I installed NetBSD on my Socket 7 PC, how do I make it do what I want

luRaichu

Motherboard: Biostar MB-8500TTD (with Jan Steunebrink's patched BIOS ver. J.3)
CPU: AMD K6-2 @ 500MHz
Memory: 256MB PC133 SDRAM, 256MB swap
Storage: Silicon Image Sil3114 SATA controller, 80GB SATA HDD
Network: 3Com 3C595-TX
Graphics: Matrox Millennium G450 (PCI version)
Sound: OPTi 82C931 based ISA card
Misc: Microsoft InPort ISA card and mouse

https://bsd-hardware.info/?probe=7ef8c740df

This is my first time using NetBSD, coming from many years of running Debian Linux.
It's installed alongside Windows 98 in a dual-boot configuration.
I chose NetBSD because I'd wanted to run a modern UNIX-compatible system on my vintage PC, and NetBSD supports old hardware better than Linux does these days.
Since those pictures were taken I've configured the system to my liking. There are three snafus remaining:

When starting X Windows the display does not immediately switch to the X screen
I don't know how to set up my InPort mouse
I don't know how to set up sound

Reguarding X Windows, you can read the X Server logs at the hardware listing linked above.
As for mice and sounds, they're both handled by ISA bus cards. NetBSD already has a driver (mms) for the Microsoft InPort mouse, and the OPTi 82C931 sound chip is Sound Blaster Pro compatible so it can be driven by the sb driver. Unless I'm mistaken it seems I will have to compile a custom kernel and setup these drivers in the configuration file?

jmcunx

256 MB memory + a modern X11, I give you credit for getting it working this much!

Maybe instead of compiling the kernel, try loading modules, if you know what they are. But personally, I think X on this machine will cause it an awful lot of stress. Before that, I would try "X -configure" as root and see what that gets you for an xorg.conf

But, IIRC, Window Maker is one of the lightest Window managers out there, I think only icewm is lighter. So you are good there anyway.

luRaichu

This is what happens when I try to configure X:

X.Org X Server 1.21.1.14
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Current Operating System: NetBSD selkie 10.1 NetBSD 10.1 (SELKIE) #0: Sat Sep 13 11:28:22 EDT 2025  roy@selkie:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/SELKIE i386
 
Current version of pixman: 0.38.4
        Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
        to make sure that you have the latest version.
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
        (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Sat Sep 13 13:22:32 2025
List of video drivers:
        amdgpu
        amdgpu
        ast
        ast
        ati
        ati
        chips
        chips
        cirrus
        cirrus
        elographics
        elographics
        geode
        geode
        i128
        i128
        i740
        i740
        intel
        intel
        kbd
        kbd
        mach64
        mach64
        mga
        mga
        mouse
        mouse
        neomagic
        neomagic
        nouveau
        nouveau
        nv
        nv
        openchrome
        openchrome
        r128
        r128
        radeon
        radeon
        s3virge
        s3virge
        savage
        savage
        siliconmotion
        siliconmotion
        sis
        sis
        tdfx
        tdfx
        tseng
        tseng
        vboxvideo
        vboxvideo
        vmmouse
        vmmouse
        vmware
        vmware
        ws
        ws
        modesetting
        modesetting
        vesa
        vesa
        wsfb
        wsfb
(++) Using config file: "/root/xorg.conf.new"
Number of created screens does not match number of detected devices.
  Configuration failed.
(EE) Server terminated with error (2). Closing log file.

I've already compiled a custom kernel. Turns out the generic i386 kernel was loading the lms driver instead of mms, and that is why the InPort mouse didn't work. I disabled the lms driver in the kernel config and now my mice play nice 🙂
Now I'm trying to setup the sound card. In the config I put sb* at isapnp? since it's an ISA PnP card. Also added the card's PnP ID in isapnpdevs as per here, but:

[     1.000004] isapnp0: <OPTi Audio 16, OPTFFFF, , AUX0> not configured
[     1.000004] sb0 at isapnp0 port 0x534/4,0x380/12,0x220/16,0xe0c/4 irq 7 drq 0,0
[     1.000004] sb0: autoconfiguration error: sbmatch failed
[     1.000004] isapnp0: <OPTi Audio 16, OPT0001, , Game Port> port 0x200/1 not configured
[     1.000004] isapnp0: <OPTi Audio 16, OPT0002, , MPU401> port 0x300/2 irq 7 not configured

In Windows I can see the OPTi card uses IRQ 7, DRQs 3 and 6, and I/O range 0x0240 - 0x024F for its SoundBlaster part (it integrates multiple sound card standards).