Re: OpenBSD 3.3 on old KA650 qbus mscp machine???

On Tue, Apr 08, 2003 at 12:23:25PM -0400, [email protected] wrote:
> I was using the snapshot bsd.  It runs fine, but no
> delqa seems to be there.  In the etc tree, what is
> the nomenclature of the ethernet ifconfig file?
> The 4000/60 calls up an ifconfig.le0.  What is that
> file supposed to be called for the delqa device?

If the device was present, you'd call it /etc/hostname.qe0.

The file format is documented in the hostname.if(5) manpage.

> 
> Fine if you can roll another snapshot.  Just tell
> me when it is up and where to pick it up from.

I've built a snap for download at: <http://www.oxide.org/vaxsnap/>

The system I built it on is actually making use of a delqa right
now, so it better be working! If there are still problems, please
provide the output from "SHOW QBUS" from the ">>>" prompt.

The snap also contains current work to make DHU more useful, in case
anyone wants to get a jump on that. (OpenBSD snapshot builds should
start up again soon.)

> Also, please, if you can, include a kernel src
> tarball with the snapshot, so I can roll a custom
> kernel for the MVII and MVIII critters with mscp
> only support.  Sadly, aol (sucks!) won't let me do
> any sort of supping up the current tree, so I am
> stuck trying to download an entire kernel src

Check out anoncvs: <http://www.openbsd.org/anoncvs.html>

It can work over either ssh or pserver protocols, and it's pretty
rare for an ISP to block those. It's certainly a much better option
than periodically downloading whole source tarballs.

> p.s.  One of the things I want desperately to do is to
> compare it against NetBSD on the same machine.
> Sadly, NetBSD has gotten so bloated and so slow,
> due to the sysV creeping featuritis, and the gcc
> bloatitis, that it is fast becoming unusable on the old

We suffer the same fundamental woe from gcc's continued efforts to
burn more cpu cycles compiling your kernel than it will subsequently
accrue in a month of actually servicing your OS.

> hardware anymore.  I am so hoping that OpenBSD is
> not that bloated, and will be a bit more spritely on the
> qbus boxes.  Other than timing out or taking a great
> long time for the network section (I assume due to no

You'll find a *big* hit from the random seed reinitialisation at
boot, as unfortunately there's no way to get security plus speed
in that area of the OS. Hurts at shutdown too.

Perhaps a smaller random seed could be used if that bothers you.

> code there for delqa) it seems to be running faster and
> that is a good sign.  Rolling the fs on the 4000/60 and
> then running it over to the MVIII critter worked fine, after
> making the right devices and fstabbing the right file
> systems.  That might be listed in the INSTALL file as
> one means of getting the critter up on qbus boxes, if
> one has another  scsi vax handy.
> 
It alludes to it, at least insofar as doing a raw copy of the floppy
fs to a drive and then transferring that. Actually rolling the whole
filesystem on another system is probably outside of the scope of
your typical install doc.

Kudos if you got that to work though. What MSCP SCSI card do you
have in the MVIII?

/Hugh