IDE Controller Errors in Linux on AO486

[alexoughton]

Guys, an exciting update following-on from this work. I have got Windows NT 4 working! Thread here: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4175

[Bas]

Another bit of info that may be useful to someone. I'm testing with OS/2. None of them (I tested 1.0, 1.2, 1.3, 2.0 and 3.0-CD) work except for the installer for 2.1, which throws an interesting error which is in line with what Windows NT 3.51 does.

Just before partitioning the system drive with HPFS, the installer throws an error stating that the floppy drive isn't ready. It actually *does* start formatting the hard drive when you retry the operation.

This gives me a hint as to some sort of timing issue somewhere that may fudge up the floppy drive if only for a very short period of time. This is also what NT 3.51 complains about: inaccessible boot device. The boot device at that point in time is the floppy disk.

The installer is now proceeding. I'm doing the floppy juggle as I'm typing this, but partitioning and formatting C: works for OS/2 2.1 with an unpatched AO486 now.

Just thought I'd share this bit here, might be useful to someone.

[alexoughton]

Any clues about the floppy drive issue are definitely appreciated, as that was a big problem for my NT install. It's something I would like to try and fix long-term but may not have the skills to do so.

Regarding whether or not your drive is formatting, I have found that some disk operations are very slow on NT due to an excess of debug information being sent to the MiSTer's UART console. Commenting-out many of the printf commands has provided some speed boosts. You might find it interesting to plug in a USB cable to see if your console is spamming with debug logs right now. If that's the case it might be why things are taking so long.

[Bas]

It's indeed taking forever, but working. Installing OS/2 2.1 right now.

[Bas]

Sadly, no dice.. The installation seems to work until the first reboot from C:, then the system crashes. I'll redo the process, take detailed notes and record the VHD image at every step. Maybe the modern OS/2 community has an alternative ATA driver as well but I'm very rusty at this bit. I literally haven't touched OS/2 since 1993.

All other OS/2 versions I tried crash with either an error about $SCREEN (mostly the 1.x series) or the IBMS506 driver, which is the IDE controller.

[flynnsbit]

eComStation can get passed the IBMS506 driver issue as it uses the Dani version. It still won't boot though. I did have some luck by either turning off L1 or L2 as well, but it still wasn't stable or 100% working from an install.

[Bas]

Trying to graft that driver onto older revisions of OS/2. Slow progress..

[sajattack]

Excellent work @alexoughton, just tested and my Gentoo image boots now.

[alexoughton]

Glad to hear it @sajattack. Thank you as well for providing the image. Having a working Linux image has been incredibly useful for the other troubleshooting I’ve been doing for NT. If you have a guide you could provide for how to compile the kernel correctly for the MiSTer, I would really appreciate it!

[sajattack]

Glad to hear it @sajattack. Thank you as well for providing the image. Having a working Linux image has been incredibly useful for the other troubleshooting I’ve been doing for NT. If you have a guide you could provide for how to compile the kernel correctly for the MiSTer, I would really appreciate it!

I used this config for the kernel https://github.com/scanlime/avc-edge-li ... nel/config (from a 486 voting machine with no fpu) and this guide for the rootfs https://github.com/yeokm1/gentoo-on-486

[thera34]

Reviving this thread a bit for Gentoo Linux on ao486

IF you're having issues with the root pass on the previously shared VHD by @sajattack and you're not into Linux password recovery, I talked with him and he graciously offered a new version here: https://nextcloud.paulsajna.com/index.p ... G8dYpoyZHk.

The root pass would be now:

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MiSTerFPGA!

Have fun with it and big thanks to @sajattack for his awesome work on this !

My Great Game - My Great Capture_2024-05-17_19-39-43.png (32.12 KiB) Viewed 2338 times

[thera34]

Just an incentive/very quick and raw notes before creating a more verbose thread/post after I get it polished:
Debian 4 Etch - (2.6.18-6-486 kernel) working !!! Also PPP. And frigging package install/update over Internet due to Debian archive repo mirror !!! F*** yeah ! WMs experience might vary, jwm, AmiWM are ok, others might take longer time to load
Slackware 12 (2.6.21.5 kernel) - works fine, booting time and loading BlackBox WM ones (other WMs might greatly vary) are quite fast, ppp working ok, usable ssh (ssl still bit too old), but F*** YEAH !!!

