2021 (and beyond) in review

This article is incredibly late this year, thus it touches some events from the first half  of 2022 as well. The blog was quite dormant last year due to personal factors, however, they were few interesting developments in hardware/software side, including new purchases.

HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M183fw

The need for the printer was getting more and more difficult to ignore, because of this I finally decided to buy one last year. Since, I got burned by the inkjet printers in the past, I have been looking for the laser one this time. Preferably, I wanted a multi-function device with a scanner, with options for network connection, including WiFi support. Colour support was a must too. Despite having pretty clear requirements, it proved to be pretty challenging to find one with all those features available. Laser printers tend to be business oriented, and they tend to be big, heavy, as well as expensive. In addition to previous expectations, I was also was trying to ensure that printer supplies will be readily available at least in the near future. There were some attractive options until I have checked availability of toners' cartridges. Eventually I ended up choosing HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M183fw multi-functional printer/fax for around ~300 euros at the time of purchase. I definitely don't need fax, but other than that, it had all the points covered above. It even has Web UI interface for management. The biggest disadvantage is an old style physical printer management panel with the small screen. It is a bit cumbersome to use, but the dimensions are relatively compact, just slightly bigger than a typical ink-jet multi-functional devices. Windows and Linux were quite well supported, I could print and scan using network connection, however scanning quality on Linux was disappointing, forcing me to use Windows, if detailed scanning is needed. Printing is fine in both OSes though. I didn't manage to make it work in NetBSD (using network), however it was not essential for my case, thus I didn't try too hard. It's neat feature is it's ability to print from the Android phone, however it requires to create and use an HP account, which is honestly in my opinion, an unnecessary prerequisite. What is more, the HP app has issues with login operation, which redirects to the browser first, doesn't authenticate upon returning to the app. Eventually, I found out that only Opera mobile browser allows me to perform the operation. Multiple application updates didn't resolve the issue as of today. In conclusion, I am quite satisfied with the printer despite all the oddities, but some peculiarities can be a show-stopper for others, especially for Linux users. Finding cartridges may also be more difficult than I would like to, but supplies are available to buy the last time I have checked. The device is also affected by CVE-2022-3942 vulnerability without any patches available except recommendation to disable LLMNR feature, which I followed myself.

QNAP Dual-port SFP+ 10GbE network

Last year I bought one more 10Gbit network card. This time it was QNAP QXG-10G2SF-CX4 dual port SFP+ PCIe Gen3 x8 card for around 180 euros at the time of purchase. It is based on Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx (now Nvidia) network controller, which attracted me to purchase it. This controller is supported by NetBSD and gives me an opportunity  to migrate my NAS server to this OS, as it was originally intended a decade ago :). Not sure if it will really happen soon, but the network card was the major missing piece in the puzzle. I may do some trials this year, but the final decision depends on various performance, stability and compatibility factors. On NetBSD I hit an issue that it wasn't working on current branch (future NetBSD 10 release), though it did on netbsd-9 one. After some investigation, it appeared to be due to my CPU core count, which was not a a power of 2  (6/12 cores/threads). RQ Table size was based on number of cores, though controller requires it to be a power of 2 by reference manual. Thus the patch was applied to ensure the correct number. Currently the network card is not actively used, but I am planning to swap it soon. Dell QLogic 57810 network card will go to a well deserved rest or will be sold/donated.

QNAP QXG-10G2SF-CX4 network controller

WD Blue SSD SN550 NVMe 1TB

The final significant purchase was made early this year in the form of WD Blue SN550 NVMe M.2 SSD.  I bought it for around ~100 euros. SSD doesn't have the most modern specs, nevertheless it is considerably faster than my SATA based SSD, at least on paper. I also preferred bigger capacity over more modern specifications. It is currently used as a major storage for my desktop NetBSD installation and I didn't have any visible issues with it so far. I haven't performed any speed tests though, thus I can't provide any numbers for comparison unfortunately.

