference on this option.
I searched on the net (eg http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=67534) but unfortunately it is not working for the 6.1.5 release. In fact, every back links relate to older versions.
I'll try again xdm, the first attempt ended with a complete reinstall.

[Locutus]

XDM is a display manager (Think login screen), for it to function you will need a X display server.

What version of X does netbsd come with? maybe strim could answer that :-)

[strim]

I'm often out of home these days and unable to access my real Amiga, but I will try to install latest NetBSD 7.0 engineering release in WinUAE and see what's needed to run X.

On a real machine it should just work without further configuration.

[vxm]

Originally Posted by Locutus

XDM is a display manager (Think login screen), for it to function you will need a X display server.

According to the manual of the X server, it is usually run from a X display manager.
However, I remember reading somewhere that Xamiga can be run directly from the command line. I also remembered that it had nothing given.

What version of X does netbsd come with? maybe strim could answer that :-)

About X, the version installed here is X11R6.
And about Xamiga and according to http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/Net...amiga/Xamiga.c : 1.1

[vxm]

Originally Posted by strim

I'm often out of home these days and unable to access my real Amiga, but I will try to install latest NetBSD 7.0 engineering release in WinUAE and see what's needed to run X.

On a real machine it should just work without further configuration.

Thanks for the help.

[strim]

I checked it. If use ECS or AGA, then just doing:

/etc/rc.d/xdm start

Launches X Display Manager and X11 server. It works out of the box on NetBSD 7.0 beta as of today (and it should be the same on 6.x).

If you want to use RTG board it gets a bit more complicated, since you need to specify the particular /dev/grfX device as a parameter to X server. Also, most display boards requires messing with grfconfig tool and setting up appropriate screen modes for use with X11.

This document is old, but most of it is still valid for use with RTG cards:
http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-arc...ga/INSTALL.X11

[vxm]

For version 6.1.5, not for me. So I will install the version 7.0 beta. And if anyone is interested, I am willing to share some of my luck.

[strim]

But what happens if you run
/etc/rc.d/xdm start
?

Any messages? RTG in UAE config is disabled?

[mark_k]

I couldn't get X to start using NetBSD 6.0.1 on WinUAE (using an A4000-like config with 64MB motherboard RAM).

Either just typing startx or /etc/rc.d/xdm onestart, the screen goes white for a while then eventually returns to the terminal display.

/var/log/xdm.log says (apart from some "Could not init font path element" errors):

xdm error (pid 434): Hung in XOpenDisplay(:0), aborting
xdm error (pid 434): server open failed for :0, giving up
xdm error (pid 383): Display :0 cannot be opened
xdm error (pid 383): Display :0 is being disabled

Not sure what the problem is. Perhaps theres some timeout which is being triggered, due to emulation being slower than real hardware?

I can start X on earlier versions of NetBSD (e.g. 5.2).

[strim]

Well I have it running here, using latest WinUAE. If anyone wants this config and HDF, I will post it in a moment.

[mark_k]

Yes, please do.

[strim]

Ok, just keep in mind it's rather sluggish. By default the installation boots to NetBSD multiuser text mode (boot block is installed in HDF).

There's no password set for root user. There's also "test" user with "test" password (cause you can't log in as root via xdm). I'd recommend using the unprivileged test user, then su'ing to root if necessary. You can use "startx" to run X11 from the test user (no root necessary for this).

The so-called internet works via slirp (with the exception of icmp).

I had to manually fix two things:
1. Correct /dev/kbd permissions so that the test user can run startx too.
2. Mount ptyfs filesystem (i.e. put it in fstab), because otherwise xterm couldn't start.
These are already fixed in this HDF.

There's some video scaling problem, but that can probably be corrected by messing with WinUAE settings.

I'm uploading the image to my server now...

[strim]

Here it is:

WinUAE config: http://sakura-it.pl/drop/nbsd-no-rtg.uae (just correct the path to Kickstart and HDF)
Installed NetBSD 7 beta image: http://sakura-it.pl/drop/nbsd7.hdf.xz

BTW. I noticed just now there's makemandb starting up to rebuild the man pages database, that will take ages on m68k since it's using sqlite and what not. Just kill makemandb process and disable it in /etc/rc.conf by adding makemandb=NO.

[strim]

Last night I also configured X via emulated Picasso IV, the graphics performance is actually acceptable this way. It's still sluggish due to slow I/O though.

To enable it:
- set up RTG emulation to Picasso IV in WinUAE
- ensure that the system boots with grfcl driver (you'll notice the blue-ish background instead of gray)
- create a file with screen mode definition (I called it /etc/grf )
- put some screen mode there (I took example definition from INSTALL.X11 mentioned above)
- ensure that grfconfig runs during startup (add to /etc/rc.local )
- reboot the machine, check with grfconfig that the screen mode is set up properly
- /etc/rc.d/xdm onestart
- this should bring up X server and Display Manager on emulated Picasso IV

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by strim

It's still sluggish due to slow I/O though.

Use some DMA SCSI controller for best IO performance, NCR 710+ are probably the fastest to emulate. (Practically whole SCSI command is "instantly" executed on host side)

[strim]

Indeed, raw I/O is slightly better now, but NetBSD/amiga has some I/O-related problems even on a real hardware (so I wasn't suggesting it's WinUAE's fault).

[mark_k]

By the way, running WinUAE 3.1 with the -log argument has verbose A4000 IDE logging. I assume that wasn't intentional; 3.0 doesn't do that. So best not use -log when testing an A4000 IDE config.

[amikid]

Reviving this old thread -

I'm using WinUAE 3.5 with NetBSD 7.1. Installs fine, but I cannot mount ptyfs (which ultimately means my X session is xterm-less, i.e., useless).

Before you say "make sure to use the generic kernel", I have. And I've built my own GENERIC kernel that has file-system ptyfs included. No matter which kernel, same error.

Has anyone got this to work on amiga/NetBSD 7.1:

#mount_ptyfs ptyfs /dev/pts
mount_ptyfs: ptyfs on /dev/pts: Operation not supported by device

Any insight/help appreciated.