Whiteline: delta/whiteline CD Series - delta.iso/systems/linux/kernel/announce.913

Text File | 1995-11-25 | 11.2 KB | 245 lines

This announces the availability of version 0.9.13 of Linux/68k. The
source and a precompiled kernel are in /pub/linux/680x0 on
tsx-11.mit.edu.

Changes against the last version:

 - Changes to the Atari DMA sound driver:
    - /dev/audio is emulated at 12 kHz instead of 6 kHz, interpolation
      isn't used anymore, because it doesn't improve quality very much
    - The DMA preprogramming feature is used now.
    - Support for Falcon audio, also addition of 16 bit formats
    - "speaker" device of /dev/mixer implemented for Falcon and TT (to
      turn on/off internal speaker)
    - Better rounding of /dev/mixer values to hardware values
   ([e-mail] &
    [e-mail])

 - A patch to the Amiga mouse driver, that fixes unwanted jumping of
   the mouse. ([e-mail])

 - The ACIA initialization could leave the IRQ line low forever --
   fixed. ([e-mail])

 - Removed the safety assumption that all removable ACSI media are
   changed at open time. ([e-mail])

 - Changes to the Amiga AutoConfig Identification: Renamed
   CONFIG_AMIGA_BOARDS_IDENT to CONFIG_ZORRO ; some new boards
   added ([e-mail])

 - New /proc/hardware file gives infos about detected hardware in a
   machine-dependent fashion. ([e-mail],
   [e-mail], and me)

 - /proc/cpuinfo shows an estimate of the CPU clock frequency based on
   the BogoMips value. ([e-mail])

 - Added support for some Atari memory boards that don't properly emulate
   TT-Ram: MAGNUM alternate RAM ([e-mail]) and the
   BlowUp FX-card for the Falcon ([e-mail])

   Since this changed the Atari bootstrap program, I raised its
   version to 0.8. But note that there are no incompabilities to the
   previous version, only this extension.

 - Fixed typos in various sources
   ([e-mail]),
   fixed mistyped "&"s in s{d,r}.c to "&&"
   ([e-mail])

 - A driver for the serial part of the GVP IO-Extender with a
   16c552 double-UART. ([e-mail])

   Also Jes noted that DTR has to be raised when setting a valid baud
   rate. He did this in the Amiga serial drivers, and I added it for
   the Atari ones.

 - Fixed bugs in the Falcon frame buffer: st-medium mode works again;
   xres must be multiple of 32, not 16; the vsync/hsync length isn't
   included anymore in the lower/right margin for compatibility with
   Geert's fbset ([e-mail])

 - A new parameter in the "atavideo=" list, "keep". (Note that this
   parameter comes in the main list of atavideo, between the commas,
   and not inside an "external:" or "internal:"!) If given, it keeps
   the frame buffer device from calculating any video modes itself and
   tells it to use only the mode found when booting. The goal of this
   is currently too keep the settings for video extensions (e.g.
   ScreenBlaster) on the Falcon, which would otherwise be overridden
   by the driver's own mode calculation, which doesn't know about the
   extension. But this may be useful in future, too, when more
   frame buffer devices do mode settings. (myself, based on idea by .)

 - On the '040, there was a mistake when handling a page-fault for an
   access which spans two pages. This produced spurious crashes. Also
   fixed '040 cache problems with shared memory pages.
   ([e-mail])

 - Support for colormap handling on the SANG MV300 graphics board for
   the Atari TT/MegaSTE (only depths 1, 4, or 8).
   ([e-mail])

   The style of colormap register handling is selected by (another...)
   new, optional "atavideo=external:" parameter at the end (after the
   width of the color register), e.g.:
      atavideo=external:1024;768;8;p;0xfe000000;;0xfec00000;8;mv300
   The default for this is "vga". Currently valid are "vga" and "mv300".

 - Symlinks on AFFS partitions can now be converted to Unix pathnames.
   There's a new mount option "conv_symlinks" to turns this feature
   on. ([e-mail])

 - The IDE interface on Ataris is now tested by accessing 0xfff00039,
   since the old 0xfff00000 is sometimes only readable as a word. TOS
   also uses the ..39 register. (Tnx to Krause, Ravensburg)

   The Falcon CODEC is now tested at 0xffff8940 (instead of
   0xffff8930, which detected it on a TT, too).
   ([e-mail] & me)

   The SCC-DMA is detected again the old way (only read presence of
   the register), writing and reading back data spuriously failed
   sometimes. The FDCSPEED register should never be detected on the
   Medusa. (myself)

 - include/linux/unistd.h should now be ready for including in ELF.
   (myself)

 - The decision whether a Atari SCC's channel A is connected to
   Serial2 or LAN or both has slightly changed:
     Falcon -> LAN only
     others -> TT-MFP or is a MegaSTE -> both
                                      -> Serial2 only
   (myself)

 - I defined cache_clear on the '040 to actually do a push. This
   should fix all the cache problems on the '040. Sure, invalidating
   is slightly faster, but 1) I heard rumors about cache bugs in the
   '040 (maybe that's our problem?), 2) the overhead should not be too
   much, so there should be very little difference in practice, and 3)
   I heard that for the '060, always pushing is better
   anyways. (myself)

 - Many Atari floppy driver changes:

   I've built in some patches from Freddi Aschwanden to the Atari
   floppy driver and fixed the last bug to make the floppy work on the
   Medusa. In that context, I made the track buffering a runtime option
   (instead of a compile option), since "normal" Medusas (without the
   counter card) cannot do track buffering. Freddi also implemented ED
   formats.

