NetBSD 6.1.4 on Dell Inspiron 3700

[Jan Stary]

I am trying to install 6.1.4/i386 on this Dell Inspiron 3700,
without much success. The installer's kernel either stops at
piixide0 and doesn't go any further, or uvm_fault's while
detecting esm0.

Here are the two screens (sorry for the jpegs, no cereal around):
Loading Image...
Loading Image...

That's with the default boot option (1).
The same happens with option (2) - no acpi, as the
acpi isn't used anyway, because "BIOS is too old".
The BIOS updates only exist as *.exe files of course.
(Or does anyone have a UNIX friendly way to update
BIOS on these machines?)
The same also happens with (3) - no acpi, no smp,
as there is no smp either.

For comparison, here is a fresh install of OpenBSD:
http://stare.cz/dmesg/dell-inspiron-3700.20140430

Is there something obvious I am missing?
Is there a specific problem with these Inspirons
that I need to solve before I can install NetBSD on them?

My primary motivation is to augment the OpenBSD audio driver
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=maestro&arch=i386
(it's a maestro, see the OpenBSD dmesg) to also have recording.
I was advised to also try other *BSDs and try to steal from them
(I couldn't install FreeBSD either).

Reading http://netbsd.gw.com/cgi-bin/man-cgi?esm+.i386+NetBSD-current
it seems NetBSD has full duplex for these audio chips ...

Jan

[Ottavio Caruso]

I did update the BIOS of my venerable Thinkpad X61 using a freely
available DOS recovery system because I could install Netbsd 6.1.2.

I meant "I couldn't install".

[Ottavio Caruso]

Post by Jan Stary
(Or does anyone have a UNIX friendly way to update
BIOS on these machines?)

System rescue CD has the "flashrom" utility. I have SysresCd but I've
never tried flashrom.

[Ottavio Caruso]

Post by Jan Stary
The BIOS updates only exist as *.exe files of course.

I did update the BIOS of my venerable Thinkpad X61 using a freely
available DOS recovery system because I could install Netbsd 6.1.2. I
can't remember exactly how I did it but if you google or ask a Dell
related forum, there should be a way to update the BIOS using .exe
files.

I used a similar method to this:
http://taint.org/2007/04/23/153737a.html

Alternatively you could use Freedos, but I haven't tried.

I don't take responsibilities if you blow up your Dell.

[atomicules]

Hi Jan,

Post by Jan Stary
I am trying to install 6.1.4/i386 on this Dell Inspiron 3700,
without much success. The installer's kernel either stops at
piixide0 and doesn't go any further, or uvm_fault's while
detecting esm0.

Try the technique I used [here][1] of dropping to userconf and
disabling various drivers to see if you can get it to boot.

Based on [this web page][2] perhaps try disabling piixide. I assume
NetBSD will automagically try some other driver? If it doesn't maybe
you can enable another via userconf? Based on [this thread][3] perhaps
there are some BIOS settings you can tweak/change that affects the
driver used?

Assuming you do eventually get it working you can easily (honestly!)
build your own kernel and enable ACPI (for what it's worth; it doesn't
bring much to me beyond automatically powering off).

[1]: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2014/03/19/msg014316.html
[2]: http://djbnetbsd.drivehq.com/PC/NetBSD/Calisthenics/Older_Laptops/index.html
[3]: https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2009/09/15/msg004514.html