> 
> At the point where the msgs should have said "changing root device to
> ra0a", I got the following trap:
> 
> Trap, type 2   code 0 PC 8008FAF9 PSL 8
> 
> and a register dump. I was kicked to db>.
> 
> The only changes I made to GENERIC were to add an additional swap
> partition, and change "options GENERIC" to options MY-KERNEL-NAME, as
> I couldn't get a clean compile by just copying GENERIC, changing swap
> and running make depend/make.
> 
The code for this is actually a mess. I'm not surprised about
that it don't work. I am trying to convert the uda driver to 
new config, but before that is finished things may malfunction
very much.

But; if you only remove GENERIC and add something like
config	netbsd	root on ra0 swap on ra0
then it should work, at least it does for me on a VAX 8600 here.

> I have FreeBSD and under that OS this method seems to work to install
> a new kernel.
> 
This is the correct way. The error is in the code.
FreeBSD uses a slightly different way to do this, because of
it's old config system, and the code for setting root/swap 
device in the VAX port is a combination between old/new config.

> I've checked some FAQs, perhaps I have to recompile several other
> progs as well that interact with the new kernel???
> 
If you have upgraded from something older that 1.1B you must
recompile config, but you should have noticed that already :-)
Otherwise, the generic kernel is very generous about old programs.
I am still using tcsh 6.01 compiled under 4.3BSD Reno back in -92.

-- Ragge