On Saturday 07 August 2004 18:00, you wrote:
> On Aug 7, 2004, at 6:44 PM, Charles H. Dickman wrote:
> > I made a clean install of 1.6.2 without a hitch. When I try to
> > install php4 from the packages, a floating point exception occurred
> > during the install of pear. That install is done by a php program.
> > There is a core dump, and with gdb the core shows that the
> > exception was in the middle of a vax CALLS instruction... All I
> > really know about vax guts is what I have read in books... :-(
> >
> > Has anybody else tried this?
> > Could it be a problem with VAX_fp vs IEEE_fp?
>
>    I've not tried this, but I'm very curious about it...I will see if
> I can find time to put together a machine to try this here tonight.

PHP on VAXstation 4000/60 seems slightly disturbing to me, but it 
probably is possible.  Just don't expect great speed from it. :)

> > Do I need to abandon the VAX web server for a PC? :-(
>
>    Certainly not.  If you need to abandon the VAX web server, you
> could move it to another *server platform*...not a PC.

Indeed.  Alphas (like the DEC 3000 series) and PowerPC-based RS/6000s 
(like my 43P-140) run NetBSD very well and make excellent small 
webservers.  Hell, even a Sun Ultra 1 would make a good webserver.

Just remember if you switch to i386, you'll make yourself accessible to 
more skr1pt k1dd13z with their spl0itz.  There's not all that many root 
kits / precompiled exploits laying around for Linux or NetBSD on 
Alpha/Sparc/PowerPC/VAX, especially compared to i386.

Pat
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