RE: A3000, hardware troubles with NetBSD1.3.2 (with new info!)

["Michael L. Hitch" <mhitch%msu.oscs.montana.edu@localhost>]

"B. Bogart" <bbogart%iname.com@localhost> writes: 
> For those who missed it here is my original email, at the end i will attach
> additional information.
> 
> 
> Hello,
> I am running on an Amiga 3000, with 4MB Fastram (I have removed my Microbotics
> card), EGS Card, 2.1GB Seagate HD. NetBSD1.3.2, GENERIC Kernel

  First, a comment about the Microbotics card:  neither the Microbotics 8-UP
card or the GVP Hardcard memory will work on my A4000 as kernel paged
memory.  The memory works just fine as a mapped disk buffer, but results
in strange errors when processing memory faults.  It's my guess that the
design of the bus interface on the A4000 [and probably the A3000] is
incompatible with the MMU fault processing done by NetBSD.

> I have previcously installed NetBSD1.3.2 succesfully, by a lot of tweaking
> with the install script. (because the install script would crash just as it
> was about to install the sets) Everything went well until i tried to compile
> my own kernel, it would crash the kernel during the final Make command. I
> thought this might also be related to my card, so i removed it. first off

  The Microbotics card?

> loadbsd did not work the same way, i could not boot netbsd without turing off
> the startup sequence. The error I got was: 
> 
> loadbsd: failed malloc 1771656
> : Undefined error
> 
> this error is not produced when i run loadbsd without running the
> startup-sequence, also previously netbsd would not boot when i tried starting
> it from the bootblock, and now that does work. 

  This looks like you have something in your startup-sequence that either
takes up quite of bit of memory, or results in fragmented memory such that
there is no longer 1.7M of free contiguous memory.  If you run the avail
command before running loadbsd, I think it should indicate the largest
segment of fast memory available.  You could look through the startup
file and see if there's anything that you don't really need, or if there's
something that runs briefly that might take up a lot of memory and then
exit, leaving the memory fragmented.

> After taking out the card did not solve my kernel compile problem I thought
> reinstalling netbsd might work, as the card is no longer causing a problem but
> the exact same crash occurs. 

  What kind of crash are you seeing?  Is it a kernel panic, or does the system
just hang?  If the system is just hanging, you might want to verify that
you have swap space available:  the "swapctl -l" command should display
current swap usage.  A 4MB system is going to be very tight on memory,
particularly with the GENERIC kernel, and insufficient swap space is almost
certainly going to cause the kernel to hang.  When NetBSD switched to not
automatically adding the first swap device on boot, I had a little problem
remembering to add the swap device when booting up in single user mode.
I'd try doing a kernel compile and the system would hang.  [And I had at
least 16M!]  Also, how big is your swap device?

  This could also explain the problem you were having when trying to install
the system.  With only 4MB, you probably don't have a whole lot of memory
available, and booting the miniroot from the swap partition would not
have any swap space configured.  I think you should be able to add the
swap space by exiting the install procedure, adding the swap device with
"swapctl -A /dev/sd0b", and then running the install script again.

> the bottom line is that my stock A3000 rea;lly does not like netbsd and i want
> to know why! I was considering getting the Simmfonie board to replace my
> missing 16bit memory, but its not worth it if it does not solve my problems,
> what are the probably causes of these symptoms? I would appriciate any input
> from anyone serious about Amiga Hardware.

  I think you definately need more memory - just make sure it's Zorro III
memory and you should be OK [but that's not certain:  I finally got some
memory for the Fastlane Z3 board I had and found that the memory on it
wouldn't work at all on my A4000 :-(].

> Also another intersting fact, when i turn off my a3000 and turn it on again,
> it does not boot, just get a white screen, that later turns black and it just
> sits. thew first reboot after that and a red software failure will come up.
> after clicking the left button the amiga boots fine.

  I've never had an A3000, so I can't help you much here.

> I was looking at the boards screen in SYSINFO and noticed some strage things
> and wonder if they are contibuting to my troubles:

  I don't see anything strange, it looks normal to me.

> Board Address:  Board Size: Board Type: Product:    Manufacturer:   Serial#
> $40000000       16384K      ZORRO III   1           2193            0

  The Spectrum video memory.

> $00E90000       64K         ZORRO II    2           2193            0

  The Spectrum I/O and control registers.
> $00200000       4096K       ZORRO II    8UP RAM     MICROBOTICS     0
> $00600000       4096K       ZORRO II    4           MICROBOTICS     0

  And the two segments of the Microbotics memory.

> According to AmigaOS and the RAM screen in sysinfo I only have 4 meg on the
> motherboard, what is this mention of 16M of something? what is the 2193

  The motherboard memory is "builtin" and doesn't have any configuration
entries to display, so won't show up with sysinfo.

Michael
---
Michael L. Hitch                        mhitch%montana.edu@localhost
Computer Consultant,  Information Technology Center
Montana State University, Bozeman, MT     USA