WD SN550 NVMe SSD

ClockworkPi DevTerm

One of the most anticipated devices last year was a DevTerm computer. I bought the A04 model by the end of 2020, but this specific configuration appeared to be the last one to be ready for shipment. While RPi CM3 or A06 based models were shipped starting August/September of the last year, A04 shipments started around late 2021, even making some people anxious about that. I received mine in the beginning of this year. However, the whole process didn't turn out perfectly as I wanted it, starting from incorrect tracking info to a broken screen upon arrival. Moreover, I also damaged the WiFi antenna during assembly. Luckily, ClockworkPi team sent me replacements promptly without additional charge! Though I needed to wait again, I finally managed to fully assemble it as a complete working device by the end of January. A04 model is based on AllWinner H6 SoC and comes with pre-installed Clockwork OS (Armbian) Linux distribution. The device is really cute and nice, screen seems to be a bit small, but keyboard is surprisingly usable. I was hoping to use it pretty frequently, however it is not the case as of now. I did a one time attempt to boot NetBSD as well, however unsuccessfully. Likely it should be possible to run (considering that SoC is supported), but probably requires some work on boot configuration and properties, as it is the case for various specific ARM devices. Pre-installed Linux also had some peculiarities, for example, not all cores are enabled by default. It requires small script to enable them. I didn't manage to make HDMI work yet, but I believe this issue was discussed extensively in ClockworkPi forums and possibly solvable. Also I needed to install an app (or script) to change screen brightness with a simple shortcut, otherwise it was usually too low by default. Sound works OK. Battery life with moderate usage is quite short unfortunately, but it can be partially resolved by having at least two pairs of batteries, which can be easily replaced even on the fly. I hope to utilize it more in the future, but only time will tell.

ClockworkPi DevTerm

Biostar FX9830M NAS

At the end of 2020 I upgraded my NAS server to Biostar FX9830M motherboard and throughout the year it served me pretty well. I feel that it is bit too noisy, however, changing the CPU fan is a bit challenging because of an unusual pin connector. Nevertheless, I would like to find some solution to address the problem in the future. Few solutions are in my head, from a bigger computer case to improve airflow to even fan-less solutions. Some of those would need a few creative approach on how to install them. 

Software wise Artix Linux proves to be pretty stable with a major issue being abrupt Linux kernel changes at times. The network interfaces were renamed twice for an unknown reason over a year or so, which was rendering my network aggregation configuration to fail, since it was relying on those names. Another more mysterious issue is likely related to dhcpcd or OpenRC init system in the a way that IP address is not assigned at boot, which is only solved by rerunning dhcpcd service manually (even reboot doesn't help). After that it usually works OK on subsequent reboots (happened twice or three times over a year and half). Finally, once it stopped working because of missing firmware. The solution was to install a separate linux-firmware-bnx2x package, though it wasn't required before. I guess these issues can be partially attributed to rolling release distribution approach with the most up to date kernel and software.

Akasa Cyper SPX case

This year I acquired Akasa Cyper SPX case to accommodate my ICOP VEX2-6427-5C4NE board. This case has openings to install 4 serial ports, which seemed a pretty good choice for me (considering my board has exactly 4 serial headers), but it ended up to be a bit of a disappointment. The inside design has a piece of plastic sticking out, which prevented me from installing serial ports with rectangle shaped frames in the far left and right openings. Thus, I ended up utilizing only the two middle ones. Something more lean and rounded is needed for the edge openings, which I hope to either find them or modify the ones I own in the future. Unfortunately, the Akasa page does not provide a compatibility list or requirements and their customer support is unresponsive.

The board itself is not Mini-ITX, but a much smaller 3.5'' single-board design, because of this I tried to utilize board pads and some glue with limited success. Though I managed to position it successfully, the board is not very firm, making attachment of USB devices a bit challenging.

ICOP VEX2-6427 board placed inside Akasa Cyper SPX case

Other devices 

I did mention some devices on the last review like Pocketbook InkPad Color 7.8 and AsRock DeskMini X300, however I didn't have enough time to do any useful review about them. Pocketbook is quite a nice e-reader device, but little slow, especially with big PDF files which are usually available in colours, limiting its usage. It feels like such devices should have stronger hardware, however it likely brings challenge to keep long battery usage and increases the price. 

DeskMini X300 is definitely a good choice for the mini computer, if limited expansion options are not an issue. CPU support was extended to Ryzen 5000G series over the time, thus it can opt very performant models. In my case, Athlon 200GE CPU is installed and it is virtually silent. Probably major limitation was that initial configuration didn't have WiFi, side USBs and audio jack at back (only at the front). ASRock provides its own sets for all, but they are pretty expensive and hard to get. For side USB/WiFi though third party options can be adapted.

