Subject: Re: ELC support broken?
To: None <port-sparc@netbsd.org>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: port-sparc
Date: 03/04/2000 23:18:46
>>>> Anyone have enough idea what the differences between the ELC and
>>>> IPX are to take even a wild stab at where to look for the problem?

>>> ELC == monochrome;
>> I rather doubt this is relevant, since the kernel in use has neither
>> bwtwo nor cgsix configured into it [...]
> Hey, you were asking for potential differences.

Well, I was asking for differences that could produce guesses as to
what was wrong, but yeah, a list of all differences is not necessarily
a bad place to start.

Thinking about it, I suspect this has been present for a *long* time.
I have some new information. :-)

I dug out that SS1+ I mentioned and found 4×4M memory, giving it 28M
(12×1M+4×4M).  The mud failed on that machine too.

Now, as I mentioned, I took an IPX to use in place of the ELC I was
trying to use.  But this meant taking the IPX out of its previous
service.  Since I wanted to have that machine there, I decided to put
the SS1+ in its place - its principal feature was a colour framebuffer,
which on the IPX is built in - but I had a cg6 board I could put in the
SS1+.  So I set the 1+ up with the disk the IPX had, rebooted,
everything seemed basically happy.  But then I fired up X and shortly
thereafter xc coredumped, killing my X session.  (xc is a
connection-intercepting X front end I run.)

This is noteworthy largely because this behavior was very familiar.
For a long time - probably over a year, though I'm not sure - I'd been
plagued by exactly that symptom.  Seeing it here reminded me that it
had been a while since I saw it, and in fact I cannot recall ever
seeing it happen on an IPX.

Thus, I suspect that whatever was killing the mud is also what has been
killing my X sessions for "a long time"...and it appears it happens on
at least two and I think three SS1+s, at least three ELCs, and does not
happen on at least two IPXes.

Now, of course, the $65,536 question: any guesses at the bug?

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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