Subject: The 2000xxxx sparc snapshots ?
To: None <port-sparc@netbsd.org>
From: Robert Elz <kre@munnari.OZ.AU>
List: port-sparc
Date: 04/11/2000 05:22:09
I would like to install a recent sparc snapshot - the 20000331
snapshot looks incomplete (no kernel, no boot images) and I haven't
seen mentioned anywhere yet, so I ignored that version.

I tried installing 20000304 - that one panics on the IPX I was installing
it on just as it has configured the graphics card, that is, the autoconf
code prints
	cgsix0 .... (console)
then immediately after the ')' after "console" (no newline or anything)

	data fault pc=0xf01eb368 addr=0xc0 ser=8080<WRITE,INVAL>
	panic: kernel fault

(which suggests to me an attempt to write through a null pointer).  At that
point the kernel just halts, so I assume it doesn't have ddb compiled into
it, hence no traceback.

This is when booting after the installation has finished - the install
image (bootfs) kernel works just fine.   The messages above may suffer from
typos, they come to this message via scribble on a piece of paper.  I
suspect (but am not certain) that those particular values might come from the
netbsd.GENERIC_SCSI3 kernel (though netbsd.GENERIC (aka netbsd) panics just
the same way - perhaps with a slightly different pc value).

The 19991223 snapshot installs just fine (but is currently moved to the
RETRACTED directory...)

I suspect that that snapshot  (1223) should be fine for me to use to build
a new kernel from the sources, and then upgrade the binaries from one of the
later snapshots (or recompile the world, if I have the patience) so this
isn't going to affect me much, and I'm probably not going to go back to the
later snapshots and install them again - I just thought that perhaps someone
might want to know that neither of the two currently not RETRACTED snapshots
for sparcs seems to be very useful (perhaps the 20000304 would work with
some other hardware).

Also, just for whoever maintains this - the install script currently
(that is, from both of the snapshots I installed) prints a warning about
netbsd.GENERIC not being found, and that netbsd should be installed manually.
netbsd has been installed though ...  I suspect this is from an ancient
test done from back in the days when sparcs didn't use kern.tgz from
the binary/sets directory and instead just picked one of the generic
kernels and installed that (and the sysinst version didn't know about this
and wouldn't make "netbsd" so a boot without filename would fail ... but
never mind that, that's clearly gone now).

kre