On Tue, 22 Oct 1996, Bill Walz wrote:

> Being new to NetBSD I don't know why this kernel works or if future
> kernels will work with my p550.  What is the difference between the
> GENERIC kernel and the GENERICSBC-3 kernel?

The GENERICSBC kernels are always identical to the GENERIC kernels except
that they use the `sbc' SCSI controller driver rather than the original
`ncrscsi' driver.  The former runs a little slower, and blocks interrupts
(like clock ticks) more often, but seems to be the magic trick to getting
some drives working, particularly some Quantum Trailblazers and some
Fireballs.

In general I don't recommend that people use the `sbc' driver _unless_
they are having problems with the standard `ncrscsi' driver.  The primary
reason for that is that there is apparently a bug in the
machine-independent part of the former that affects the sun3 and sparc
NetBSD ports, as well, which in some instances can cause partial writes to
the disk, which later show up as bad sectors.  (Thanks to Hauke Fath for
figuring this out.)

So:  if it works for you, go ahead and use it.  Beware that there may be
problems, but they aren't likely to bite you if they haven't by the time
you've run it for a week or so.

--scott