Other than that, I had some smaller purchases, but those were usually required to facilitate certain setup, like mini-PCIe SATA controller with the flat ports instead of 90 degrees ones or more silent Cherry G80-3000N mechanical keyboard.

ASRock X300M-STX board inside DeskMini X300

Work on NetBSD

Last year I was honoured to become an official NetBSD developer, which gave an ability to contribute to the project directly! At the time of writing this review, I already did over 200 commits, however those were mainly non functional changes like misspelling fixes. Nevertheless, I did some bug fixes too. Likely the main achievement was to finally identify why R6040 MAC was failing to work on Vortex86DX3 SoC. It took me countless hours in the span of around three years of debugging, including temporarily acquiring on more DX2 based system, but I managed to find out that it was related to certain speed control register (MDC) being restored to wrong value after reset action. This issue appeared to be the same not only across all BSDs but in Linux as well. Despite the fact, that interface was working up to 5.3 kernel version by luck, it was because Linux didn't check BMCR register on identifying the link state. That changed starting 5.3, thus R6040 MAC stopped working in Linux as well. Fortunately solution was just to restore MDC value back to original value leading to restored functionality. Just recently this change was applied to OpenBSD and FreeBSD as well, thus R6040 should should work properly on VortexDX3 SoC in all BSDs and Linux (I guess FreeBSD driver will be synced to Haiku OS code at some point). It was the first fix, which was actually reapplied to all major operating systems and motivates me to continue on such efforts. Other than that, I did few other fixes, mainly in drivers, I also did various testing/investigation work, wrote some missing documentation. Unfortunately, time constraints prevent me to work on some drivers more seriously, but I still have few projects in my mind, hopefully over the time I will manage to implement them. Nevertheless, I plan to stay an active member.

 

Future developments

I do not plan any major hardware purchases this year, however some upgrades and changes are possible. The main focus will likely to stay on the NetBSD project, which comes closer to branching netbsd-10. This may lead to more testing and debugging work and potentially some help in different areas. I am still trying to debug interrupt issue on Vortex86DX3 systems. On the other hand, I still dream to dig up and revive at least one of my Alpha machines. Hopefully, DevTerm will find more usage as well. Though I don't expect much articles in the next 6 months, I will make an effort not to be completely silent and share more interesting developments.

2019 in review

Starting last year I resumed writing yearly review after a long break. Since 2019 was no less active in various personal computer related projects, I believe it may start a tradition of such retrospective reviews for the years to come. So without further ado, I will move on the last year's activities.

Downgrade from Radeon RX 460 to Radeon R7 370

For almost two years, I used the AMD Radeon RX 460 GPU based Asus Dual RX460 OC edition graphics card. However, since 2019, I started using NetBSD much more regularly alongside with Manjaro Linux (which is still my primary OS) and, unfortunately, Radeon RX 460 GPU is unsupported by the former. Because of that, I decided to downgrade to an older generation hardware, so I can be comfortable in using them. After a broad research, I opted for the GIGABYTE GV-R737WF2OC-2GD which is a Radeon R7 370 based card. R7 370 uses Pitcairn Pro GPU core based on the 1st GCN architecture. The main motivation behind choosing this specific model was its similar performance to RX 460, its reasonable price and its availability in stock at local stores.

Despite some fears, the card didn't disappoint. NetBSD immediately recognized the GPU and applied proper drivers giving the expected hardware acceleration. Because of this, I started using NetBSD on my desktop quite regularly. To my surprise, it visually felt more responsive than RX 460 on Linux as well. Despite being an older model, its performance is actually at par with the replaced card in general usage, except possibly increased power usage.

Dell QLogic 57810 10G Ethernet card

Since my router supports one SFP+ 10Gbit Ethernet port, I was curious to try it out and bought the Edimax EN-9320SFP+ 10Gbit network card back in 2018. Though, being the cheapest 10Gbit solution at that time with the smallest card around, it had few annoying flaws. The card was based on Tehuti TN4010 NIC, which is poorly supported by the alternative operating systems except Windows. Any of the BSDs don't have a driver at all. Linux has one, but not in the mainline kernel. Thus, the Linux driver needs to be compiled and installed manually, and the process needs to be repeated almost after every kernel update (which happens relatively often). In the end, the Linux driver still had at least one issue - if computer goes to standby mode, NIC stops working after resume with only reboot bringing it back. Nevertheless, I was not planning to replace it, since alternatives were too expensive (especially Intel based solutions). Btw, Edimax also have never updated the driver in their page, I was using the one from github.

