Hardware Supported by NetBSD
Platforms ('ports')
Not yet integrated porting efforts
Suggested Ports
- ARM
- Motorola M680X0
- Motorola PowerPC
- Motorola M88K
- MIPS
- Hitachi Super-H (SH3/SH4)
- Intel i386 and above
- Other
Machine-Independent Devices
Machines and hardware platforms
Platforms ('ports')
Ports in the source tree (top)
This table lists details for each port, including the latest formal release or snapshot ('snap'). Complete binary and source distributions are available for ports with formal releases.
Those ports which are not yet considered stable are marked experimental ('exper').
Port CPU Machines Latest Release acorn26 arm Acorn Archimedes, A-series and R-series systems 3.0 stable acorn32 arm Acorn RiscPC/A7000/NC and compatibles 3.0 stable algor mips Algorithmics MIPS evaluation boards 3.0 stable alpha alpha Digital Alpha (64-bit) 3.0 stable amd64 x86_64 Advanced Micro Devices AMD64(tm) 64-bit CPUs 3.0 stable amiga m68k Commodore Amiga, MacroSystem DraCo 3.0 stable amigappc powerpc PowerPC-based Amiga boards none exper arc mips Machines following the Advanced RISC Computing spec 3.0 stable atari m68k Atari TT030, Falcon, Hades 3.0 stable bebox powerpc Be Inc's BeBox snap exper cats arm Chalice Technology's Strong Arm evaluation board 3.0 stable cesfic m68k CES's FIC8234 VME processor board 3.0 stable cobalt mips Cobalt Networks' Microservers 3.0 stable dreamcast sh3 Sega Dreamcast game console 3.0 stable evbarm arm ARM evaluation boards 3.0 stable ews4800mips mips NEC's MIPS based EWS4800 workstations snap exper evbmips mips MIPS-based evaluation boards 3.0 stable evbppc powerpc PowerPC-based evaluation boards 3.0 stable evbsh3 sh3 Evaluation boards with Hitachi Super-H SH3 and SH4 CPUs 3.0 stable evbsh5 sh5 Evaluation boards with SuperH SH5 32/64-bit CPU 3.0 stable hp300 m68k Hewlett-Packard 9000/300 and 400 series 3.0 stable hp700 hppa Hewlett-Packard 9000/700 series snap exper hpcarm arm StrongARM based Windows CE PDA machines 3.0 stable hpcmips mips MIPS based Windows CE PDA machines 3.0 stable hpcsh sh3 Hitachi SH3 and SH4 based Windows CE PDA machines 3.0 stable i386 i386 i386 family IBM PCs and clones 3.0 stable ia64 itanium Itanium family of processors none exper ibmnws powerpc IBM Network Station Series 1000 3.0 stable iyonix arm Iyonix ARM pc none exper luna68k m68k OMRON Tateisi Electric's LUNA series 3.0 stable mac68k m68k Apple Macintosh 3.0 stable macppc powerpc Apple Power Macintosh and clones 3.0 stable mipsco mips Mips family of workstations and servers 3.0 stable mmeye sh3 Brains' mmEye Multi Media Server 3.0 stable mvme68k m68k Motorola MVME 68k SBCs 3.0 stable mvmeppc powerpc Motorola MVME PowerPC SBCs 3.0 stable netwinder arm StrongARM based NetWinder machines 3.0 stable news68k m68k Sony's m68k based "NET WORK STATION" series 3.0 stable newsmips mips Sony's MIPS based "NET WORK STATION" series 3.0 stable next68k m68k NeXT 68k 'black' hardware 3.0 stable ofppc powerpc Generic OpenFirmware compliant PowerPC machines 3.0 stable pc532 ns32k PC532 1.5 stable playstation2 mips SONY PlayStation 2 snap exper pmax mips Digital MIPS-based DECstations and DECsystems 3.0 stable pmppc powerpc Artesyn's PM/PPC board 3.0 stable prep powerpc PReP (PowerPC Reference Platform) and CHRP machines 3.0 stable sandpoint powerpc Motorola Sandpoint reference platform 3.0 stable sbmips mips Broadcom SiByte evaluation boards 3.0 stable sgimips mips Silicon Graphics' MIPS-based workstations 3.0 stable shark arm Digital DNARD ("shark") 3.0 stable sparc sparc Sun SPARC (32-bit) 3.0 stable sparc64 sparc Sun UltraSPARC (64-bit) 3.0 stable sun2 m68k Sun 2 3.0 stable sun3 m68k Sun 3 and 3x 3.0 stable vax vax Digital VAX 3.0 stable walnut powerpc IBM 405GP PowerPC "walnut" evaluation board 3.0 stable x68k m68k Sharp X680x0 series 3.0 stable xen i386 Xen Virtual Machine Monitor none exper
Ports by CPU architecture (top)
This table contains the same set of ports as in the above list, but ordered by MACHINE_ARCH CPU architecture value (returned by 'uname -p'). Machines of the same MACHINE_ARCH share the same userland binaries (with a few device specific exceptions). Note that both big endian (eb) and little endian (el) MIPS and SH3 ports are supported.
