>> I'm hoping for some words of wisdom.  This is all NetBSD 1.6.2.
>...
>> These problems do not occur with NetBSD 2.0, so something has
>> changed there that makes it better.  I want the fixes for my
>> (production) server, so I don't want to run -current.
>
>NetBSD 1.6.2 was broken sometime after the summer of 2004. First, ld.elf_so doesn't work on 604 processors. Second, using a new post-summer userland results in a hung system that answers pings but is otherwise hung. Something was broken and never fixed.
>
>Have you tried a standard 1.6.2 installation, or are you running a new userland and/or kernel?
>
>John Klos

Egad!

It's a more-or-less stock 1.6.2, with some tweaks to the kernel for my
Cyclades 8-port serial card, and a few config changes.  It has been a bit
of a struggle to get it stabilized....

-dgl-