Unexpectedly though, one local shop offered Dell QLogic 57810 (Dell part 540-BBGS) dual port 10Gbit network card for a sizable discount. I checked that it was supported by at least FreeBSD, the Linux kernel had mainline kernel driver as well, so I took the bait and bought it. The card itself is much bigger than Edimax, having an active cooler and requires PCI-E 2.0 x8 slot instead of PCI-E 2.0 x4. On the other hand, it is a way more professional product having sophisticated firmware and two SFP+ ports. Once installed, it worked out of the box in Windows, Linux and FreeBSD, with no manual work required. Contrary to Tehuti NIC, it had no issues on resume in Linux as well. In general, I believe this purchase was pretty successful, except the fact that it is not supported by NetBSD.

I dream to port the FreeBSD driver to NetBSD, however, it may be too complicated task, since the driver is huge. Nevertheless, I am planning to make an attempt this year (sometime in 2020) and see what happens.

Dell QLogic 57810 dual SFP+ Ethernet controller

Toshiba MG04ACA600E and D-Link DGE-528T

Yet another hardware update was already extensively described in my blog. Though, the main goal was just to upgrade from 3TB hard drives to 6TB ones in my NAS server, it ended up with the bigger project from migration to Artix Linux to LVM RAID configuration on recycled 3TB drives.

The new hard drives were two identical Toshiba MG04ACA600E model drives which showed quite visible performance improvement in read operations but write speed seemingly was restricted by driver issues and showed only minimal improvement compared to older drives. Thanks to LVM RAID0 setup I also reused older 3TB drives as additional back-up storage.

Realtek RTL8169SC based D-Link DGE-528T network card was used to circumvent loss of the second Ethernet port. Together with integrated Realtek 8111C NIC it showed worse network speed over Intel based daughterboard card, but it was expected and acceptable downgrade.

Toshiba MG04ACA600E

Sanwa MA-TB41S trackball

For around ten years I was successfully using Kensington Optical Orbit trackball. It was bought in Sweden by my former colleague and friend. Initially I thought that it will stay only as an experiment, but proved to be one of the best devices I've ever used. Unfortunately, the right button started to fail so badly by the end of the last year, that I was finally forced to look for the possible alternative. Despite pretty limited trackball options, I must admit it was one of most challenging decisions on hardware selection process. The main reason for that was the lack of possibility to try them physically. I believe, there is a great risk of to buy uncomfortable trackball from the images only. It doesn't matter how much reviews you will read, there are too many factors which can affect the comfort, from your hand size to device quality and sensitivity. That is probably the reason why you can find so many contradicting opinions on the same product.

Theoretically I could even buy the same model, since Kensington is still selling it together with few other long-living models, but I wanted to find one with the scroll wheel. After long research I narrowed down the options to these three models:

• Elecom Deft Pro (M-DPT1MRBK)
• Kensington Orbit with Scroll Ring
• Sanwa Supply MA-TB41BK/S

Though, Sanwa trackball was my last choice, I ended up buying it because of difficulty to find Elecom model in Europe, and relatively bad reviews regarding the quality of Kensington trackball buttons. Unfortunately, I can't tell yet if I made a right choice... During, the first month I was really disappointed. The trackball appeared to be a bit too big for my hand, making it difficult to reach buttons comfortably. Quite often I was accidentally moving the ball before clicking mouse buttons, thus easily missing intended button or other UI element. Scroll wheel was too slow, too big and clunky. My hand was constantly getting tired. Nevertheless, I started to get used to it over the time, thus decreasing the strain of the hand and increasing precision. Though, the scroll wheel still stays as the biggest inconvenience, since it was the major feature I had been looking for. It works, but scrolling is very slow and reaction time after rotating the wheel visibly lags behind. Furthermore, my thumb gets painful and tired easily, even over the time I haven't really gotten used to it. Honestly, I am not sure, if I will keeping using it, I may switch to a regular mouse or try the Kensington Orbit trackball with the scroll ring. It is probably the most unsuccessful hardware purchase in 2019.

