Subject: Re: is it hardware or software thats broken?
To: None <pts@bom.gov.au>
From: Johan A.van Zanten <johan@giantfoo.org>
List: port-sparc
Date: 06/18/2006 22:23:25
"Paul (NCC/CS)." <pts@bom.gov.au> wrote:
> 
> Hello Sparc People,
> 
> i'll try to phrase 1 clear question, as i'm stumped as to
> what to do next. I fear the grim reaper is stalking my ss5.
> It's a bit of a mess.
> 
> 
> Can someone advise me if it's most likely to be a hardware or
> software problem on my  SS5?


 Your description doesn't sound like a problems with RAM.

 I believe the NetBSD 2.0 kernel will log detected memory errors.  Suns
have ECC memory, which is much more "robust" than PeeCees.  Most memory
errors are detected and corrected, rather than silenty causing problems
with running processes.

 I'd think that it's more likely something in your package environment is
hosed.  Could you include the last 24 lines (or so) from the build output?

 It might also help to revert to one of the quarterly releases of pkgsrc
-- these releases are better tested for conflicts and dependencies.

  You can also just start a different shell before the build if you think
that might be at issue, although i doubt it's the problem.

 In the past, i've managed to get my pkgsrc tree fouled up pretty well
because of changes i made to /etc/mk.conf and preceding builds.  On one or
two occasions, i just did:

cd /usr
mv pkgsrc pkgsrc.foobar
mkdir pkgsrc
tar zxf .../pkgsrc.tar.gz

...in order to start fresh.  Pay special attention to the changes you make
to /etc/mk.conf.

 I just started a build of xscreensaver going on my Sparc 5 (170 MHz),
running NetBSD 2.0.2_STABLE.  I'll let you know when it finishes what the
result was.


 -johan