Notes on Debian 4:
Get the debian-40r9-i386-CD-1.iso, the usual archiving site is a good source. Search for:

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Debian 4.0 r9 „Etch” 1CD+3DVD i386 (32-bit)

With PCem (didn't try yet 86box/qemu) create a simple Pentium machine(I used Socket7 Asus P/I-P55T2P4 with a Pentium CPU at 120MHz, 128 megs of ram, ISA Soundblaster 16 PnP, some ISA Tseng videocard)
Create a raw img (I used 2.5 GB, more than enough for now with enough space left).
Boot the machine, enter BIOS to detect HDD (usually option 1 NORMAL, matching the number of sectors when it was created) and change boot sequence to CD-ROM first
Install base Debian following the on-screen guide (optionally can install/modify the below stuff after reboot, otherwise you can do it directly on ao486)
Copy the resulted VHD to MiSTer, boot it (also mount the ISO) and:
-modify /etc/fstab on the cdrom part from /dev/hdb to /dev/hdc and uncomment if necessary
-mount /cdrom (just to check if it works correctly)
-apt-get install ppp
-editor /etc/resolv.conf and add a line with

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nameserver 8.8.8.8

save and close
-to start PPP:

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pppd /dev/ttyS0 115200 noauth defaultroute &

-add in /etc/apt/sources.list:

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deb http://archive.debian.org/debian/ etch contrib main non-free
deb-src http://archive.debian.org/debian/ etch contrib main non-free

-do "apt-get update", "apt-get upgrade" to have the "latest" packages from Debian Archive repo
Rest is yours to have fun with

Slackware 12:
As very quick notes if anyone else wanna have fun, get bootable iso(s) whatever Slackware version from here http://slackware.cs.utah.edu/pub/slackw ... kware-iso/ or any other mirror
Slackware 12.0 for sure works on ao486, checking for newer versions now
With PCem (didn't try yet 86box/qemu) create a simple Pentium machine(I used Socket7 Asus P/I-P55T2P4 with a Pentium CPU at 120MHz, 128 megs of ram, ISA Soundblaster 16 PnP, some ISA Tseng videocard)
Create a raw img (I use 6.5 GB, more than enough for now with enough space left).
Boot the machine, enter BIOS to detect HDD (usually option 1 NORMAL, matching the number of sectors when it was created) and change boot sequence to CD-ROM first
Boot the install CD, use huge.s kernel at boot prompt NOT the default hugesmp.s one which is for Pentium III !!!
Once booted and logged as root:
fdisk /dev/hda (or /sda), create a root partition type Linux 83 active 6GB plus a swap type Linux swap 82 for the rest 500MB (dunno if really needed, I never saw it being used on ao486 tbh)

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mkswap /dev/hda2 (or /sda2)
swapon /dev/hda2 (or /sda2)
setup

From now on it's pretty much menu driven standard Slackware install, deselect unwanted kernels/packages/libraries/whatever else which would not work on ao486 (USB, wifi, acpi, apdm, scsi, parallel port etc), select whatever X packages, which to be default window manager, swap CDs and so on. Be sure to select ppp !
Skip network setup. When asked, select modem to be the /dev/ttyS0.
Put LILO in MBR, use first option (standard smth) to boot in CLI (you can always startx later).
Reboot from HDD, check/modify /etc/fstab to reflect CD-ROM (/dev/hdc or /dev/sdc, depending the distro). Also add in /etc/resolv.conf a line with nameserver 8.8.8.8 (nano is a good text editor) and it can then be transferred to MiSTer and boot up.
PPP connection should start (takes about half a minute to establish) with

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pppd /dev/ttyS0 115200 defaultroute &

L.E. Patience is really a virtue