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#1 2021-10-23 14:33:38

abaumann
Administrator
From: Zurich
Registered: 2019-11-14
Posts: 984
Website

Portwell NAR-2054

DSCN1053.jpg
Portwell-NAR-2054.jpg

Installation of the i486 architecture onto a CF, first boot resulted in (thia VIA CPU has
cmov and sse, but something said "Illegal instruction" with i686):

ZSTD-compressed data is corrupt
-- System halted

This turned out to be the UDMA-mode which just got giberish from the CF. Disabling it in the BIOS.

The ramdisk needs a 'MODULES=(pata_via)'.

lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8601 [Apollo ProMedia] (rev 05)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8601 [Apollo ProMedia AGP]
00:07.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South] (rev 40)
00:07.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:07.2 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xx/62xx/VX700/8x0/900 UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 1a)
00:07.4 Bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] (rev 40)
00:09.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter (rev 20)
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter (rev 20)
00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter (rev 20)
00:0c.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter (rev 20)
00:0d.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter (rev 20)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Trident Microsystems CyberBlade/i1 (rev 6a)

/proc/cpuinfo:

processor       : 0
vendor_id       : CentaurHauls
cpu family      : 6
model           : 9
model name      : VIA Nehemiah
stepping        : 3
cpu MHz         : 0.000
cache size      : 64 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 1
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 1
apicid          : 0
initial apicid  : 0
fdiv_bug        : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu de pse tsc msr cx8 mtrr pge cmov mmx fxsr sse cpuid rng rng_en
bugs            : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass l1tf mds swapgs itlb_multihit
bogomips        : 655.36
clflush size    : 32
cache_alignment : 32
address sizes   : 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:

Boot Session

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#2 2021-10-23 15:14:15

levi
Moderator
From: Yorkshire, UK
Registered: 2018-06-16
Posts: 1,197

Re: Portwell NAR-2054

In trying to find a use of words to describe this thing best,  found your home page I assume: https://www.andreasbaumann.cc/software/ … _firewall/.  Presumably you're giving up running openBSD on this thing.

FWIW, it seems to be most commonly described as a Communications Appliance in a 1U chassis.  Those particular words don't suggest anything to be, other than the form factor, but I can't improve on them, so they'll have to do I think.

Last edited by levi (2021-10-23 18:56:23)


Architecture: pentium4, Testing repos: Yes, Hardware: EeePC 901+2GB RAM+OS half on the SD card.

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#3 2021-10-23 16:55:03

abaumann
Administrator
From: Zurich
Registered: 2019-11-14
Posts: 984
Website

Re: Portwell NAR-2054

No worries, this thing served as a firewall for 12 years or so, then it was decomishioned 6 years ago or so.
OpenBSD works just fine on it, but I wanted to see, what Archlinux32 looks like on it. :-)

Amazing machines: https://portwell.com/pdf/catalog/ver.25c-1_CA-high.pdf

Now, there is still one in production out of four, one motherboard died, one machine is shacky due to defect caps
(I'll try to fix that one) and one is more or less in mint condition. :-)

My description would be "noisy black box running a firewall in a rack"

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#4 2021-10-25 06:28:24

abaumann
Administrator
From: Zurich
Registered: 2019-11-14
Posts: 984
Website

Re: Portwell NAR-2054

I added an asciicast of one boot session, showing, that startup times on that old machine are quite acceptable. :-)

Boot Session

(BTW: I like the idea of asciinema, but there should be an easy standalone hosting way or even an integration into fluxbb and markdown).

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