*BSD News Article 26038


Return to BSD News archive

Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yeshua.marcam.com!news.kei.com!eff!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!usenet.ucs.indiana.edu!pegasus2.astro.indiana.edu!sdslavin
From: sdslavin@pegasus2.astro.indiana.edu (Shawn Slavin)
Subject: Problems compiling/running FreeBSD kernal on 486/50
Message-ID: <CJMvMt.7L7@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
Sender: news@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu (USENET News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: pegasus2.astro.indiana.edu
Organization: Indiana University Astronomy Department
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 1994 19:04:05 GMT
Lines: 41

Hi.  I posted a message earlier about having trouble with the generic ah kernal
I compiled on my 486.

I would like to know about/hear from people who have successfully compiled and
are running kernals on their 486 machines.  I know that there have to be many,
many of those people who read this very newsgroup.

Would anyone who has a moment to spare, that has done this, let me know what
version of FreeBSD they're compiling and with what version of gcc?  Also, could
you simply mail me a copy of your system configuration file?

Again, the problem I have is that I compile a kernal, the GENERICAH config for
example, and it goes fine.  I move it to the / directory and reboot.  It boots
correctly, but subsequent soft reboots with the new kernal bring about a
"panic" when the system tries to load the kernal again.  I am then forced to do
a hard reset, after which the kernal will load and run correctly.  I find this
particularly annoying, and it doesn't make a lot of sense that I can do the
compile on my friend's 386 with the same code and not have this trouble when
using that kernal.  Arggh.


My system specs (if you're interested):

Dell i486/50 (it's the Dell XPS 450/V package for those who might care)
8 MB RAM
#9 GXe card (1MB video RAM)
Dell Ultrascan 15FS monitor (this might be some other brand carried under Dell)
340 MB Western Digital Caviar 2340
170 MB Western Digital Caviar 2170

Note:  I seem to notice some of the problems that have been reported by those
with 486 Gateway 2000's.  In particular, I must hold down the Num Lock (or some
other) key during the initial boot, or my keyboard falls "asleep" and I can't
type anything once booted.  I also think I saw a problem similar to the one I'm
having with the kernal compile.  It was suggested that I try the SYSCONS
driver, to fix the keyboard problem.  Does anyone know if this will work?  I
haven't been able to get a GENERICAH kernal up that runs as consistently as the
floppy distribution, yet, so I haven't even tried it.

Any and all help/comments/flames/anything would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks
for your time.