So far so good with the 1.3_ALPHA code.  At least in its state as of Oct
25.  The kernel seems to be very stable on a VS3100/30 that I'm running it
on.  In my first attempt to get `ps' rebuilt, it turned out that more than
the current includes and libkvm needed to be installed.  There have been
some changes to libc that affect ps.  So I opted just do a full make
build.  The make died on some warnings so I disabled the -Werror stuff,
the bootparamd code had an unused variable named `buf'.  Hardly a warning
worth dying over :-)

Under the 1.3_ALPHA kernel, the full source compile has been running
smoothly for several days now, and since the new libraries are in place
`ps' and `w' have compiled fine.  The compile is still chugging along, but
interactive performance in additional login sessions seems pretty smooth
even under the substantial load imposed by the make build.  Is this
apparent performance improvement something tied to the memory management
cleanup?  Then again, the network and NFS server the workstation's running
on at my workplace is a lot more efficient than what I've got at home.

I haven't noticed any of the pmap panics that occassionally occured with
1.2G on my VS3100's under heavy loads, so things are looking pretty good
for the 1.3 release at this point -- at least with the VS3100's.  Though I
image things will be good with the other older VAXen as well, they've
tended to be more stable in the past.

-brian.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian D. Chase         Systems Coordinator        brian.chase@carpediem.com
-- Compression, Inc. - 13765 Alton Pkwy, Suite B - Irvine, CA 92618, USA --