NetBSD/Dreamcast Kernels

Using a smaller kernel can save some RAM. Saving RAM on a machine like the Dreamcast, which is relatively RAM-limited to begin with, is never a bad idea. These kernels were built using the same tools and from the same source tree as the NetBSD-1.6L files available, so the kernels will be a direct replacement and should not cause any strange problems.

The kernels themselves are available, along with the corresponding config file used to build the kernel. The .gz archive only contains the kernel itself ("netbsd"); the config files are available separately.

To install one of these kernels, just download the gzipped kernel and gunzip it in the root directory of your Dreamcast's NetBSD file system. To avoid editing the server-side scripts that send the kernel to the Dreamcast, rename the gunzipped file to "netbsd". Don't forget to back up the old kernel before renaming the new kernel.

Available kernels are:

• DREAMCAST-NETBOOT (1094747 bytes) is the original kernel included in the big world download. This kernel is listed in case someone overwrites their original and wants to replace it. This kernel supports about all the hardware that's supported (keyboard, mouse, joystick, memory unit, memory unit LCD, CD-ROM, BBA, etc.), NFS, MFS, CD9660, but no FFS file system support. This kernel can execute both COFF and ELF binaries.
• DREAMCAST-NETBOOT-NOCOFF (1092230 bytes) is almost identical to DREAMCAST-NETBOOT except for the lack of COFF binary execution support.
• DREAMCAST-NETBOOT-NOMFS (1018227 bytes) is almost identical to DREAMCAST-NETBOOT except for the lack of MFS (memory file system) and md (memory disk) support.
• DREAMCAST-NETBOOT-NOCOFF-NOMFS (1015710 bytes) is almost identical to DREAMCAST-NETBOOT except for the lack of MFS, md and COFF support.
• DREAMCAST-NETBOOT-NOCOFF-NOMFS-NOMLCD-NOMMEM is almost identical to DREAMCAST-NETBOOT-NOCOFF-NOMFS except for the lack of MLCD (memory pack LCD) and MMEM (memory pack storage) drivers.
• DREAMCAST-NETBOOT-NOCOFF-NOMFS-NOMLCD-NOMMEM-NOMMS is almost identical to DREAMCAST-NETBOOT-NOCOFF-NOMFS-NOLCD-NOMMEM except for the lack of mms (maple-bus mouse) and wsmouse (wsconsole mouse) drivers.
• DREAMCAST-NETBOOT-NOCOFF-NOMFS-NOMLCD-NOMMEM-NOMMS-NOMKBD is almost identical to DREAMCAST-NETBOOT-NOCOFF-NOMFS-NOLCD-NOMMEM-NOMMS except for the lack of mkbd (maple-bus keyboard) and wskbd (wsconsole keyboard) drivers.