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From: michaelv@iastate.edu (Michael L. VanLoon)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: NetBSD or FreeBSD? Stability ??
Date: 9 Feb 94 06:03:23 GMT
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
Lines: 32
Message-ID: <michaelv.760773803@ponderous.cc.iastate.edu>
References: <2ir0h9$cme@winx03.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de> <michaelv.760512226@ponderous.cc.iastate.edu> <2j97pr$b2p@pilhuhn.pilhuhn.sub.org>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ponderous.cc.iastate.edu

In <2j97pr$b2p@pilhuhn.pilhuhn.sub.org> hwr@pilhuhn.sub.org (Heiko W.Rupp) writes:

>michaelv@iastate.edu (Michael L. VanLoon) writes:

>>I pound my NetBSD-current system (with shared libs) mercilessly, and
>>it refuses to crash.  I run X and a high-speed modem line.  Let me put

>Let me guess: You have a scsi disk, not a IDE one? 
>While playing a little with NetBSD 0.9 on with a BT VLB scsi
>controler, I was quite satisfied without any crash while my little box
>with the wd controler crashes every two to four days on average.

Actually, I have both: a Quantum ProDrive 425s with a BusLogic 747
EISA SCSI card, and two Conner CP3104 IDE drives.  But my SCSI drive
is only a couple weeks old.  Before that I ran solely off my two IDE
drives.  Stability was still great, even then.

I think your problem is that you're running 0.9, which suffers from
the wd bug.  The bug has finally been hacked (psuedo-fixed) in current
(I run NetBSD-current) to timeout missed interrupts on the IDE drives
and restart them.  I used to get lockups on my IDE drives too, before
this was fixed -- but I haven't had that problem on current since mid
December.  You might try upgrading to current (not a task for the
novices or those with weak hearts ;-), or wait til NetBSD 1.0 (or
whatever it will be called) comes out soon (wish I knew exactly
when... this month?  next?).

-- 
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  Michael L. VanLoon                           Project Vincent Systems Staff
  michaelv@iastate.edu              Iowa State University Computation Center
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