NetBSD on a Sun Blade 1500
Configuration files I've modified or added to get NetBSD to run well on my Sun Blade 1500 with a Sun XVR-100 graphics card.
Xorg and securelevel
Most stuff works out of the box, except for X11 with the Sun XVR-100
graphics card. The card is actually a Radeon 7000, and hence the radeon
driver could be used. However, this is prevented by the default
securelevel.
Here we have two choices. One is to use the wsfb driver instead, which works
out of the box. The downside is that it uses the same bit bepth as the
framebuffer console, which is only 8 bits. The other choice is to compile a
new kernel with options INSECURE. This lets us set securelevel to -1 in
/etc/rc.conf. We can then use 24 bit color depth with the radeon driver.
In my case I've named the kernel after myself, JACKBENNY. But you can rename the kernel config file to whatever you like. For instruction on how to compile a new kernel in NetBSD, read the following (in this order):
For more information about securelevels, see secmodel_securelevel(9) and kernel secure levels.
The keyboard
I live in Sweden so I've set the keyboard layout to Swedish in
/etc/wscons.conf, and then activated wscons in /etc/rc.conf.
To get the Compose key (on a Sun Type 6 keyboard) to work under Xorg I
needed to map the keycode (117) to Multi_key with Xmodmap. I've added this
to the system-wide .Xmodmap under /etc/X11/xinitrc/ so it works for all
users.
Closing thoughts
I really enjoy Sun hardware, but Solaris hasn't aged very well (it's hard to find software for it). NetBSD on the other hand is a really nice system. It's a modern BSD which is both fun and simple to tinker with, and there's lots and lots of software available for it.
The picture below is my own Sun Blade 1500. I have replaced the mechanical harddrive with a 128 gigabyte SSD connected with a SATA-to-IDE adapter.
