I put NetBSD on a Compaq laptop.  Works great! X and everything.

For some reason the PCMCIA can't see the 3COM network card (that is
supported in the Kernel) so I took the laptop over to another NetBSD machine
that has network support.

Using pppd and a null serial cable, I established a direct connect between
the machines.  I has setup IPNAT on the server so the laptop has access to
the network/internet!  At 115200bps the connection is quite tolerable.  I
have BSD compression set at 15, for good compression, though setting to
anything else still results in pppd returning a compression rate of 15...

Initially I will get the error:
ppp_deflate0: exceeded mru (1508>1504)
Doesn't seem to cause any problems though.

When doing low data rate operations (telnet) it's okay.  But when I download
a file via FTP I get the console error:
z_decompress0: inflate returned -3()
Lost compression sync: disabling compression

Now it still works, just BSD compression is now off and my max xfer rate is
~ 11.5K/sec

I'm not complaining, mind you, just curious as to why this happens.

Now if someone would hack pppd to work with the lpt port and a null parallel
cable...
;-)

John Maier
Administrator
Midamerica Internet Services
573-446-8881
http://www.midamerica.net