Re: Trying NetBSD 9.1 on KA650 and VAXstation 3100m38

[Johnny Billquist <bqt%update.uu.se@localhost>]

Same here. I don't think you can blame the password algorithm for any of 
it, though.
Looking at running system, it spends a crazy amount of time in the 
kernel. Commonly over 50%, and sometimes up to 80%, and that is even the 
case with 128M of memory. So with only 8, I would expect it go totally 
crazy also with paging, in addition to whatever else makes it spend so 
much time in the kernel.

Disk activity in general seems to cause a lot of kernel time. I don't 
really understand that it should, but I have not really tried to figure 
out what is going on...

  Johnny

On 2020-11-15 23:19, Boris Gjenero wrote:
> My fastest VAXen are my VAXstation 3100 m38 with 8 MB RAM and a KA650 
> based system in a BA123 with 16 MB RAM. I wanted to see what happens if 
> I boot the latest NetBSD release, thinking about maybe doing some work 
> on it and making some contributions.
>
> Trying to netboot 9.1 on the VAXstation 3100 m38, I get an immediate 
> crash when boot from 9.1 starts running, with no output from boot. The 
> firmware restarts from the beginning with "A42-B  V1.3", all the tests, 
> and then "?21 CORRPTN". Older 8.x boots cause the same problem. Boot 
> from NetBSD 7.2 works and can netboot the 9.1 kernel. The GENERIC kernel 
> reports:
> total memory = 8072 KB
> avail memory = 3492 KB
> That's not terrible for a GENERIC kernel, but I didn't even attempt a 
> multi-user boot. In single user mode, even "cat /dev/null" is slow.
>
> The KA650 CPU is a bit slower, but the 16 MB of RAM should help. Boot 
> from NetBSD 7.2 seemed to hang after the initial banner, but boot from 
> 9.1 worked and could netboot NetBSD 9.1. The memory situation is better:
> total memory = 16328 KB
> avail memory = 11500 KB
> I did a multi-user boot, which took over 10 minutes with some stuff 
> disabled, starting only cron, inetd and syslogd. Memory does not seem to 
> be a huge problem here, and the KA650 is faster in multi-user than the 
> VS3100m38 in single user. I could even initiate outgoing ssh without it 
> being ridiculously slow. Surprisingly, changing a password or logging in 
> locally with a password was slow, probably because the hashing algorithm 
> has been upgraded to better resist password cracking.
>
> So, you could say the KA650 system is usable, but it's so slow that it's 
> not fun to use anymore. I don't suppose compiling a stripped down custom 
> kernel could help much here. That would probably only free up some 
> memory, and other factors are also making NetBSD 9.1 slow on this old 
> hardware.
>
> In the past, I was using NetBSD 1.3_BETA, which seems much faster. 
> That's where I got QDSS working in March 1998. I was quite excited about 
> it: https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-vax/1998/03/01/0011.html . I 
> don't think I would similarly enjoy doing stuff with a much slower 9.1. 
> It seems my VAXen are only useful for running historical operating 
> systems now. I'm a little bit sad but not complaining. With these 
> results NetBSD has done better than some other operating systems.
>
> Boris


--
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt%softjar.se@localhost             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol