Re: Re (6): installing NetBSD on a Sparcstation 2.

[Dan Oglesby <danno%serverunderground.com@localhost>]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bill Roman" <roman%songdog.eskimo.com@localhost>
> To: "Dan Oglesby" <danno%serverunderground.com@localhost>
> Cc: port-sparc%NetBSD.org@localhost
> Sent: Monday, September 6, 2010 10:35:02 AM
> Subject: Re: Re (6): installing NetBSD on a Sparcstation 2.
> On Tue, 2010-08-17 at 01:53 -0500, Dan Oglesby wrote:
> >
> > The video on the CG6 framebuffer (SBus) appears to work for a few
> > minutes after boot, then the console freezes. I see no errors on the
> > console, in dmesg (via SSH), or in /var/log/messages to indicate an
> > issue with software. I can SSH in to the box, and it appears to be
> > running along just fine, minus the console issue. After a Stop-A and
> > a "boot disk", the system will fsck the filesystems, and have a
> > working console again for a few minutes.
> 
> That sounds awfully like a problem I ran into with a CG6 on an SS5.
> Look for the thread "NetBSD 5.0 and SPARCstation 5 not a lucky
> combination" starting 2009-07-25. Does it freeze when it scrolls more
> than a line or two?
> 

I actually found that thread and read through a lot of it.  It freezes after 
several dozen lines, or screen fulls of lines.  Definitely more than a couple 
lines.

> Can you ssh into the machine while it is frozen? That would suggest
> the
> problem is just the display freezing.
> 

Yes, SSH works fine.  I left the machine running for several days, and SSH 
worked the entire time.

> I experimented with a few minor changes in the CG6 code, and managed
> to
> change the symptoms a little. It looks like it's some sort of lack of
> cooperation between threads, allowing one thread to start an operation
> on the CG6 while another is waiting for one to finish.
> 

I noticed that the console returns if I did a shutdown -h or a reboot, so it's 
not locking up the framebuffer to the point it requires a power cycle.

> The good news is that wscons does not appear to have a problem with
> the
> CG6.

I hate running the big Sun monitor during the summer, so for now I've pulled 
all the framebuffers and run my SPARC hardware headless, using a serial console 
to poke at the machine if need be.

--Dan