Subject: Re: Newbie macppc user with some problems/questions
To: Dave Huang <khym@bga.com>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: port-macppc
Date: 12/31/2000 19:27:28
> 1) The install docs say that once ofwboot or ofwboot.xcf is loaded,
> it can load the kernel off of a NetBSD ffs filesystem... I assume
> this is true for ofwboot.elf too?

It is in my experience, which admittedly is not on a G4.  At work
there's an iMac which is set up so that OF thinks it's netbooting, and
it loads ofwboot.elf off the network, but everything else, in
particular the kernel, comes off its local disk.  (MacOS has been
eradicated from the disk, even to the extent of not having a MacOS
partition table.)  So yes, ofwboot.elf is in at least one case capable
of loading a kernel from an FFS filesystem.

Not that it helps your particular problem much, since it seems you're
having trouble getting it to see the partition - I daresay once it can
open the partition it'll have no trouble finding the kernel in it.

> 3) I occasionally get "Spurious interrupt" messages.

Me too, though in my case they're "sprious interrupt" (yes, missing
vowel and lowercase).  But I'm running 1.4T, not 1.5.

> Perhaps related is that the network will occasionally lock up and I
> have to "ifconfig gm0 down; ifconfig gm0 up" to get it back.

Under ill-defined circumstances apparently having something to do with
high traffic rates, gm0 on the iMac gets into a state where it seems to
work briefly and then fall over for several seconds; pinging a host on
the same hub will produce RTTs indicating that a blip of ten or so
packets was stalled, then all went through at once.  Then it will go
out for ten or twenty seconds, then another blip will get through.

I haven't found anything short of rebooting that cures it, so it may
not be the same problem - but I also haven't investigated in detail.
(I did have to backport the gm driver, but the changes required
bordered on trivial - timeout vs callout, IIRC.)

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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