There's a new NetBSD/alpha source snapshot, and some new kernels,
available at:

	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/alpha/951127

For an explanation of what's what, see:

	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/alpha/README.files

This snapshot contains _only_:
	(1) new kernels (i.e. netbsd.gz, netbsd.gdb.gz, netbsd_nfs.gz,
		netbsd_nfs.gdb.gz)
	(2) new source tar files/diffs.

Because this snapshot doesn't include a complete install image and tar
files of the binaries, the previous distribution is still available
at:

	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/alpha/951017


Hints and tips for using these sources:
	(1) COMPILE YOUR KERNELS WITH COMPAT_10.  If you do not,
	    you'll not be able to mount your file systems!!!
	(2) If
	       you
		   see
		       a
			 stairstepping
				       problem
					       with
						    carriage
							     returns
	    "stty opost" to fix it.  This is a problem with the
	    machine-independent tty_compat.c code in NetBSD, and
	    hopefully it'll be fixed in the next NetBSD/alpha snapshot
	    i build.	


These sources and kernels fix a couple of (very) serious bugs:

	(1) "modified" and "referenced" bits weren't being kept for
	    pages.  Not keeping reference bits would just cause
	    a minor performance lose.  Lack of "modified" bits
	    could cause serious problems -- typically, once the
	    system started paging, applications would crash randomly.

	    Thanks to Jeff Hsu for pointing out and clearly
	    demonstrating the problem, and for providing a sample
	    fix that pointed me in the right direction.

	(2) There was a problem with the FFS code that would cause
	    it to deterministically crash in certain situations.
	    (Basically: when 'fsck' would cause the root file system
	    to be reloaded, not all the fields of the superblock were
	    handled properly.)  This couldn't cause data loss, but
	    was very annoying and confusing (at least to me)...


New features:

	(1) AXPpci ("NoName") support, written by Jeff Hsu.  With this
	    and bug #1 above fixed, he is apparently self-hosting
	    on his 16M AXPpci 33.  (That machine type right, Jeff?)

	(2) I've verified that the NFS server code works.  (I dunno if
	    it didn't before, but i changed a couple of things in
	    my source tree and tried it, and it worked...)

	(3) user-land and kernel profiling both work.  (Note that
	    you'll have to update your /usr/src/lib from the NetBSD
	    master sources and recompile and install your libraries,
	    if you want to do user-land profiling...)


Other notes:

I'm going to be travelling until next friday or saturday (i.e. 12/9,
or something like that), so if you send me mail, don't expect to hear
back from me until i get back...  I hope to do a complete snapshot not
too long after i return.


chris