Re: NetBSD/vax current

[Dave McGuire <mcguire%neurotica.com@localhost>]

On 04/13/2014 03:43 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>> You are going to be soooo disappointed. Trying to just build a kernel on
>>> the 11/785 will take an estimated two weeks. Really.
>>> It's not really doable on the 8650 any more either. :-(
>>
>>    Perhaps I should've been more specific.  I plan to run VMS on the
>> 11/785s.  I have a few 4000/90s and other later machines for NetBSD.
> 
> Ah. Now, that makes more sense. VMS will move pretty nicely on those
> machines.

  Yes.  I run it (v7.3) regularly on XEROX, a MicroVAX-II that serves as
a media translation machine between RL and RA drives, and disk images
for same.

> I'm going to try and do some more testing, but I really can't see many
> other explanations. I noticed that just booting NetBSD up on the 4000/90
> grabbed more than 16M before the boot was complete, so with only 16M it
> is going to be paging a lot.

  Oh yes, ouch.

  I remember putting twenty users in 16MB regularly under SunOS, on a
68020. (Sun 3/180s)  I was a NetBSD user at the time, as well, but this
was the 0.9/1.0 days.  My how things have changed.

>>> However, running on a simulated 8650 at least seems to have revealed
>>> some kind of issue if you were to have more than 64M in one 86x0.
>>> Unfortunately, I don't have quite that much in the real machine, so I
>>> can't verify this on real hardware, but using simh, VMS works fine with
>>> 512M while NetBSD goes wrong somewhere when you have more than 64M.
>>> Since NetBSD works ok on my 4000/90 with more memory, it must be
>>> something related to things early in the boot process, me thinks. I'm
>>> going to look at it soon, unless someone beats me to it.
>>>
>>> I also have a bunch of uncommitted 86x0 stuff that I should try to
>>> send in.
>>
>>    Well, get to it, man! ;)  I expect there will eventually be a fork of
>> NetBSD that will trim the fat and make it more usable.  Testing on
>> older, slower hardware would go a long way toward "keeping it honest".
> 
> Question is if anyone have the time, energy and money for that to happen?

  Well, we'll see.  Enough people want it.  It's not like it actually
costs any money...just time and motivation.  Money can just free up time
and generate motivation. ;)

            -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA