Re: Is it my imagination?

[openbsd@mail.commercedata.com]

Hi Alexander.  Thanks for your reply.  I didn't do any upgrades, though.

Dave

> 3.3 and snapshot are 2 different things
> Did you read the upgrade faq?
> 
> On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 02:30:25PM -0600, openbsd@mail.commercedata.com wrote:
> > I've had three fun experiences recently while doing some ftp builds of 3.3.
> > 
> > I've been getting further and further into OpenBSD since about 2.6, and 
> > started converting my servers over to OB starting at about 2.8 as they die 
> > or need to be put out to pasture.  I built a home NAT machine around April 
> > 29 with the FTP-snapshot version of 3.3 and it worked wonderfully.  I never 
> > pulled the generic kernel off that machine.
> > 
> > Issue #1:
> > About two weeks ago (mid-May) I decided to build another NAT/firewall machine 
> > for a friend's office.  I used my FTP-snapshot boot CD (since it already
> > pointed to 3.3) and went through the build process quickly on a machine that
> > had been running 2.8.  Upon reboot the boot loader told me "Inappropriate
> > file type or format" when it went to load the kernel.
> > 
> > I'm ashamed to say how many hours I spent over the next few days hitting my
> > head against this problem.  At first I suspected some sort of corrupted
> > download, given that at the same time I'd discovered numerous problems with
> > my friend's DSL connection.  After a couple of days of working on his 
> > connection, I decided it was an incompatibility between 3.3 and the hardware
> > I was using, so I started using different kinds of machines, some new, some
> > old.  I then decided it was an LBA problem, and it took me a day of switching 
> > drive sizes, playing with my partitions and then alternating to SCSI to hit 
> > my forehead and realize that the boot loader wasn't the problem at all.  I 
> > finally ftp'd the working kernel from my snapshot 3.3 machine after going 
> > through a complete build, and voila, that solved the problem.  So to summarize,
> > 
> > A.  FTP builds failed on reboot with "Inappropriate file type or format" when
> > the boot loader tried to load the stock kernel, on multiple i386 platforms.
> > B.  Using the older kernel solved the problem instantly.
> > 
> > A couple of friends tried to do FTP builds to check my sanity and they had
> > the same problem.
> > 
> > This experience would suggest to me that the release 3.3 kernel had problems.
> > I've noticed since then that the release kernel seems to have an older date
> > on it than the one I'd used at first, but other than that I haven't seen any
> > posts or announcements about a corrupt 3.3 kernel.  Did anyone else run into
> > this?
> > 
> > Issue #2
> > 
> > I have a couple of Intel ISP-1100 servers.  They use Intel Motherboards, of 
> > course, and in particular the Intel 82443BX PCI Host bridge.  I have never
> > gotten any OpenBSD build to boot on these machines.  The installation CDs
> > and floppies lock up as soon as the PCIH driver loads and there's no way
> > of getting out short of rebooting.  Building the drive on a different machine
> > does no good.  I tried 3.3 last week, with the same result.  In the archives
> > I found another guy who had the same problem with 2.8, but nobody wrote him
> > back.  Anyone else have a clue about this problem?  I saved a dmesg off 
> > FreeBSD, but I've misplaced it for the time it takes to write this post.  I'll
> > do another one when I get the chance.
> > 
> > Issue #3
> > I just got curious and tried to do a 3.3 build on a Sparc LX.  Is it my 
> > imagination, or is the cd33.iso in the Sparc directory actually the i386 
> > version?  It *says* i386...
> > 
> > Thanks for any enlightenment!
> > 
> > Dave Klingler