Hi Alpha'ers,
As you may recall, I recently migrated here from the port-Mac68k community.
So far, I'm nearly finished getting exactly where I want to be. I just
yanked out the vid card, since it was 1 of the later 32 bpp-only models, &
used my wife's laptop via null modem as serial console. Then I set tty0 as
secure, so that I can have 1 connection as "root" via the ethernet, which
became console so that I could disconnect the laptop. I got the ipnat
fixes, & am now writing this to you from the Mac on an ipnet'd setup. So
far, so good :).

I noticed that things like ld.so weren't working, & the compiler stuff
either. It was saying "wrong architecture". I eventually traced it down to
the fact that there were 2 versions of certain commands, one in usr/bin,
the other in usr/local/bin. The one in /usr/bin had the date Dec 10th,
while the others were newer. Everything with the date Dec 10th that I have
seen to date has been bad. Things with the date Dec 31st, though, have been
OK. I had first installed 1.3.1 because when I first tried, Alpha didn't
have an entry in 1.3.2, but I later installed the (then) latest snapshot
(April 17th is the date on most stuff). I extracted the tarballs using the
--unlink, but of course since the directory had been moved, it didn't
remove the old stuff. Since the cmd hash table listed /usr/bin first, it
couldn't read the updated files until I rm's the old ones. Was there a
known issue with this, or was this a fluke?


In setting up ppp, though, I tried just using the pre-done scripts that the
mac68k guys have. The scripts look for the pid of the pppd so that they can
check for it, & so they can bring it down. Unfortunately, port-mac68k uses
/proc for keeping them, whereas you guys use /var/run. Why would 2 ports of
NetBSD have this difference? (all I can think of is that may be what OSF/1
used). Which is the one that NetBSD is moving toward (if either)?


OK, one last thing...now that I'm using an ethernet for the console, is it
possible for me to use the ttyC0 for a regular serial? I have an ISDN line
into my house, but unfortunately, my ISP doesn't let us use DOV on it, so
that leaves me with a $0.01 per minute tariff whenever I want the speed.
Luckily, though, most of my online usage isn't NetScape, so the speed is
only needed every so often. Most of the time, I use my 14.4 modem on a POTS
jack of the TA/NT-1. My goal, though, is to have the 14.4 on one serial
port, & the TA on the other. I'll stay connected pretty much 24/7 via the
analoog, but I'd like to make a "turbo-speed" command to (1) bring down
pppd on ttyC1...(2) bring pppd up on ttyC0 (ISDN)...& be able to do my
business, & then a quick "turbo-down" command to do the reverse. Am I
dreaming or does this seem easy to accomplish? Can I put "none" in field 2
of ttys for the ttyC0 and ttyC1 entries? Is it possible to tell it that the
Ethernet network is all secure, but the PPP interface is not? Since it's a
home LAN, I certainly won't be hacking into my own system, but the PPP
connection is another story,although I really don't have anything worth
worrying about on the alpha, & the Mac's secure in its own right.

I appreciate any help that you can offer in advance,
Mike

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