   And: Formatting disks is implemented now! For this, you need a
   special fdformat program for the Atari, that does the track
   twisting also implemented by the GEM desktop. You find this program
   and its source in bin/atafdformat.tar.gz in tsx-11's 68k archive.

   To save buffer space and time when autoprobing the disk format, the
   (maximum) drive type is configurable, too. For this, there's a new
   kernel command line parameter, "ataflop=", with the following format:

     ataflop=<drive type>[,<trackbuffering>[,<steprateA>[,<steprateB>]]]

   i.e., all arguments except the first are optional.

   The drive type may be 0, 1, or 2, for DD, HD, and ED, resp. This
   setting affects how much buffers are reserved and which formats are
   probed (see also below). The default is 1 (HD). Only one drive type
   can be selected. If you have two disk drives, select the "better"
   type. The second parameter <trackbuffer> tells the kernel whether
   to use track buffering (1) or not (0). The default is machine
   dependent: no for the Medusa and yes for all others. With the two
   following parameters, you can change the default steprate used for
   drive A and B, resp. Possible values are 2, 3, 6, and 12. Default
   is 3 if the machine has the register of switching the FDC speed or
   is a Medusa, and 6 otherwise.

   I also extended the disk format list to what is supported on PC
   Linux. I.e., most minors there are valid for the Atari now, too. I
   just changed the meaning of two of them to implement some formats
   common on the Atari (HD 82x20, ED 82x40). The list of interesting
   devices for the Atari is now (add 1 for /dev/fd1*):

     b 2   0: /dev/fd0       autoprobing, see below
     b 2   4: /dev/fd0d360   360k disk in 360k drive
     b 2   8: /dev/fd0h1200  1.2M disk (5.25" HD, 80tx15s)
     b 2  12: /dev/fd0D360   360k disk in 720k drive
     b 2  16: /dev/fd0D720   720k disk (DD, 80tx9s)
     b 2  20: /dev/fd0h360   360k disk in 1.2M drive, same as D360
     b 2  24: /dev/fd0h720   720k disk in 1.2M drive, same as D720
     b 2  28: /dev/fd0H1440  1.44M disk (HD, 80tx18s)
     b 2  32: /dev/fd0E2880  2.88M disk (ED, 80tx36s)
     b 2  36: /dev/fd0E3280  3.28M disk (fat ED, 82tx40s)
              alternative name used on PC: fd0CompaQ
     b 2  52: /dev/fd0D820   820k  disk (fat DD, 82tx10s)
              alternative name used on PC: fd0H820
     b 2 124: /dev/fd0H1640  1.64M disk (fat HD, 82tx20s)
              alternative name used on PC: fd0H1600

   I couldn't append the Atari formats (82tx10*n s) to the end,
   since the 7th bit is used for extending the drive number on the PC,
   thus minors >= 128 are not possible.

   Autoprobing now occurs in this order:
     - When the drive type is ED, start here:
        o E3280 (82x40)
        o E2880 (80x36)
     - When the drive type is HD, start here:
        o H1640 (82x20)
        o H1440 (80x18)
        o h1200 (80x15)
     - When the drive type is DD, start here:
        o D820  (82x10)
        o D720  (80x9)
        o D360  (40x9, track stretching)
        o d360  (40x9)

   (most by myself, some Medusa tips/patches from Freddi Aschwanden,
   Andreas Schwab helped in writing the formatting code)

 - Reversed the order of SCSI DMA setup and starting the NCR for the
   Medusa. (The Falcon needs the other order, so an if is necessary
   now.) (Tnx to Freddi Aschwanden)

   But note that there are still other problems with SCSI on the
   Medusa :-( The reason is the disconnecting, which causes problems
   in the DMA. The SCSI standard defines a way to turn off
   disconnecting, but none of the test disks (4!) obeyed that :-((
   There's now a quick&(very)dirty hack: turn off scatter-gather for
   the Medusa, since most disks don't disconnect in a transfer as
   short as 1024 bytes. But this is NO GARUANTEE for not
   disconnecting, so some targets will still make problems... YOU'VE
   BEEN WARNED! If you want to try, do so on a junk partition first.

 - Replaced nop's in all Atari drivers by MFPDELAY() (which is defined
   as an access to mfp.par_dt_reg). This should give an machine
   independent delay of approx. 600ns and is also used in TOS 2.06.
   (myself)

 - Little fix in ICD partition format: Also accept "SWP" and "LNX" as
   partition IDs (before only "GEM", "BGM", and "RAW").
   ([e-mail])

 - I removed some "unused variable" warnings. (myself)

 - Make A1200 IDE work with "better" HDs by simply ignoring unexpected
   interrupts. ([e-mail])

 - I made a Doc/ subdirectory in the Linux source tree, which
   currently contains (only) the documentation for kernel command line
   options. Compared to the version I've posted some time ago,
   "ataflop=" is added and "atavideo=external:" extended.

The precompiled kernel contains both, Amiga and Atari support, so it
is very big. You probably want to compile your own kernel tailored to
your personal needs. Note also that there have been some problems
reported that such big kernels cannot be booted with Amiga Lilo.

If this release doesn't contain any serious bugs, it will be the last
version in the 0.9.x line. For that, I also uploaded a complete source
tree to tsx-11. Further development will happen in 1.2.13.

Roman
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