Date: Mon, 05 Jun 1995 19:06:40 +1000
   From: matthew green <mrg@mame.mu.OZ.AU>

       -- Another requirement for running many SunOS binaries is to symlink
	  `/etc/termcap' and `/usr/lib/termcap' to `/usr/share/misc/termcap' (I
	  don't really know that both links are necessary; I just made them both.)

   i would guess just /etc/termcap is nessicary -- my sunos boxes
   don't have one in /usr/lib.

You're right -- as someone else pointed out, the second path should have been
`/usr/share/lib/termcap'.  Since I didn't have a link there, and nothing (yet)
has complained, it probably isn't needed.

       -- I had to manually turn on `clocal' on the serial ports before I could use
	  `tip'.  How is this normally handled?  I.e., should I just add the
	  appropriate `stty' commands to `/etc/rc.local', or is there a better way?

   man ttys

Found it, thanks.

       -- I can't untar the X11-R6 binary (`X11R6pl11.tar.gz') that I downloaded
	  from Gatekeeper.  Yes, I'm using GNU tar, and yes, the file checksums
	  correctly.  Tar gives messages like it gives when a gzipped tar file has
	  been FTPed in text mode -- maybe that happened before the checksum was
	  computed?

   hmm..  i'll see what i can do about this.  i'm running it just fine; have
   you tried ftping it from ftp.netbsd.org ?  that is where i had it placed
   first.

I haven't re-downloaded it.  Given that the checksum is what the CKSUMS file
says it ought to be, it seems like the problem must be farther upstream.  I
just now tried to `gunzip' it without un`tar'ing the result, and that failed
also ("invalid compressed data--crc error") after writing not quite 32MB.

It's bizarre, though.  Someone else claims to be using it successfully.  Do
you recall at what point in the process the CKSUMS file was created?

      I guess I can switch over to PPP, if Netcom will cooperate, but this is a pain.

   ppp is much simpler to set up.  :-)

Hmm, I hadn't really looked at it, but I guess I will -- let me see if I can
get it running under SunOS first.

      There are some difference in the tty driver vis-a-vis SunOS that are causing
      some minor problems.  Programs like `tip' can't open the serial port if CLOCAL
      is not set, but, seems to me, it *shouldn't* be set on modem lines.  I tried
      making `tip' open the port with O_NONBLOCK, but that is not sufficient -- it
      can open the port, but then can't write to it.  I guess it will have to open
      the port with O_NONBLOCK, immediately set CLOCAL, then clear CLOCAL once
      dialing is complete (but only if it really did dial, and didn't just connect
      to the port).  Really, I think I prefer the SunOS interpretation of CLOCAL,
      which appears to be just to generate SIGHUP on an on-to-off transition of DCD
      and to ignore DCD otherwise.  But NetBSD's behavior is at least consistent
      with its documentation.

   i prefer it this way, myself;  i can have a process sitting on the modem
   waiting for carrier, but without having actually opened the line.  make
   this process a getty.  then, seeing it isn't being used for incoming,
   i can use it for dialing out, which will cause the above process to wait
   even more.  at least, that's the idea  :-)(

Oh, okay, well now I at least understand the purpose.  I guess for the above
plan to work, then, the port must be opened with O_EXCL as well as O_NONBLOCK,
so that turning on CLOCAL doesn't allow `getty' to open the port also.

      I'm not sure how much more time I want to put into attempting to switch over
      to NetBSD.  From my point of view, it still seems pretty rough -- of course, I
      exercise some aspects of the OS that not everyone cares about.  If relatively
      easy solutions appear to these problems, I might keep trying, but otherwise
      I'll just call it a learning experience and maybe give it another shot in a
      year or so.

   well, what goals are you trying to achieve with the switch over to netbsd ?

   who and what do you have to support ?  how critical ?

I'm the only user, so I can tolerate changes and occasional non-serious
flakiness, but I have work to do and I need certain things to work.  I have to
have SLIP or equivalent, I need XEmacs, and I have to be able to run these big
Lisp applications that I use.  This is not, unfortunately, a spare machine
that I can dedicate to NetBSD with no particular consequences... maybe if I
had an old SS1 lying around I could do that.

I do have one specific motivation for using NetBSD, though, which is the SunOS
file partition size limit of 2GB.  The kind of stuff I do chews up disk space
in a hurry, and I would like to be able to have bigger partitions, now that
disks are so much bigger.

-- Scott