NetBSD

I was quite active in the NetBSD project community this year: I managed to port IC Plus IP1000/1001 PHY driver from OpenBSD (used by many VIA EPIA boards, also IC Plus own network cards), fixed support for VIA VX800 (and possibly VX855, VT8237S) SATA controller (previously partially working in IDE mode only), 4World USB to Serial adapter (already mentioned in 2018 review), found the fix for the Biostar X370GT5 SATA controller locking issue, requested to pull-up the fix for D-Link DUB1312 USB network card to NetBSD 8 release. In addition, I noticed and identified the applied fix for the long standing bug on Ryzen system, where the OS was failing to identify a second SATA hard drive. This bug was causing to stall even UEFI POST process on reboot. Fortunately, this fix made it into NetBSD 9.0 release. Also I noticed some typos and white-space issues in the code. Finally, I updated the seemingly abandoned Codelite IDE package in pkgsrc to build the latest stable version at that time (from 9.1 to 13.0). Despite these successes, I also had some let-downs. I couldn't fix the USB and Ethernet issues on eBox 3352DX3-AP computer. I found a workaround to make Ethernet controller work, in case SMP and ACPI is disabled, but the proper fix is still unclear. Besides that, once suddenly Fnatic Gear Rush keyboard stopped working, with the help of NetBSD developer I identified that it was caused by accidental switch to 6KRO mode. It appeared to be working in NKRO mode only (which was the opposite up to NetBSD 7.1 release). Hopefully, it can be fixed to work on both modes in the future. Seeing quite a successful last year, I hope that I will be able to solve some issues in 2020 as well.

eBox 3352DX3-AP 

The last chapter I will dedicate to some insights on how to run BSD system on eBox 3352DX3-AP VortexDX3 based system, since I promised that on the last review.

FreeBSD 12.0 works the best out of BSDs, which can perfectly boot on default BIOS configuration. The only issue is the integrated network controller (R6040) which fails to work. This issue is common to all BSDs, since drivers are based on FreeBSD one. Similarly to the described below workaround on NetBSD, it may be also applied for the FreeBSD. By removing all the vte_reset() calls in the driver and recompiling a custom kernel, it should make the network work. Unfortunately, the latest release at time of writing (12.1) introduced some regression which causes instant failure on boot. I submitted the bug report but I don't expect it to be resolved soon. So, in case FreeBSD is a preferred choice, I recommend to run 12.0 release. Alternatively to editing and compiling the custom kernel, USB based network controllers can be used to enable the network.

OpenBSD is probably on the worst situation. I identified only one way to boot into the system without kernel recompilation by disabling "ACPI aware OS" option in BIOS. However, neither USB nor Ethernet works, which renders the system usefulness limited to some local automatic jobs only. It can boot with ACPI enabled/IDE in legacy mode by recompiling kernel without DIAGNOSTIC option. SMP works in both cases. If you want to work with OpenBSD for any reason, I would recommend to look for the system with COM ports (or try to solder the one).

NetBSD support is somewhere in the middle among the three. In order to boot the system with "ACPI aware OS" option enabled in BIOS, IDE should be set to "legacy mode". Otherwise, various timeout exceptions will occur and system will fail to boot. Similarly to OpenBSD, neither USB nor network will work in this case but both CPU cores (SMP) will work without requirement to rebuild the kernel. Booting with ACPI and SMP disabled (boot -12) will give USB support. Furthermore, it is possible to make network work in this case as well, but removing vte_reset() calls in if_vte.c (R6040 driver) and rebuilding your custom kernel. In case loosing SMP and ACPI are acceptable options, it makes a fully working system. Unfortunately, a workaround for the network didn't work for OpenBSD (more specifically, it actually does work, but network still fails to connect due to some other issue).

Summary and 2020

2019 was a pretty good year in the hardware/software context. Most of my projects went smoothly, and newly acquired hardware met or even exceeded expectations (except the trackball). It was also the most active year in NetBSD for me. Besides starting using it as Desktop operating system quite regularly, I managed to provide several patches to improve hardware support and provided my first contribution to pkgsrc project. I hope to keep this pace in 2020 as well, though time-constraint is my main enemy. Hardware wise, I don't have specific plans for 2020. I may upgrade to a newer Ryzen CPU and upgrade some other parts but non of these are a high priority. Like last year, such decisions probably will depend on pricing and unexpected deals. I do plan to revive my Alpha CPU based Microway PC164 Screamer system and I already have bought "old new" 8x32MB modules of SIMM RAM (Samsung KMM53616000AK-6) for it. Considering all these future plans, I believe that I will write at least a few articles this year, which I hope will be an interesting read.

