re: NetBSD 11 on Pine Book Pro

[matthew green <mrg%eterna23.net@localhost>]

hi Derrick.

> - The bwfm0 network driver fails after some period of time of use and
> stalls out and becomes unstable.

this is unfortunately a known problem.  some old info (that is somewhat
out of date now, i realise) is at this bug report:

   https://gnats.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-single.pl?number=55485

it's the fixes from this that mostly fixed the hard hangs for me:

   https://mail-index.netbsd.org/source-changes/2020/07/20/msg119561.html
   https://mail-index.netbsd.org/source-changes/2020/07/20/msg119562.html

though perhaps the NET_MPSAFE option helped me here.

> - Left alone, if you try to load a web browser or use the network in anyway
> at some point it causes the system to crash and force reboot.

do you have any crash back traces or info about what happens here?  we
know that bwfm on the pinebookpro has some problems, but i have not 
seen it *crash* vs hang for a while, so i'm curious about the specifics.

> - If you turn off the bwfm0 interface, you can generally use an external
> usb network device like the ones for urt0 and that works stable. I have not
> had reboots forced and crashes using that network interface/driver.

i mostly use urtwn(4) on my pbp, though i've been trying to use the
bwfm(4) and figure out hangs more without much success lately.

i'll try to test it again soon see what happens.

> This problem exists in NetBSD 10. I don't know if it exists in NetBSD 9.

netbsd-10 *should* be less problematic than netbsd-9 for this, and
hopefully the soon netbsd 11 will be less bad.

thanks.


.mrg.