Re: compile kernel

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Thu, 30 Jun 2016 22:58:54 +0000
    From:        Philo <philo.netbsd%free.fr@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <5775A42E.7020106%free.fr@localhost>

  | i want to compile a new kernel on the i386 
  | processor because is the better powerfull of workstation that i have 
  | (Dell workstation T3500) Intel XEON W3520 QUAD CORE , 8x Threads Fr 
  | quence : 2,66 Ghz.

I'd really suggest an amd64 kernel rather than i386 for that, especially
if you have 4GB or more of RAM (which you probably do in a system like that.)

Does a generic amd64 netbsd kernel not boot?   (You could test that with
i386 userland installed - just to test booting, and basic kernel operation,
that should work OK, but beyond that some stuff won't work properly, it
would need amd64 userland installed as well to actually work properly.)

  | I've choose the operating system NetBSD 7.0.1 with pkgsrc-2016Q1,

OK, though pkgsrc is not relevant to anything discussed so far.   Nor
is what window manager (etc) you use (pkgsrc-2016Q2 should be available soon.)

  | i've check my config of kernel and i saw a mistake that i do, the 
  | compilation works fine.

OK, that is good.   At least one thing is solved.


  |   # mv PHLO001 /netbsd.philo001
  |   # shutdown -b netbsd.philo001 -r now

I don't think the -b arg to shutdown works on i376 (or amd64), the man
page says ...

     -b bootstr
              The given bootstr is passed to reboot(8) for the benefit of
              those systems that can pass boot arguments to the firmware.
              Currently, this only affects sun3 and sparc machines.

You need to either add a new menu entry to /boot.cfg or simply type the
boot command at the boot prompt.   That's because of the way that PC bios's
work.

What I do is install the kernel the way you did (more or less, my kernels
aren't called philo001 for obvious reasons!) and then link the kernel
to /netbsd.new or /netbsd.test (depending on just what I am doing)
and then my boot.cfg has in it ...

menu=Boot older kernel:rndseed /etc/entropy-file;boot netbsd.was
menu=Boot older kern single user:rndseed /etc/entropy-file;boot netbsd.was -s
menu=Boot test kernel:rndseed /etc/entropy-file;boot netbsd.test
menu=Boot test kern single user:rndseed /etc/entropy-file;boot netbsd.test -s
menu=Boot previous kernel:rndseed /etc/entropy-file;boot netbsd.prev
menu=Boot previous kern single user:rndseed /etc/entropy-file;boot netbsd.prev -s

(and more similar stuff, I probably have too many entries.)

netbsd.prev is the last good kernel before the one I normally run now,
netbsd.was is an older version that was in use for a long time and is known
to be safe, and netbsd.test is the one I want to try out before making it be
/netbsd if it works well enough (the entries for normal booting remain, and
I also have an entry to book a generic kernel in case something changes
that needs all the drivers included).

All of these /netbsd.*'s (including /netbsd itself) are linked to entries
that give the proper name and version info of the kernel - those names
change over time, the names in the menu entries do not.

kre