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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.bugs
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!cs.mu.OZ.AU!summer
From: summer@ee.mu.OZ.AU (Mark Summerfield)
Subject: Those NetBSD hard-drive hangs...
Message-ID: <9319017.15979@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>
Sender: news@cs.mu.OZ.AU
Organization: Dept of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, University of Melbourne
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 07:50:20 GMT
Lines: 22
I, too, had problems with NetBSD 0.8 hanging with the hard-drive light on.
On advice I spotted in the .bugs group earlier (which I recall being
"authoritative", although I can't remember who it was) I removed the
/dev/drum device driver, and replaced it with a plain file (i.e. "touch
/dev/drum"). I haven't had the problem since (and the system has had a few
workouts compiling various things, including a couple of kernels).
So, basically I'm happy with this as a workaround, but I'm curious to know
*why* it works, and what other effects it may have. I don't really
understand the details of the way paging works, so I don't know what
/dev/drum is usually used for. I have the general impression that NetBSD
is more "chatty" than 386bsd was (i.e. there seems to be more disk activity
when "nothing" is happening), and it seems a little slower on some filing
system accesses, but I don't know if there is any relationship between any
of these things.
Mark.
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Mark Summerfield, Photonics Research Laboratory
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Melbourne
ACSnet[AARN/Internet]: summer@ee.mu.oz[.au]
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