Fredrik Hubinette <hubbe@cytocin.hubbe.net> writes:

> Hello everybody,
> 
> I've been trying to get NetBSD to run on my DC, but I've had
> very little success. I've gotten to the point where the DC
> has received an IP number and mounted the root filesystem, but
> when trying to load /sbin/init it hangs. I've been snooping
> the network, and the DC starts sending read requests, and the
> NFS server is replying, but then the DC seems to turn deaf or
> something... I suspect that the dreamcast is having problems
> with large (8Kb) packets. The last message on the the screen is:
> 
>      init: copying out path '/sbin/init' 11
> 
> Has anybody experienced anything similar?
> 
> I'm inclined to think this is because of broken hardware, because
> the same BBA does not seem to work for playing Quake either.
> (It connects, but is unable to list Quake servers) However, I
> suppose it could be hardware limitation and/or driver issue as well.
> 
> I got the kernel from Marcus Comstedt, it boots beautifully from
> a CD. The NFS rsize has been set to 8Kb, so the BBA *should* be
> able to recive the whole packet. I've tried using both Linux
> and FreeBSD NFS servers with the same result.
> 
> Is there anything I can do to verify weather the BBA is broken,
> or not?
> 
>      /Hubbe
> 
> 
> PS: I'm new to this list, but I've been poking around the archive
>     quite a bit without finding anything that seemed relevant.
> 
> PSS: A search function for the mail archive would be very helpful. :)


Eureka!

After a lot of testing, Marcus Comstedt suggested that the problem
might be that my BBA is hooked up to a hub as oppsed to a switch and
thus not running at full duplex. When I hooked it up directly to my
NFS server with a crossed ethernet cable, it worked! A simple test
program gave speeds around 400-500Kb/s at full duplex. The same
test running at half duplex gives 30-35Kb/s.... So a word of advice
to everybody out there: DO NOT hook up your BBA to a dumb hub, use
a switch, router or a crossed ethernet cable or it will work very
poorly or not at all.

Now all I need to do is go go buy a switch, and then figure out what
on earth I need another computer for... :)

        /Hubbe