Subject: Re: Two questions ...
To: None <port-arm32@netbsd.org>
From: Mike Pumford <mpumford@black-star.demon.co.uk>
List: port-arm32
Date: 12/01/1999 20:40:06
> Hi Mike, you wrote:
>  > 

> This sounds promising. Until now I have been reluctant to upgrade to
> v1.4. Actually I have already tried it some time ago only to find that
> Mozilla, XEmacs mail and news facilities and the C-compiler did not work.
>
Well I can no longer try things on v1.4 as I track current doing 
rebuilds from source approximately once a month. However I can report what I 
had working before I build my first 1.4-current snapshot.

> Can you tell me if the email and news facilities of XEmacs work under
> v1.4?
> 
This I can't check right now. I now use XEmacs 21.1 which no longer installs 
these packages by default. However I'm perfectly willing to install them and 
check them out on my system.

> And what about Mozilla for v1.4. Is it available in a version which
> is able to redraw the window?
> 
The version I built from pkgsrc when my current snapshot was 1.4K worked then 
and still does when using 1.40. The Cryptozilla binary that someone produced 
circa 1.3 worked fine under 1.4 with both the new and old X server (at 16bpp).
The 1.4 pkgsrc binary for arm32 on www.netbsd.org also worked okay.

> And does the C-compiler work without any problems on a StrongArm model:
> 
> cpu0 at mainbus0: SA-110 rev 2 DC enabled IC enabled WB enabled EABT
> cpu0: SA-110 with bugged STM^ instruction
> ?
Well with my 1.4O current system all things appear to work well. I used the 
1.4 compiler to build my first 1.4 current system without problems. I also 
rebuilt most of the apps with that compiler before tracking 1.4-current. It 
certainly didn't suffer from the massive compiler nasties that the 1.3 
compiler suffered from on the Risc PC.

> For your information, I could not use the XEmacs (v21.3 I believe) you
> gave me under v1.3a.
> 
For this reason I am reluctant to state with absolute certainty that things
will work for you. The best I can offer is to tell you what worked for me
and let you make up your own mind. If you have the disk space to do it you 
could try the following:

Boot using the 1.4.1 kernel. Untar the 1.4.1 release sets to a 
test directory(say /test). Migrate your current configuration into /test/etc
then execute chroot /test as root. You can then try things out the things that 
you need to work without destroying the current install. This is as close as 
you can come to running the new install without actually destroying the old 
installation. The only downside to this technique is that you use any binaries 
that are part of your current install unless you copy them before doing the 
chroot.

I use this technique to sanity check my current builds before I install them 
as my main system. 

Mike