Required / Supported Hardware

Hardware Requirements
NetBSD will run on an Amiga or Draco with the following mimimum hardware configuration.

CPU
NetBSD requires a 68020 or later CPU to run. In addition you must have a memory management unit (MMU) and Floating Point Unit (FPU). The EC and LC versions of the 68020 and 68030 do not possess these features and therefore can not run NetBSD.
Note:NetBSD 1.2 (and later) includes support for the 68060

July 1997: FPU Emulation has been finished. NetBSD will now run on a machine with out a FPU. Currently a binary has not yet been released so you will need to get someone to compile you a kernel image. Note: FPU emulation does not work with 68LC040, 68040V and 68LC060 CPUs.

Memory
Theoretically NetBSD can run in only 2MB of fast-RAM, however you will not be able to do anything more than boot! A minimum of 4MB of fast-RAM is recommended for a useable system, 8MB if you plan to run X-Windows.
NetBSD also requires at least 1MB of chip-RAM which is used during booting. The kernel is loaded into chip-RAM and then copied into the largest chunk of fast-RAM available.
Note: The Generic kernel is over 1MB in size and therefore requires 2MB chip-RAM to load. If you only have 1MB chip-RAM you will need to use the basic install kernel.

Diskspace
Although it is possible to boot NetBSD from floppy to obtain a useable system you must have a Hard Disk. The amount of disk space required depends upon how much of NetBSD you plan to install and what extra components you intend to install. A small but working system needs 50 to 80MB of disk space. For a more detailed guide to disk space usage see the installation guide

Supported Hardware
NetBSD has built in support for the following hardware devices. Unfortunately if a device is not on the list then it is not supported by NetBSD 1.2 and can't be used. New devices are, however, being added all the time and you may be able to find an experimental or beta driver in NetBSD current.

A4000/A1200 IDE controller.
SCSI host adapters:
  • 33c93 based boards: A2091, A3000 builtin and GVP series II.
  • 53c80 based boards: 12 Gauge, IVS, Wordsync/Bytesync and Emplant.
  • 53c710 based boards: A4091, Magnum, Warp Engine, Zeus and DraCo builtin.
  • FAS216 based SCSI boards: FastLane Z3, Blizzard I and II
    Video controllers:
  • ECS, AGA and A2024 built in on various Amigas.
  • Retina Z2, Retina Z3 and Altais.
  • Picasso II.
  • GVP Spectrum.
  • Piccolo.
  • A2410.
  • Cybervision 64.
    Ethernet controllers:
  • A2065 Ethernet
  • Hydra Ethernet
  • ASDG Ethernet
  • A4066 Ethernet
  • Ariadne Ethernet
  • Quicknet Ethernet
    Arcnet controllers:
  • A2060 Arcnet
    Tape drives:
  • Most SCSI tape drives, including Archive Viper, Cipher SCSI-2 ST150.
    Scanners:
  • SCSI-2 scanners behaving as SCSI-2 scanner devices
  • HP Scanjet II
  • Mustek SCSI scanner
    CD-ROM drives:
  • Most SCSI CD-ROM drives
    Serial cards:
  • MultiFaceCard II and III
  • A2232
    Amiga floppy drives.
    Amiga parallel port.
    Amiga serial port.
    Amiga mouse.

    Known problems with some hardware:

    The Emplant SCSI adapter has been reported by a party to hang after doing part of the installation without problems.

    Fastlane SCSI is reported to show data errors and hangs at least when used with multiple devices on the bus. This might be a problem with any FAS board.

    SCSI scanner support is machine independant, so it should work, but hasn't been tested yet on most Amiga configurations. There are reports that it Mustek and HP Scanjet hang if accessed from the A3000. This might apply to other 33C93-Adapters, too.