CPU Port alpha alpha arm acorn26 acorn32 cats evbarm hpcarm iyonix netwinder shark hppa hp700 i386 i386 xen m68010 sun2 m68k amiga atari cesfic hp300 luna68k mac68k mvme68k news68k next68k sun3 x68k mipseb evbmips (either eb and el) ews4800mips mipsco newsmips sbmips (either eb and el) sgimips mipsel algor arc cobalt evbmips hpcmips playstation2 pmax sbmips ns32k pc532 powerpc amigappc bebox evbppc ibmnws macppc mvmeppc ofppc pmppc prep sandpoint sh3eb evbsh3 (either eb and el) mmeye sh3el dreamcast evbsh3 hpcsh sh5 evbsh5 sparc sparc sparc64 sparc64 (Can also run sparc binaries) vax vax x86_64 amd64 (Can also run i386 binaries)
Experimental ports (exper) (top)
Experimental ports are those marked 'exper' in the above table, and have generally not yet been distributed as part of an official NetBSD release. They are available through the experimental NetBSD-current source distribution and some are additionally available via pre-compiled binary snapshots provided by the port maintainers from time to time.
We encourage you to test experimental ports, but not all of them will provide stable service. Those that are stable and ready will be available in the next currently scheduled release. Look at the individual pages for details, or ask on the port's corresponding mailing list.
Ports history (top)
The following table shows the date of inclusion of each port matched with NetBSD releases.
Port / Release Date i386 1993/03/21 NetBSD 0.8 release amiga 1993/07/05 hp300 1993/08/07 NetBSD 0.9 release pc532 1993/09/09 mac68k 1993/11/29 sparc 1994/02/01 sun3 1994/02/23 pmax 1994/05/27 vax 1994/08/02 NetBSD 1.0 release alpha 1995/02/13 atari 1995/03/26 mvme68k 1995/07/25 NetBSD 1.1 release arm32 1996/01/31 x68k 1996/05/05 ofppc 1996/09/30 NetBSD 1.2 release bebox 1997/10/14 NetBSD 1.3 release newsmips 1998/02/18 macppc 1998/05/15 next68k 1998/06/09 sparc64 1998/06/20 NetBSD 1.4 release mmeye 1999/09/13 evbsh3 1999/09/13 hpcmips 1999/09/16 news68k 1999/12/09 luna68k 2000/01/05 arc 2000/01/23 prep 2000/02/29 cobalt 2000/03/15 amigappc 2000/03/25 arm26 2000/05/09 sgimips 2000/06/14 mipsco 2000/08/12 NetBSD 1.5 release dreamcast 2000/12/11 hpcsh 2001/01/17 sandpoint 2001/02/04 hpcarm 2001/02/23 sun2 2001/05/09 algor 2001/05/28 cats 2001/06/10 evbppc 2001/06/14 amd64 2001/06/19 acorn32 2001/11/20 mvmeppc 2002/02/27 hp700 2002/03/03 evbmips 2002/03/06 sbmips 2002/03/07 acorn26 2002/03/24 pmppc 2002/05/31 NetBSD 1.6 release evbsh5 2002/10/18 ibmnws 2003/10/19 xen 2004/03/11 iyonix 2004/10/14 NetBSD 2.0 release NetBSD 3.0 release ews4800mips 2005/12/29
Not yet integrated porting efforts
General Information about not yet integrated ports (top)
For ports not listed above, no support is available as formal release or in the mainline experimental source distribution.
