On Sun, 23 Jan 2000, Brian Buhrow wrote:

> 	Hello folks.  I'm eager to try the 1.4P stuff, but on my
> Sparc 5 with 256MB of memory, the snapshots won't boot.  Could someone make
> a kernel of the 19991223 sources that's capable of booting a machine with
> 256MB of memory?  How hard would this be to be a standard part of the
> distribution/snapshot cycle?

Ok, I've just commited a change to the sparc port so a kernel should
boot on any system regardless of the amount of memory. I actually
worked out this exact change myself last summer, but rather than
work it out again, I just stole code verbatam from Eduardo E.
Horvath <eeh@one-o.com> to deal with this. :-)

I can say for certain that a GENERIC kernel now boots on a 512 MB
SS20. I can't see how it could fail on any system, but there is
the possibility that the arbitrary limit I put in place might
produce more pessimal kernel (in terms of buffer space) than one
used to have on certain configurations (i.e., you have less buffer
cache than you used to). If I find the spare time, I'll open up my
SS20, pull DIMMs, and start booting with various memory configurations
to see how it works. However, anybody else with a bit of time can
help me by commenting out this line in sys/arch/sparc/include/param.h:

    #define VM_MAX_KERNEL_BUF       ((KERNEND - KERNBASE)/4)

And telling me if you get more buffers than you do with the line
intact. Of particular interest would be a 224 MB or 198 MB SS5 or
SS20 and a well-loaded Sun-4c machine (basically, a 64 MB IPX, I
guess).

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson  <cjs@cynic.net>   917 532 4208   De gustibus, aut bene aut nihil.
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