Well, it has been about two weeks, and I've not seen anybody else
complain, so I must conclude that I am the only person with this
malady, and that I have somehow inflicted this pain on myself.

gdb broke thoroughly around about the start of November when I
upgraded to a NetBSD-1.1ALPHA (i386) kernel and system.

I have two Pentium systems that are suffering from this problem.

The synopsis:

chase@orac>/usr/bin/cc -g -static -o hello hello.c
chase@orac>/usr/bin/gdb hello
GDB is free software and you are welcome to distribute copies of it
 under certain conditions; type "show copying" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB; type "show warranty" for details.
GDB 4.11 (i386-netbsd), Copyright 1993 Free Software Foundation, Inc...
(gdb) break main
Breakpoint 1 at 0x1098: file hello.c, line 5.
(gdb) run
Starting program: /a/orac/home/orac/chase/src/hello 

Breakpoint 1, main () at hello.c:5
5               printf("hello world\n");
(gdb) n

Program received signal SIGSEGV (11), Segmentation fault
0x1099 in main () at hello.c:5
5               printf("hello world\n");
(gdb) print "ARRRRHHGGGG!"

Program received signal SIGSEGV (11), Segmentation fault
0x1099 in main () at hello.c:5
5               printf("hello world\n");
The program being debugged stopped while in a function called from GDB.
When the function (malloc) is done executing, GDB will silently
stop (instead of continuing to evaluate the expression containing
the function call).
(gdb) quit
The program is running.  Quit anyway (and kill it)? (y or n) y

And this is true with both gdb-4.14 (which I recompiled after
installing the new kernel, before recompiling it, gdb itself core
dump, now it's just the inferior that SEGVs) and static or non-static
linking, gcc-2.4.5 or gcc-2.7.0

Any time I stop the program in gdb (breakpoint, step, next, etc),
there is an extremely high (not quite 1) probability that next time I
start the program (e.g., continue, step, next, etc) the inferior will
SEGV for no reason).

What did I do that caused gdb to break?  I'm at my wits end on this
one.

My kernel configuration file follows.  Thanks!

Craig


------------------------------------------------------------
#	$NetBSD: GENERIC,v 1.21 1995/09/14 12:46:42 hpeyerl Exp $
#
#	GENERIC -- everything that's currently supported
#

machine		i386		# architecture, used by config; REQUIRED

options		I386_CPU	# CPU classes; at least one is REQUIRED
options		I485_CPU
options		I586_CPU
#options		MATH_EMULATE	# floating point emulation

options	DUMMY_NOPS	# speed hack; recommended
options		XSERVER,UCONSOLE
options		INSECURE	# insecure; allow /dev/mem writing for X
options		MACHINE_NONCONTIG

maxusers	12		# estimated number of users
options		TIMEZONE=0	# time zone to adjust RTC time by
options		DST=0		# daylight savings time used by RTC

options		SWAPPAGER	# paging; REQUIRED
options		VNODEPAGER	# mmap() of files
options		DEVPAGER	# mmap() of devices

#options		DDB		# in-kernel debugger
#makeoptions	DEBUG="-g"	# compile full symbol table
#options		DIAGNOSTIC	# internally consistency checks
#options		KTRACE		# system call tracing, a la ktrace(1)

options		SYSVMSG		# System V-like message queues
options		SYSVSEM		# System V-like semaphores
options		SYSVSHM		# System V-like memory sharing
options	SHMMAXPGS=1024	# 1024 pages is the default

options		COMPAT_NOMID	# compatibility with 386BSD, BSDI, NetBSD 0.8,
options		COMPAT_09	# NetBSD 0.9,
options		COMPAT_10	# NetBSD 1.0,
options		COMPAT_43	# and 4.3BSD
options		TCP_COMPAT_42	# TCP bug compatibility with 4.2BSD
options		COMPAT_FREEBSD	# binary compatibility with FreeBSD

options		COMPAT_SVR4	# binary compatibility with SVR4
options		COMPAT_IBCS2	# binary compatibility with SCO and ISC
options		COMPAT_LINUX	# binary compatibility with Linux

options		USER_LDT	# user-settable LDT; used by WINE
options		LKM		# loadable kernel modules

options		FFS		# UFS
#options		QUOTA		# UFS quotas
#options		LFS		# log-structured file system
options		MFS		# memory file system

options		NFSCLIENT	# Network File System client
options		NFSSERVER	# Network File System server

options		CD9660		# ISO 9660 + Rock Ridge file system
options		MSDOSFS		# MS-DOS file system
options		FDESC		# /dev/fd
options		FIFO		# FIFOs; RECOMMENDED
options		KERNFS		# /kern
options		NULLFS		# loopback file system
options		PORTAL		# ?
options		PROCFS		# /proc
options		UMAPFS		# NULLFS + uid and gid remapping
options		UNION		# union file system

