Re: DFS speed control on netbsd-5 (and netbsd-6 issues)

[John Klos <john%ziaspace.com@localhost>]

Hi,

> I can certainly submit a pullup - presumably this would be for:
>
> http://mail-index.netbsd.org/source-changes/2010/10/20/msg013793.html
> and
> http://mail-index.netbsd.org/source-changes/2010/12/05/msg015479.html
>
> I've just tried to build a GENERIC kernel with the pullup - if someone
> would like to test its at:
> ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/misc/abs/macppc/GENERIC-netbsd-5-plus-cpu_speed.bz2

I just booted that kernel on this 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4:

NetBSD 5.2_STABLE (GENERIC) #0: Wed Aug 21 23:57:31 BST 2013
        
abs%cerberus.social-events.net@localhost:/opt/netbsd/5/sys/arch/macppc/compile/obj/GENERIC
...
cpu0 at mainbus0: 7447A (Revision 1.1), ID 0 (primary)
cpu0: HID0 8450c0bc<EMCP,EICE,NAP,DPM,ICE,DCE,SGE,BTIC,FBIOB,ABE,BHT>, 
powersave: 1
cpu0: 1504.64 MHz, 512KB L2 cache no parity parity enabled

However, I see no sysctl for speed:

sysctl -a | grep speed
hw.fwmem.speed = 2
hw.sbp.max_speed = -1
hw.spdmem0.speed = 333
hw.spdmem1.speed = 333

And the speed is 750 MHz (calculating 1,000,000 primes takes 39 seconds 
compared with 19 seconds on a 1.5 GHz 7447a Mac mini).

I tried some other patches which I thought were tested with netbsd-5 from 
here:
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-powerpc/2010/10/15/msg003002.html

but while I have a machdep.cpu_speed (which defaults to zero), any attempt 
to write to it locks up the laptop, so apparently I've applied the wrong 
patches. I'll look into it more tonight.

> Do we have a PR for the netbsd-6 / current issues?

Good question. We have plenty of discussion about the problems. Three 
problems are summarized by Donald Lee here:

http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-macppc/2013/07/08/msg001958.html

I personally loaded netbsd-6 onto a Mac mini, saw it crash twice in a 
week, read about those issues and went with netbsd-5. My PowerMac 9600 was 
in heavy use with netbsd-5 and had two years of uptime. A system that 
crashes twice a week isn't usable comparatively.

I don't think anyone made any PRs, though. Donald?

John