I've been futzing around with NetBSD on this 3100/30 for a while now and
I have been getting nowhere. As soon as I turn on swapping it's all over.

With the trimmed miniroot, I can do anything I like as long as it's not
large. I can FTP files, mount disks, initialize filesystems, etc. etc.
As soon as I enable swapping, things stop working. FTP is no longer able
to fetch files, for instance. I tried FTPing over the fstab from my
NetBSD PC, but the transfer never completed. FTP continuously drew a
blank bar chart with zero bytes transferred. However, if I don't enable
swapping I can FTP files all day long (and it takes all day, too).

With the kernel distributed in the 1.4.1 kern.tgz distribution, I see
segment faults shortly after swap is enabled. When the system attempts
to drop into single user mode, I'm told there's a syntax error in
nsswitch.conf. Nevertheless, if I boot this kernel in single-user mode
(using "boot rom()netbsd -sd"), I can fiddle around with the system all
day as long as I don't enable swapping.

With the netbsd.generic.gz kernel from
ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/vax/snapshot/1.4.1-pre/binary/kernel/
which has been "updated to include the disconnect fix for the ncr SCSI
drive", the system seems to hang immediately after printing
"swapctl: adding /dev/sd0b as swap device at priority 0". I've let the
machine sit overnight and it has done nothing after printing that message.

My current configuration is:
  - 3100/30 with 4MB RAM
  - Dual SCSI controller
  - Iomega JAZ drive as DKA400:, from which I am currently booting.
  - Conner 1GB drive as DKB0:
  - VT220 as serial console

Looks like I'm gonna haveta punt and fall back to my MicroVAX II.

Roger Ivie
ivie@cc.usu.edu