options	GATEWAY		# packet forwarding
options		INET		# IP + ICMP + TCP + UDP
options		NS		# XNS

config		netbsd	swap generic
options		GENERIC

isa0	at root
pci0	at root

npx0	at isa? port 0xf0 irq 13	# math coprocessor

#pc0	at isa? port 0x60 irq 1		# generic PC console device
vt0	at isa? port 0x60 irq 1

com0	at isa? port 0x3f8 irq 4	# standard PC serial ports
com1	at isa? port 0x2f8 irq 3
#com2	at isa? port 0x3e8 irq 5
#com3	at isa? port 0x2e8 irq 9
#ast0	at isa? port 0x1a0 irq 5	# AST 4-port serial cards
#com*	at ast? slave ? flags 1
#boca0	at isa? port 0x100 irq 5	# BOCA 8-port serial cards
#com*	at boca? slave ?
#rtfps0	at isa? port 0x1230 irq 10	# RT 4-port serial cards
#com*	at rtfps? slave ?

#cy0	at isa? ...

lpt0	at isa? port 0x378 irq 7	# standard PC parallel ports
#lpt1	at isa? port 0x278
#lpt2	at isa? port 0x3bc

#lms0	at isa? port 0x23c irq 5	# Logitech bus mouse
#lms1	at isa? port 0x238 irq 5
#mms0	at isa? port 0x23c irq 5	# Microsoft InPort mouse
#mms1	at isa? port 0x238 irq 5
#pms0	at isa? port 0x60 irq 12	# PS/2 auxiliary port mouse

ahc0    at pci? bus ? dev ?             # Adaptec 2940 PCI SCSI controller
scsibus* at ahc?
#aha0	at isa? port 0x330 irq ? drq ?	# Adaptec 154[02] SCSI controllers
#scsibus* at aha?
#ahb0	at isa? port ? irq ?		# Adaptec 174[024] SCSI controllers
#aha1	at isa? port 0x334 irq ? drq ?	# Adaptec 154[02] SCSI controllers

sd*	at scsibus? target ? lun ?	# SCSI disk drives
st*	at scsibus? target ? lun ?	# SCSI tape drives
cd*	at scsibus? target ? lun ?	# SCSI CD-ROM drives
#ch*	at scsibus? target ? lun ?	# SCSI autochangers

fdc0	at isa? port 0x3f0 irq 6 drq 2	# standard PC floppy controllers
#fdc1	at isa? port 0x370 irq ? drq ?
fd*	at fdc? drive ?

#mcd0	at isa? port 0x300 irq 10	# Mitsumi CD-ROM drives

#wdc0	at isa? port 0x1f0 irq 14	# ST506, ESDI, and IDE controllers
#wdc1	at isa? port 0x170 irq ?
#wd*	at wdc? drive ?

#wt0	at isa? port 0x300 irq 5 drq 1	# Archive and Wangtek QIC tape drives

ed0	at isa? port 0x280 iomem 0xd0000 irq 9	# WD/SMC, 3C503, and NE[12]000
#ed1	at isa? port 0x250 iomem 0xd8000 irq 9	#   ethernet cards
#ed2	at isa? port 0x300 iomem 0xcc000 irq 10
#eg0	at isa? ...				# 3C505 ethernet cards
##nel0	at isa? port 0x300 irq 9		# 3C501 ethernet cards
#ep0	at isa? port ? irq ?			# 3C509 ethernet cards
#ie0	at isa? port 0x360 iomem 0xd0000 irq 7	# StarLAN, 3C507, and Etherexpress
#le0	at isa? port 0x320 irq 10 drq 7		# IsoLan, NE2100, and DEPCA
#de*	at pci? bus ? dev ?

#pss0	at isa? port 0x220 irq 7 drq 6  # Personal Sound System
#sp0	at pss0 port 0x530 irq 10 drq 0	# 	sound port driver

sb0	at isa? port 0x220 irq 7 drq 1	# SoundBlaster
#wss0	at isa? port 0x530 irq 10 drq 0	# Windows Sound System
#pas0	at isa? port 0x220 irq 7 drq 1	# ProAudio Spectrum
#gus0	at isa? port 0x220 irq 7 drq 1 flags 6 # Gravis Ultra Sound (flags is record drq for full-duplex)
#spkr0	at isa? #...

pseudo-device	loop	1		# network loopback
pseudo-device	bpfilter 8		# packet filter
pseudo-device	sl	2		# CSLIP
pseudo-device	ppp	2		# PPP
pseudo-device	tun	2		# network tunneling over tty

pseudo-device	pty	64		# pseudo-terminals
pseudo-device	tb	1		# tablet line discipline
pseudo-device	vnd	4		# paging to files


-- 
Craig Chase --- Assistant Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78721   --- (512) 471-7457


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