Snapshot report.
================

Me: agc@uts.amdahl.com (Alistair G. Crooks)

Source: tar_files, 19th February 1994, from agate.berkeley.edu

Base version of NetBSD: 0.9.

Upgrade from previous -current: yes, 12 Feb tar_files from
agate.berkeley.edu

Machine specifics: 486DX2/66, 16MB RAM, 340 MB IDE (Conner), VGA card

Other software: Havard Eidnes' shared XFree86 2.0, from 9 February 1994.

Tar files integrity: good.

Additional things to do during upgrade:

Any warnings during compilation: various, not noted

Any problems during make: see below.

Observations:

Changes from 05 Feb tar_files:
(This is taken from the CHANGES file on agate - last update on 17 Feb 94)

        integrated new math library based on Sun's FDLIBM 5.1 (jtc)
        fixed find(1)'s -nouser and -nogroup options. (andrew)
        update awk to gawk 2.15.4. (jtc)

[The maths library was in the previous tar_files from 12th Feb - agc].


Notes:

1.  There's a new printer driver, come over from the Magnum branch.
Remember to remove any traces of lpa from your kernel config files.

2.  Chris Demetriou's made a binary i386 distribution of -current, and
it's on sun-lamp.cs.berkeley.edu:pub/NetBSD/arch/i386 - this will help
you upgrade from 0.9 to -current, if you've been holding off.

3.  Andrew Herbert <andrew@werple.apana.org.au> has made some changes
to emacs: "These patches fix the bug whereby emacs processes execed
from processes other than the session leader fail to startup
successfully." If you want these patches, they're in the current-users
mailing list archives on sun-lamp.

4.  lms and mms mouse drivers have been updated.

5.  The XFree86 people now have a beta release of X11R6 code. It looks
like Mark Weaver's doing the XFree86 stuff for NetBSD.

6.  Havard rightly picks me up for getting his ftp site name wrong. 
Please note that the X11 shared libs, along with tcl7.3 and tk3.6p1
can be picked up from ugle.unit.no:pub/NetBSD/ports

7.  Does anyone have any experience with removable and/or optical
discs?  Please contact me if you do.  I'm talking DynaMO,
Magneto-optical, Bernoulli, Syquest etc.

8.  The current list of supported SCSI boards looks like:

bt742   eisa                    bt742a.c        deraadt@fsa.ca
bt747   eisa (modified driver)  bt742a.c        michaelv@iastate.edu
aha1742 eisa                    aha1742.c       cgd@postgres.berkeley.edu  
aha1742 eisa                    aha1742.c       mycroft@gnu.ai.mit.edu
aha1542 isa                     aha1742.c       hpeyerl@novatel.ca
ultra34f vlb                    ultra14f.c      jkreska@hpmail2.fwrdc.rtsg.mot.c
om
bt542   isa (modified driver)   aha1542.c       tim@introl.introl.com
bt545   isa (old ones only)     aha1542.c       tim@introl.introl.com
bt445   vlb                     bt742a.c        dhess@cs.stanford.edu
          need v3.37 bios4.47                   Eirik.Knutsen@idt.unit.no
          need v3.63 bios4.72                   randyt@cse.unl.edu
aha1542b isa                    aha1542.c       mycroft@gnu.ai.mit.edu
ultra14f isa                    ultra14f.c      mycroft@gnu.ai.mit.edu
*** Specifically, the BIOS levels on the bt445 look to be important. ***

If anyone has any more to add to this list, please drop me a line.

9.  The current list of supported Ethernet cards looks like:

3c509                   isa     if_ep   bnc/aui. utp might work. (tdr)
3c579                   eisa            doesn't work yet.        (tdr)
WD 8390-based cards     isa     if_ed                            (mycroft)
SMC 8390-based cards    isa     if_ed                            (mycroft)
3C503, 3C509 (and probably 3C507, but I can't actually test it)  (mycroft)
NE1000, NE2000, NE2100  isa     if_ed                            (mycroft)
AT&T StarLAN (82586-based cards)                                 (mycroft)
BICC Isolan                                                      (mycroft)

[The Intel EtherExpress is not supported - proprietary info].
[The SMC Elite16 Ultra has greater throughput under NetBSD than 3c509
and NE2000 - it uses shared memory]

Any corrections/additions welcome.

10.  Michael VanLoon's modified the bt742a.c driver for bt747s.  Look
in the current-users mailing list archives if you missed it...

11.  Amancio Hasty reports that he managed 192517 xStones on a P66
Pentium, with a VLB 864 2MB 70ns (i.e.  DRAM), and he thinks that the
performance is down to the card, not the 586.  I think he's running
his own S3 server. Admittedly, it doesn't touch Thomas Roell's 297541
xstones, but that was with a Matrox card (which isn't supported by
XFree86).


General verdict: Hardly any changes from last week.

And the usual afterthoughts:

1.  I've had zero time this week to try anything out, thanks to a
mental pygmy at work who had me trailing through kernels trying to
find a non-existent bug (this was not NetBSD-related).  That's one
less on the Christmas-card list.

2.  I compiled gofer, the Haskell-subset-like functional language, on
-current.  Anyone interested in it, please drop me a line.

3.  I tried remaking everything this week with the -pipe switch. This
speeded up things considerably (typically halving the time to compile),
but making things less stable in the process - I had two spontaneous
reboots. More details on request. (Note that there's 16MB of RAM on
my box, so -pipe's a winner).

Alistair
--
Alistair G. Crooks (agc@uts.amdahl.com)                      +44 252 346377
Amdahl European HQ, Dogmersfield Park, Hartley Wintney, Hants RG27 8TE, UK.

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