In most cases, people porting to a new machine wish to stay unknown to the public. This is a necessity, as answering "me too"-style requests just takes too much time. If you really think you can contribute to porting to a new machine (read: have started already; or know how to do it, but just don't want to duplicate efforts; or know lots about the internals of the machine which are not publicly known) you should contact the core group, who will provide contact to your co-strugglers.
Details about some not yet integrated ports (top)
However, for these machines, more details are available:
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Pete Hufnagel CaptnZilog@aol.com is working on a port to the m68k based Apollo workstations. He has most of the information he needs, and is aiming towards initial support for netbooting via a serial console.
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A software emulated Pentium machine running on PowerMAC machines. The University of Melbourne, Department of Computer Science has developed a set of patches for NetBSD/i386 to enable it to run under VirtualPC.
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A semi-PC compatible line of computers made by NEC. (Page is in Japanese).
Suggested Ports
ARM (top)
-
An ARM7100 based handheld palmtop with 4-16MB of RAM, 640x280 greyscale display, CompactFlash slot, serial, audio, IrDA, and an excellent keyboard. Uses the same series of CPU as NetBSD/arm32.
Contact:
<port-arm@NetBSD.org>. -
ARM7500FE based network computer, primarily sold into schools in the UK. Stephen Borrill has recently lent a machine to a NetBSD developer who is interested in working on a port.
Contact:
<port-arm@NetBSD.org>. -
ARM7500FE based machine with on-board USB and ISA slots. Normally runs RISC OS, so should be able to be supported by NetBSD/arm32.
Contact:
<port-arm@NetBSD.org>. -
Yet another ARM7500FE based RISC OS box. Should be no harder than the rest of them to support.
Contact:
<port-arm@NetBSD.org>.
Motorola M680X0 (top)
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The Q40 is a 68040 based successor to the Sinclair QL, with enhanced graphics, storage and peripheral capabilities.
Contact:
<port-m68k@NetBSD.org>. -
Other 68k based VME boards
Tadpole (with their TP34V), BVM, and Densan produce boards similar to the Motorola mvme68k range. A linux port to the Tadpole and BVM boards is available.
Contact:
<port-mvme68k@NetBSD.org>. -
Cisco M68K based routers
One of cisco's previous range of routers were 68030 and 68040 based. An example would be the AGS+, a rackmount multibus system with 16MB of RAM, 2MB flash RAM, serial and multiple ethernet and other interfaces. These can sometimes be found on sites such as ebay for a few hundred dollars.
Contact:
<port-m68k@NetBSD.org>. -
NCR Tower 32
The Tower 32 is a 68020-based machine from about 1987 that normally runs System V release 3, pretty much straight as it came from AT&T. It's at the slow end of things by today's standard. The specification is probably:
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Stock 68020 VM hardware
-
Around 16 meg max of RAM
-
QIC-150 tape drive on a dedicated controller
-
Two ST-506 system disks
-
Multibus-I expansion bus (IEEE-796)
-
Optional SCSI
This machine apparently had a custom MMU, not suitable for paged virtual memory.
Hardware docs are likely to be nonexistent, since the machine was built before NCR abandoned the 68000 line for Intel, which in turn was before AT&T bought them out and then spun them off again.
Contact:
<port-m68k@NetBSD.org>. -
-
(from Iggy Drougge)
m68k machines built throughout the eighties and early nineties, until DIAB was bought by Bull.