I've chose EPIA-M900 for my VIA Nano X2 setup

While VIA prepares some new motherboards like EPIA-M910 and EPIA-920 (last one will be equipped with quad core CPU and VX11 (VT3456) chipset which has integrated DX11 compatible GPU) I've made a decision on my own configuration. It is quite unusual and consists of VIA embedded parts mainly.  So I've decided to take EPIA-M900 (EPIA-M900-16L) motherboard and eH1 graphics card. I've already received this hardware and started to test it.

In Win BM-639, VIA eH1, VIA EPIA-M900 boxes

EPIA-M900 is the most quality made motherboard from VIA embedded I've ever seen (especially compared to the most of VB series and old models). However, I admit that some recent models are similar by quality too. On the other hand this quality comes at substantially higher price than I would like to see. Unfortunately cooling system is made in VIA "fashion". It consists of the big aluminum heatsink over CPU and chipset and small, annoyingly loud fan. On the bright side the fan speed is controlled by CPU load using smart fan function in BIOS. However, it still emits unpleasant sound even at lower speed. GPU has a fan too but it seems less audible (no speed control). EPIA-M900 box is visually not appealing as it looks like simple corrugated cardboard box (I've never saw the one like that for motherboards earlier but as it is targeted for embedded market VIA probably decided to save money on box visual appearance). You will find a SATA cable, driver's CD and I/O shield besides the board itself. Yet again it is quite ordinary minimal set of accessories you'll find in most VIA products. There was two main reasons I chose this board. Firstly, it was the only VIA Nano X2 board which had a PCI-E x16 (effective speed up to x8) slot, secondly EPIA-M900 had two RAM slots and supported 8GB RAM while VB8004 (the other candidate) only one. Besides, it was easier to get than VB8004 with its graphics module.

EPIA-M900

VIA eH1 has more visual appealing and more standard box for such products. Accessories include DVI-VGA adapter and driver's CD. There is one caveat that you'll find a Linux tux image on the box indicating this graphics card "support" Linux but you won't find any drivers neither on cd nor in VIA Embedded web page. You can download some Linux drivers on s3graphics web site but you still won't be able to use them on modern Linux distributions as it has some code that won't compile on current kernel. I guess the card itself is supported by those proprietary drivers but I couldn't test them due to reason I mentioned above. There are no open source drivers for this GPU so the only way to use this card is VESA driver or try an older distributions (with 2.6.38 kernel or maybe even less). What is more, it doesn't use solid state capacitors as S3 graphics similar products.

VIA eH1 graphics card

The motherboard itself had some surprises that I hadn't notice or they hadn't been clearly defined in specifications. Firstly, most pin headers was smaller in size than standard ones. USB headers are surprisingly standard ones but front panel audio, fan, kbms and COM headers are mini variants. I saw smaller fan header (but forgot to check that they were only ones) and I knew about smaller COM headers but they were unneeded for me. Unfortunately I didn't know that front panel audio header and kbms header would be mini ones too. I actually don't know where to get adapters for them right now too. Second surprise was a missing RAID support in BIOS firmware (or I didn't found it). I though that such RAID support existed in all boards currently and you even had no need to check that. 

I tried some open source operating systems during this weekend. Linux (Fedora 16, openSUSE 12.1) and FreeBSD installed ok. NetBSD didn't boot (I guess because it doesn't support VX900 chipset still) but dual core CPU was recognized (UPDATE 2012-05-02: VX900 IDE support was added recently, so NetBSD 6_BETA currently boots on this board). Haiku boot sequence ended in kdebug with some stack trace. PC-BSD didn't boot too but it seems that it was a DVD boot loader problem because FreeBSD installed without any problems and surprisingly recognized all motherboard's integrated hardware (as you may or may not know PC-BSD is just desktop orientated FreeBSD variant). As I mentioned earlier eH1 graphics card and its HD audio is not supported on any open source OSes (except VESA driver).

