Re: NetBSD/vax - worth continuing?

[Anders Magnusson <ragge%ludd.ltu.se@localhost>]

Den 2016-09-20 kl. 19:12, skrev Johnny Billquist:
> Hi, Ragge...
>
> On 2016-09-20 18:01, Anders Magnusson wrote:
> > Hi Johnny,
> >
> > Well, I run it, on a 4000/90 :-)   But I do not build the system
> > natively, not enough disk and NFS takes forever.
>
> I've been running it on and off on a 4000/90 as well. But not doing 
> things natively means that a lot of problems are not seen.
>
> > It's known that there are problems with gcc, gnats gives some hints
> > about that.
> > Unfortunately I cannot spend time to jump into gcc for debugging also...
>
> Me neither. Especially since I have found gcc to be almost 
> impenetrable in the past.
>
> > But, I do not have any hanging problems, must be something specific to
> > the 8600.  Have you checked where it actually hangs?
>
> Tried work that out many times, but never gotten far. You want console 
> access to a hung or crashed system? :-)
If you cannot get into DDB then something really evil has happened. Is 
this the case?

For the rest of the audience; the 8650 is a "real" vax and much more 
sensitive to low-level errors than the newer VAXen.  Therefore things 
that work fine on later VAXen may fail totally on an 8650. (Or 750, or 
something old).

Anyway; if it hangs hard and no DDB, have the kernel available on some 
other VAX and use gdb to find where (after a ^P HALT on the 8650).
Check PSL and the regs and unwind the stack manually with the help of 
gdb.  In less than 10 minutes you have found the offending code path :-)

-- Ragge