The earliest versions are 68000 and 68010 based, but from the DS90/20 on, they're fully 32-bit. There were single-processor as well as SMP machines. The top of the range is believed to have featured four 68040 processors. The native OS is DNIX, a kind of System V or System III with a real-time kernel.
Apart from the m68k processor(s), there is/are VME bus(es), SCSI (believed to be Zilog) and some proprietary bus called DB. There is already support for almost every component spread across the existing NetBSD ports, excluding SMP. The machines themselves are multiuser systems with support for dozens of terminals given the right expansion cards.
Iggy has a DS90/20 workstation which he has kindly made available for anyone who wishes to attempt a port to these machines.
Contact:
<port-mvme68k@NetBSD.org>.
Motorola PowerPC (top)
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Apple Nubus powermacs
The early PowerPC Macintosh systems were built along the lines of their earlier mac68k systems: nubus architecture and custom ROMs. The NetBSD/macppc port requires OpenFirmware, which is not available on these systems. MkLinux, an Open Source effort partially funded and engineered by Apple, supports several of these older boxes. Bob Nestor <rnestor@metronet.com> would be willing to loan his Performa-5320 All-in-One to anyone interested.
Contact:
<port-macppc@NetBSD.org>. -
Densan produce a range of PowerPC based VME and CompactPCI systems. These boards share a common system ASIC which mimicks the PCC2 used in Motorola's mvme68k systems.
Contact:
<port-powerpc@NetBSD.org>, and port-mvme68k@NetBSD.org. -
IBM RS/6000 (MCA based)
The pre-PowerPC RS/6000 machines were based on the POWER and POWER2 architecture, with Microchannel (MCA) bus. There is i386 MCA bus code in NetBSD tree now, which would help with the MCA aspect.
Contact:
<netbsd-ports@NetBSD.org>
Motorola M88K (top)
The Motorola 88000-series microprocessors (88100+88200 and the 88110) were Motorola's RISC processors of the late 1980's and early 1990's. They abandoned the m88k systems to concentrate on the PowerPC with Apple and IBM, but not before several good systems were built around the 88k.
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Motorola mvme88k
Motorola produced a line of 88k-based VME boards--similar to their 68k cousins that are supported in the mvme68k port. OpenBSD has support for some of these cards.
Contact:
<port-mvme68k@NetBSD.org>, and Allen Briggs<briggs@ninthwonder.com>. -
DG AViiON
Data General produced a number of AViiON systems, from uniprocessor workstations to multiprocessor servers, based around the 88k architecture. Allen Briggs has one of the dual-processor deskside units (the AV400), but has no documentation.
Contact:
<port-m88k@NetBSD.org>, and Allen Briggs<briggs@ninthwonder.com>. -
OMRON luna88k
One of the earlier 88k systems was the OMRON LUNA-88K, a 4-processor machine used for Mach development at CMU. These purportedly have some documentation, but it's also purported to be in Japanese. These systems are fairly rare.
Contact:
<port-m88k@NetBSD.org>, and Allen Briggs<briggs@ninthwonder.com>.
MIPS (top)
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64-bit MIPS
Many of the existing NetBSD/mips platforms are capable of running 64-bit code. A NetBSD/mips64 port would be similar to NetBSD/alpha with 64-bit longs and pointers and 32-bit ints.
Contact:
<port-mips@NetBSD.org>. -
Densan produce a range of MIPS based VME and CompactPCI systems. These boards share a common system ASIC which mimicks the PCC2 used in Motorola's mvme68k systems.
Contact:
<port-mips@NetBSD.org>, and<port-mvme68k@NetBSD.org>. -
Tektronics/NCD X-terminals
NCD produced a wide range of X-terminals, including the MIPS R4600 based HMX, HMXpro, and HMXpro24. The HMX and HMXpro were 8bit and the HMXpro24 24bit displays, and all machines had custom ASICs as coprocessors. NCD recently released an RM5200 based successor to the HMXpro24. The biggest obstacle to the port would be obtaining technical information on the machines.
Contact:
<port-mips@NetBSD.org>. -
Nintendo 64
Given the progress on the NetBSD/sh3 port to the Sega Dreamcast, another obvious target could be the MIPS R4000 series based Nintendo 64 games console. Games consoles share many interface and resource limitations with embedded and palmtop devices, opening a possibly more serious side to the port.
Contact:
<port-mips@NetBSD.org>.
Hitachi Super-H (SH3/SH4) (top)
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Densan produce a range of SuperH based VME board systems. These boards share a common system ASIC which mimicks the PCC2 used in Motorola's mvme68k systems.
Contact:
<port-sh3@NetBSD.org>, and<port-mvme68k@NetBSD.org>.
Intel i386 and above (top)
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Sun 386i (roadrunner)
Sun's attempt to produce an Intel based workstation. Based on a 20 or 25Mhz 386 CPU plus FPU, 4MB to 16MB RAM, intel 'ie' ethernet, 'cg3' or 'cg5' framebuffer, SCSI, serial, parallel, and several ISA slots. Many drivers could be shared with the sun3 and sparc ports. Ran SunOS 4.0.{1,2,3}.
Contact:
<netbsd-ports@NetBSD.org>. -
Nokia 9110 communicator
Cellular modem and personal communicator in one. Reputed to be a based on a pretty standard i486 with 2MB of RAM and a custom keyboard setup. Support for I/O and memory expansion options could make this more interesting, particularly the cellular modem.
Contact:
<netbsd-ports@NetBSD.org>. -
Densan produce a range of x86 based VME and CompactPCI systems. These boards share a common system ASIC which mimicks the PCC2 used in Motorola's mvme68k systems.
Contact:
<port-i386@NetBSD.org>, and<port-mvme68k@NetBSD.org>.
Other (top)
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NetBSD/pdp10 is a suggested port of NetBSD to the 36bit DEC PDP-10 computers, their clones, and PDP-10 software emulators.
Contact:
<port-pdp10@NetBSD.org>[ subscribe | archive ] -
IBM's proprietary minicomputer range. Early models were based on an IBM CISC CPU. Current models have switched across to the Motorola PowerPC. There are some linux folk who have set up a Linux on AS/400 Project with some information, including posts by two IBM engineers as to the lack of hardware support in the CISC processors for several important features needed by a unix-like OS.
Contact:
<netbsd-ports@NetBSD.org>. -
A NetBSD/390 port should be straightforward now that there's a gcc for the 390 available. Besides, it wouldn't even require access to a real machine to start development since the Hercules S/390 emulator is in the package tree.
Contact:
<port-s390@NetBSD.org>[ subscribe | archive ] -
An early workstation from IBM, based on the IBM '032' or ROMP CPU. Also known as IBM models 6150, 6151 or 6152. Ran both AIX and a customised version of BSD (called AOS).
Contact:
<netbsd-ports@NetBSD.org>. -
There were a few variants of the i960 architecture that included an MMU, but virtually all of the i960 devices shipped, such as X-terminals, printers, and routers, were based on the cheaper non MMU versions.
Contact:
<netbsd-ports@NetBSD.org>. -
Densan produce a V800 based VME board system. This board uses a system ASIC which mimicks the PCC2 used in Motorola's mvme68k systems. The V800 is a RISC chip designed for embedded applications - a port would be something of a challenge.
Contact:
<tech-ports@NetBSD.org>, and<port-mvme68k@NetBSD.org>.
Machine-Independent Devices
Hardware Devices (top)
Pseudo-device and logical drivers (top)
Machines and hardware platforms
Generic hardware (top)
NetBSD has made a good showing on a wide range of generic platforms, from powerful servers to handheld and embedded devices. Please take a look to ports table and refer to specific port home page for details.
Hardware designed for and with NetBSD (top)
A wide variety of commercial hardware runs NetBSD itself. See our list of commercial hardware.
Emulated platforms (top)
Some of the mentioned hardware machines may be emulated (and even simulated) by various software emulators. Please refer to the section called Running NetBSD on emulated hardware for details.
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