O.K. wise folks, I have a better bit of diagnostic now.

The story so far: NetBSD-1.1(GERBILS) {gerbils = GENERIC minus
excessive drivers, but with about every option}
P-90, 16 megs of RAM, 32 Meg Swap space.

Yes, I got the kernel to compile. I also pulled out the memory and
rearranged it, in hopes that it was a reseating problem. And also to
see if it changed things.

It compiled up the rest of the kernel well and quickly, so I installed
and rebooted, with fine success.

Started unpacking Xfree, and getting various x programs before I
tackled getting the S3 server running, decided to get xpaint and
compile it. Note that up to the point I had had no hints of trouble
once I rebooted with the new kernel. I had unpacked a number of
packages, used xterms, etc.

Do I unpacked xpaint, do xmkmf, do make Makefiles, great!

Do make install:

vm_fault(f873cc00, 0, 3, 0) -> 1
kernel: page fault trap, code=0
stopped at _vm_fault + 0x53: andw   $0xfdff, 0x22(%ebx)
db>

Clearly a vm fault, now my question is: is it the disk, the mboard, or
the memory?

Help again?
--
Hacksaw