NetBSD/hp300

o About NetBSD/hp300  o

NetBSD/hp300 is the port of NetBSD to Hewlett-Packard 9000 Series 300 and 400 workstations. It runs on almost all workstations from this generation. Series 700 and 800 workstations are not currently supported, but work is underway on NetBSD/hp700.

NetBSD/hp300 is based on work done by David P. Davis at the University of California, Berkeley and the Systems Programming Group at the University of Utah Department of Computer Science, beginning in the mid-80's. It was imported into the NetBSD source tree on May 13, 1993. Complete binary sets were made for the NetBSD 1.0, NetBSD 1.1, NetBSD 1.2, NetBSD 1.3, NetBSD 1.4, NetBSD 1.5 and NetBSD 1.6 releases. Special thanks are extended to David and the Systems Programming Group for their work. Without it, the port would not exist.

Easily installed binary distributions of NetBSD/hp300 are available for the 2.0 release and for snapshots of NetBSD-current.


o NetBSD/hp300 News  o

2004-12-09: NetBSD 2.0 released
NetBSD 2.0 released with support for 48 architectures. More information is available in the 2.0 release announcement.

2004-04-10: APCI com fixed
Some fixes for apci serial, which switched to MI com(4) driver, are committed so that now it's actually functional.

2004-04-08: Framebuffer attachment problem fixed
A longstanding bug in console attachment functions is fixed, so that now DIO based framebuffers (mostly used on HP4xx machines) can be used as console again.

2004-03-01: NetBSD 1.6.2 released
NetBSD 1.6.2 released with support for 40 architectures. More information is available in the 1.6.2 release announcement.

2003-11-08: Switched to MI com
NetBSD/hp300 has switched to use the machine independent serial com device to simplify code maintenance. This currently only applies to the dca and apci devices until others get tested.

2003-08-01: Switched to MI SCSI
NetBSD/hp300 has switched to use the machine independent SCSI layer at last so that all SCSI devices supported by MI SCSI drivers (including SCSI tape devices) are fully functional like other ports.

Archive of NetBSD/hp300 news items


o Supported System Models  o

All systems with a FPU are supported in NetBSD/hp300 (this excludes the 310 and 332). Systems marked with a * do not support the built-in framebuffer. You will need to set up a serial console on these machines.

  • 320
  • 318, 319, 330
  • 340
  • 350
  • 360
  • 362 *
  • 370
  • 345, 375
  • 380
  • 382 *
  • 385

  • 400s, 400t, 400dl
  • 425s, 425t, 425dl
  • 425e *
  • 433s, 433t, 433dl
  • Note: Series 400 machines must be configured in "HP-UX Compatible Boot Mode". Follow these instructions in the FAQ.

Some specific configurations of the above models don't support a local console. In particular, the 362 and 382 have a built-in framebuffer that is unsupported. The 425e (and some rare 4XXt and 4XXdl machines) have their graphics device on the SGC bus, which is currently unsupported. Also, to use local console on a Series 400 workstation, you must currently use a HP-HIL keyboard/mouse (instead of Domain keyboard/mouse).


o Unsupported HP Models  o

The following HP workstations are not and will never be supported under NetBSD/hp300 due to extremely different architectures: 9000 Series 100, 9000 Series 200, 9000 Series 500, 9000 Series 600, 9000 Series 700, 9000 Series 800, 9000 Series 900, 3000 Series, and Apollo DNXXXXX.

Here are a few links that might be of interest to anyone with HP hardware not supported by NetBSD/hp300:


NetBSD/hp300 Information

Mailing Lists

Current Release

Future Releases

Related Links

NetBSD Home Page
NetBSD Supported Architectures
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