Re: VS3100M76 - current

[Holm Tiffe <holm%freibergnet.de@localhost>]

David Brownlee wrote:

[..]
> > Johnny asked above why I think it would be different to install on a 1GB
> > disk and on a 4GB disk. He is right, it makes no difference...theoretical.
> > In fact I could install the OS on the IBM0663 1Gb disk and I failed badly
> > to move it to the 4GB disk or install it there...
> >
> 
> Just to confirm - are you using different disks & cables (both physical and
> models in different machines?) I just want to eliminate an issue with a
> specific disk and or/model


3 different disks tried. Cabling was the same.
I have more disks of that size, no problem, I'll take another.

[..]
> 
> > [...]
> > >/: wrpid 6 (sysinst): user write of 57248@0x14d000 at 1196 failed: 28
> > >ite failed, file system is full
> > >[1]   Illegal instruction     sysinst
> > ># s: not found
> > ># Filesystem    1K-blocks       Used      Avail %Cap Mounted on
> > >/dev/md0a          1551       1549          2  99% /
> >
> > Curses Bug in -current ehy?
> >
> 
> Looking at changes since netbsd-6 on the most likely curses file the logs
> show:
[..]
> 
> > > - are you using the same physical disk?
> >
> > Yes,  Tried the IBM DCAS 34330 and the Fujitsu M2954SYU. Currently is a
> > working OpenBSD on the DCAS. A somewhat working NetBSD is on the IBM0663,
> > at least I was able to install it there, not with sysinst but by hand.
> >
> > > - You're not using any odd arguments to newfs or similar - so thats out
> >
> > newfs /dev/rsd1a as to be read in every terminal dump..
> >
> > > - Its reproduced with netboot and cdboot, so they are excluded...
> >
> > netboot .. no, I've netbooted last year, this year I've used a CROM.
> > But the problems are the very same. The boot itself isn't the problem.
> > I'm in the process of setting up the netboot environment again since
> > the CDROM boot is dog slow..

Don't know if it counts that I used netboot last year.

> >
> > >
> > > For OpenBSD, does it report the same details on disk attachment, does a
> > > read/write of a file report the same approximate speed? - eg
> > > dd msgfmt=human if=/dev/zero of=TMPFILE bs=1m count=10
> > > dd msgfmt=human if=TMPFILE of=/dev/null bs=1m
> >
> > Never tried to measure some speed, I'm happe if I can pollute the
> > filesystems with the needed files, but the speed doesn't feel bad at all.
> > With NetBSD-current the extract of the base.tgz triggers the kernel to a
> > panic.
> > >
> > > Can you NFS export a filesystem to the vax and then boot the vax from the
> > > CD and manually install into the NFS filesystem? - trying to exclude the
> > > disk IO
> >
> > Nice Idea, would try later.
> >
> > >
[..]
> >
> > I'll look for NetBSD 1.6 next.
> >
> >
> Thanks. Would it be accurate to say that all of the remaining issues appear
> to occur while accessing one of your two SCSI disks?
> 
> I think the most fruitful avenues for testing would be
> - anything that avoids those disk/controller combinations - NFS, or your
> other vax
> - testing earlier NetBSD versions to see if the issue is present there
> (will follow up on other thread :)
> 
> I understand your frustration at reporting these issues some time ago and
> that thread running out to silence. I hope we can avoid that happening
> again, and get you with a set of machines which can run NetBSD/vax for you
> when you want them


NetBSD 1.6.2 stops every time on the cd-boot at this point.
6.x is displaying the date after this line in human readable format...

boot device: cd0
root on md0a dumps on md0b
Clock has lost 1726 day(s) - CHECK AND RESET THE DATE.
root file system type: ffs

then nothing more happens.
I've tried to set the time to 1999 with NetBSD, it changed the displayed
clock skew from 36xx to 1726 days, that's all.

I've tried to boot from the CDROM w/o the disks on the SCSI Bus but that
changed nothing. I could try netboot but I don't think that this changes
something at this point. The kernel should at this stage find the rootfs in
memory and mount it and the kernel was loaded properly already.

..and yes, all 3 machines have ncr SCSI controllers (I've mentioned this
more then one times), that is what is similar between them.

I'll try an other disk and another CDROM today, but I don't know if I can
boot from that other CDROM. So far as I know the DEC stuff is picky what
type is used. I could'nt boot VMS on the 4000/90 with other CD-drives..
I've got exactly the actual used Toshiba XM5701 from Ebay for this purpose.
So far as I remember it had something todo with disk sector sizes 2048 vs.
2324 bytes or something like that.

Regards,

Holm
-- 
      Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, 
     Freiberger Straße 42, 09600 Oberschöna, USt-Id: DE253710583
  www.tsht.de, info%tsht.de@localhost, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741