Toru Nishimura wrote:
> 
> > Is this box just too slow to keep time and compile software?
> 
> No, it's nearly a bug, a major caveat of NetBSD kernel these days.
> Kernel sits in timer interrupt masked off condition longer than used
> to be, and looses ticks when it runs busy.

I notice in the sample kernels:

  options         "HZ=256"        # RTC rate required

Is it possible to use a different value for this? 
Or is it the way the hardware is wired?

On a NetBSD/i386 system I see:

% sysctl -a | grep hz
kern.clockrate: tick = 10000, tickadj = 40, hz = 100, profhz = 100, stathz =
100
net.inet.tcp.slowhz = 2

while on a NetBSD/pmax system I see:

% sysctl -a | grep hz
kern.clockrate: tick = 3906, tickadj = 15, hz = 256, profhz = 256, stathz =
256
net.inet.tcp.slowhz = 2

Could I use a HZ value of say 64 instead?

Or if not by hardware is 256 fixed, but in needing sufficient
time resolution for kernel activities?