> 1. Don't do anything special for the reset, primarly due to the fact that there
> 	is no guarantee that anything good like sync can actually be 
> 	accomplished during the allotted time period. If sync was attempted and
> 	the machine reset in the middle, you could make things worse if the
> 	machine was essentially queiscent and synced when the 3-finger reset
> 	was started.

Guarantees are hard to come by, certainly, but sync on every Unix I've worked
on completes in less than 3 seconds. I can usually complete 3 (historical)
syncs and type halt in much less than 10.

> 2. Put a nice big warning in the INSTALL docs explaining that the 3-finger reset
> 3. Also explain in the INSTALL docs how to properly halt or reboot NetBSD using
> Basically I think it is better to explain up front when to properly use the
> 3-finger reset instead of trying to protect users after the fact. Sort of like
> putting air-bags in cars in case someone doesn't know how to use the brakes :-)

Except that computer engineering requires attention to Murphy's law. If my 
current car had an airbag, I'd say it was there to protect me from someone
hitting me head on. I know how to use the brakes, and hopefully sysadmins
will know how to shutdown NetBSD, but that doesn't help if someone comes in
and reboots the machine while they're not around.

Most Amiga users have had the experience of writing a file to disk 
(Usually S:startup-sequence) and doing a C-A-A, to then find that their 
machine won't boot anymore. Older versions of AmigaDos demonstrated the
volatility of write cacheing vividly.

So, I'd say do a sync (except on a 500. Tell them to cut their reset line :-)
in the delay period.

								David Maxwell
								david@web.net
> Alan Bair             		MCTG AMCU DSCS
> Motorola, Inc.            	(Design Software &
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