I'll try to make some tests in open source OSes and/or Windows later on but I don't make any promises this time. I hope to test power usage too. To end this article on good note the board itself feels really good. It uses the most modern chips from VIA like VT2021 HD audio, VT6130 Gigabit Ethernet controller, VX900 integrated graphics with H.264 decoding acceleration on Windows, 8GB support (unfortunately USB 3.0 was not added for some unknown reason as the place for two connectors and VIA Labs chip was designed on the board). Smart fan control makes default fan bearable on idle. Finally dual core CPU has modern instructions support up to SSE4.1 and Intel compatible virtualization and it feels quite fast (I compiled quite a lot of source during this weekend, y-cruncher result is comparable to Merom 3M dual core pentium or celeron CPUs). Finally, the board quality gives hopes that VIA will continue to make more boards like this in the future and even improve them. BIOS could me more capable but it is embedded board so requirements are minimal for them I guess. Quite good FreeBSD support was a pleasant surprise too. I can't tell much about eH1 GPU right now as it will show its capabilities on Windows only.

P.S. I've updated my last  article on VIA Nano X2 solutions several times too. Probably I'll keep to do this for some time in the future.

Jetway JNF76-N1G-LF P - *BSD and Linux experience - continued

From my last article you can find that I unsuccessfully tried to boot NetBSD and OpenBSD on the Jetway JNF76-N1G-LF P motherboard. MirOS BSD booted ok (with some conditions like IDE option instead of RAID) and I was planning to use it for NAS. However, MirOS BSD didn't support integrated 1GbE network interface (Realtek 8111C). I bought Intel Pro/1000 GT PCI card to solve this, however, it didn't work too. Realtek 8139D 10/100 network interface worked ok but it was not Gigabit. So I decided to try FreeBSD as last hope for BSDs. It installed without any problems and detected hardware (without RAID mode), however, the first boot was unsuccessful. It couldn't mount root partition for some reason. As I didn't want to spend more time on that any more I had decided to give up on BSDs.

So, I decided to use Debian (stable 5.0 release AMD64 port) on my NAS server. It installed without any problems (I used base packages ISO with some packages downloaded from internet). It booted with RAID option on and detected all my hard drives without problems (update: problems appeared later, read about RAID mode below). FFS partition mounted in read-only mode too. However, the problem began here. I tried to copy all data from FFS partition to EXT3 (in other drive). Copy process was very slow for some reason (3MB/s). I don't know if it's a kernel problem but the fact was that I had needed 3 days to copy all data (about 800MB). Later Intel Pro/1000 GT went to 10MBit/s mode. I used ethtool to set up it correctly once again.

The speed always goes down than I uploading/downloading something from samba, but it ends up for about 7-9MB/s. It is not very good and I think the main reason for this is slow copying I mentioned earlier. I’ll try to change a kernel to a newer version and I’ll try Realtek 8111C in the future too. Despite this problems, Debian works very stable. I think this ends up my efforts to set up NAS on JNF76-N1G-LF P motherboard. I hope I’ll solve last problems in the future. In conclusion I can say, that this motherboard is not suitable for BSD platforms for now. If you want to use it like a server you need to use Linux. VX800 is not supported by BSD systems.

Update (2009-12-22)
I recompiled the kernel to 2.6.32.2 (from 2.6.26-2). It didn't helped to solve a copy process problems but I figured out that for some reason dma had been disabled (hdparm utility). It seemed that hard drives had been working at PIO mode. So it wasn't unexpected that copy speed hadn't exceeded 3-5 MB/s. As hdparm -d1 didn't work (I got an error that permission to do this was denied) I disabled RAID (AHCI) in BIOS once again. DMA was enabled automatically after restart. 

As I didn't try real RAID in any configuration I don't know what problems you could get from this. It seems that VX800 RAID is not very well supported too (or it is not enabled in kernel, but I didn't find any separate options instead of default VIA SATA modules which was used with other VIA chipsets). After that everything works like a charm. Copy speed is good and what is more I got constant ~50MB/s through samba during download/upload process. I didn't have such speeds with my VT-310DP and NetBSD (as I remember they were between 14-19MB/s and it draws lot of questions why it was so then). So I can be finally happy with my NAS server. Last thing I'll try to compare Intel 1Gbit card with integrated Realtek in the near future. Of course, I'll try to investigate RAID/AHCI matter but that is not a priority now.