Re: Trying NetBSD 9.1 on KA650 and VAXstation 3100m38

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

Yep, there is something that makes userspace extremely slow.
Notice though that the kernel is actually faster with I/O than old 
kernels (like Ultrix).  Me and Johnny tested that some years ago.

If this userspace problem is found the system will probably be usable again.

Also notice that it has showed up a bug in -current that causing 
scheduling to get slow (#55415).  Haven't found that yet either.

-- R

Den 2020-11-15 kl. 23:19, skrev Boris Gjenero:
> 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