Subject: Install failure on 1.5E
To: None <tech-install@netbsd.org, current-users@netbsd.org>
From: None <jchacon@genuity.net>
List: current-users
Date: 09/16/2000 20:43:57
I have some p90 multia's laying around I use to test installs from.

This has been a problem for some time but I hadn't done a clean install for
months so I'd never gotten a bug report filed.

In any case a base install from floppy/ftp builds fine, drops the GENERIC
kernel on and then I go to reboot.

The problem is, is that I panic on bootup because wss is in GENERIC and hard
coded to use irq10 (it's on 9 in the multia I beleive). The de card in these
(pci based) is on 10 so the panic is over the kernel thinking both level and
edge triggered cards are trying to share an interrupt.

Here's my questions:

1. Is the goal of GENERIC that it should boot on as much as possible?
2. If not, why install it as the basic kernel? The default kernel from an
   install should work out of the box on as much as reasonably possible IMO. 
3. Why panic in the interrupt handler registration? Instead why not just
   indicate a failure and abort the attach in some way?

BTW: Using gdb to debug a booting kernel is so cool it's beyond words. Other
than not completely getting all the pieces of how autoconf works yet this
makes the whole process much clearer than trying to use ddb. Is it a known
bug that gdb on a kernel refuses to acknowledge the first var in a function?
i.e. in wssfind gdb claims ac has no visibility but the other vars are fine.
I can repeat this in other functions as well.

James