NetBSD/hppa on QEMU - System Information

NetBSD on PA-RISC

Originally inspired by OpenBSD/hppa the current NetBSD/hppa started as a port for HP 9000/700 systems and carried the name NetBSD/hp700. An initial experimental source release with NetBSD 2.0 in 2004, was followed by a binary release with NetBSD 3.0 in 2005. For NetBSD 7.0 in 2021 the port adopted the 'hppa' architecture name. The port now covers most PA-RISC HP 9000 systems, albeit in 32-mode.

Platform

HP developed the Precision Architecture (HP-PA or PA-RISC) RISC processor during the early 1980s in order to consolidate its compute platforms on to two architectures: Intel x86 and HP PA-RISC. The PA-RISC based HP 9000 series 700 entered the market in 1991

Emulator and Platform

The QEMU system emulator provides a 32-bit PA-RISC emulation based on the HP Visualize B160L (9000/778), a 1996 HP-UX workstation. From HP Visualize B132L, B160L, B180L PA-RISC Workstations - OpenPA.net the B160L system specifications are:

• CPU: PA-7300LC 160 MHz
• RAM: 32 MiB to 1.5 GiB max.
• Bus: GSC, EISA, PCI
• Storage controllers:
• NCR 53C710 narrow SCSI-2
• NCR 53C720 Fast-Wide HVD SCSI-2
• Network interface: Intel 82596CA 10 Mb/s ethernet
• Graphics: Visualize-EG (Graffiti) 2MB
• Audio: Harmony

The emulated system doesn't implement the audio, ethernet or SCSI controllers (yet), instead replacing the SCSI controllers and ethernet interface with PCI devices to provide the same functionality:

• CPU: one (or more) PA-7300LC at 250 MHz
• RAM: 512 MiB default, up to 3.0 GiB
• Bus: GSC, EISA, PCI
• Storage controllers: Symbios Logic 53c895 Fast Wide LVD SCSI-2, PCI
• Network interface: DEC Tulip 21142/43 100 Mb/s ethernet, PCI
• Graphics: HPA208LC1280 aka. Artist

The addition of multi-processor (SMP) support diverges from the source workstation, but provides an alternative means for increasing the system performance.

NetBSD/sparc64 9.2 on QEMU - System Information

NetBSD

A member of the open source family of Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) UNIX-like operating systems, along with FreeBSD and OpenBSD, NetBSD is available for a wide range of hardware platforms (Platforms supported by NetBSD), including support for many systems of historical interest.

SPARC64

Released in 1993 the SPARC Version 9 specification added 64-bit support to the SPARC processor architecture. The first workstations to market were the HAL SPARC64 (Wikipedia) based Fujitsu HALstation Model 300 series in October 1995, followed by the Sun UltraSPARC based Sun Ultra workstations (Wikipedia) in November 1995.

NetBSD - System Information

NetBSD

A member of the open source family of Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) UNIX-like operating systems, along with FreeBSD and OpenBSD, NetBSD is available for a wide range of hardware platforms (Platforms supported by NetBSD), including support for many vintage systems.

System Note

The sample results below are taken from a NetBSD system running in a VirtualBox VM on a Intel i7-860 system running MS Windows 10. So some of the hardware information will look a little different from the results running on actual hardware. For example the the processor identification and the number of cores won't match.

NetBSD/sparc 9.2 on QEMU - System Information

NetBSD

A member of the open source family of Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) UNIX-like operating systems, along with FreeBSD and OpenBSD, NetBSD is available for a wide range of hardware platforms (Platforms supported by NetBSD), including support for many systems of historical interest.

QEMU and SPARC

The user-space and system emulator QEMU provides emulation of a number of 32-bit SPARC systems. The emulated Sun Microsystems machines are Mbus based 'sun4m' systems, which are widely supported by many operating systems. The first of the 'sun4m' systems, the SPARCserver 600MP series, was launched in 1991, with smaller servers and workstations following. The last of the 'sun4m' line left regular support from Sun back in 2000, but support remained in Solaris 9, which left support in 2014. As such these systems were in common use for well over a decade, and were sufficiently common to be used in control systems as well as in server rooms and as desktops.

The default 32-bit SPARC system emulated in QEMU is the Sun Microsystems SPARCstation 5 (Wikipedia), which is a mid-range UNIX workstation of the mid-1990s. The emulation provides:

• CPU: microSPARC II
• RAM: default 128 MiB, max. 256 MiB
• Disk controller: SCSI Sun esp
• Network controller: Sun LANCE ethernet (le)
• Graphics: Sun tcx

For its time these specs are quite respectable, and the server emulations provide alternatives supporting more memory (up to 1,856 MiB in my tests) and additional processors. Since the emulation isn't subject the the limitations of the actual hardware and its connections, processor, disk and network performance often exceed that of the originals.

Note: it is easier to install NetBSD/sparc on QEMU when using the OpenBIOS firmware (QEMU default) than when using Sun's OpenBoot. This suggests that there may be some specific support in NetBSD and QEMU for this configuration.