On Tue, Jan 23, 2007 at 07:30:22PM +1100, Sarton O'Brien wrote:
> On Sunday 07 January 2007 21:57, Manuel Bouyer wrote:
> > > Not being an old hand at disklabel, I kept it as simple as possible using
> > > as many defaults as I could. It all seemed to go accordingly up until
> > > issuing newfs on vnd0a where it would freeze after a second or two.
> >
> > Did you try using rvnd0a instead ?
> 
> No I didn't but I have just now and that works fine.
> 
> How come that is the case? I've just seen a new thread on current-users about 
> creating images and rvnd wasn't mentioned ...
> 
> I am quite naive when it comes to how devices function. Any information is 
> appreciated. I'm definitely interested in the technical reason.

vnd0a is the block device; it goes though the buffer cache. rvnd0a is
the character device, it talks directly to the driver. I guess using
vnd0a you fill up the buffer cache quickly, and the system crawls because
it has no free memory.

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org>
     NetBSD: 26 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--