Re: NetBSD/vax - worth continuing?

[Johnny Billquist <bqt%update.uu.se@localhost>]

Hi.

On 2016-09-20 20:54, John Klos wrote:
> Hi,
>
> > But it seems as if this is not worth doing anymore. NetBSD/vax does
> > not build natively, and have not done so for years. And noone seems to
> > even notice.
>
> Oh, we notice. I've been trying to build packages (and fixing what I
> can, and even reporting fixes upstream) using the toolchain from NetBSD
> 6.1.5. It would be nice if someone who understood things could get gcc
> in to a working state, or if someone would get support for VAX in to
> clang / LLVM.

Anything would be an improvement at this point. Like I said. Trying to 
run build.sh on current bombs out right away, even in simh, so anyone 
can reproduce this within seconds on a booted system.

> > Running on a real 8650, a "cvs update" on /usr/src nowadays take days,
> > and usually the machine hangs after about a day, because of some bugs
> > in the system which just seem to stop all I/O activity.
>
> I've never seen any of my systems hang. Regardless of toolchain issues,
> the hardware has always been incredibly stable. Trying to build certain
> packages can cause a panic, but even then I've never seen a hang. Then
> again, all of my hardware are VAXstations (4000/30, /60, /90), so
> perhaps some driver for hardware in your 8650 is problematic.

The hardware is fine. It runs VMS and Ultrix without issues. And with 
NetBSD, I have had it stall as well as panic.

> > The latest attempt at checking things out last week, ended up with me
> > actually crashing into ddb (I lost what the error was).
>
> Wait - there's a DDB for VAX?

Yes. Of course. And you get in there with <ESC> B unless my memory fails 
me. And of course, you drop in there on a panic...

> > It seems as if NetBSD/vax is actually dead. It just hasn't realized it
> > yet.
> >
> > Just for a blast, I'm booting Ultrix on the 8650, to see what the
> > difference in speed will feel like. But I think I'm going to stop
> > trying to boot and run NetBSD on the 8650. I don't see the point anymore.
> >
> > Is anyone actually trying to use NetBSD/vax at all? build.sh crashes
> > as on the first C-file it tries to compile, at this point.
>
> NetBSD 6 is fine. Anything newer has the newer toolchain, and that
> doesn't work at all. If we get to NetBSD 8 without a fix for VAX, then
> it will be almost dead (or binary-only) because of that damned
> toolchain. I wish I knew more about toolchains.

NetBSD 6 is not fine. It works better than current, but there are plenty 
of issues there too.

	Johnny

--
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt%softjar.se@localhost             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol