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Date:      Sat, 10 Feb 1996 14:12:51 +0200 (EET)
From:      Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee>
To:        hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Unexplained segfaults in 2.1.0-RELEASE
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.91.960210140609.345A-100000@haldjas.folklore.ee>
In-Reply-To: <199602100844.TAA25424@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au>

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On Sat, 10 Feb 1996, Michael Smith wrote:

> Luis Verissimo stands accused of saying:
> > 
> > I have a 486DX4-100 machine running FreeBSD-2.1R. I experienced the same 
> > problems. I had to disable both the internal and external caches, of my 
> > machine. It then worked find.
> > 
> > I have another 486DX2-66 older machine, that keeps getting those signals, 
> > even with both caches disabled. 
> > 
> > Can anybody tell me where is the list of machines that are currently 
> > running  FreeBSD with no problems?
> 
> This is (obviously, if you actually think about it for a second) a totally
> impossible question.  Let's see, there are perhaps something of the order
> of a hundred or so distinct CPU variants that can run FreeBSD.  Perhaps
> a thousand or so major motherboard chipsets, several tens of significantly
> different disk controllers, several hundred different video cards and so on.
> 
> Now take each number, one after another, and multiply them all together.
> 
> This is the total number of possible PC configurations that there are.  Let's
> assume that we were to build one of each of these hundred million or so
> combinations, and do a 'make world' on each to check them.  If we assume 
> that the systems are reasonably fast (not all true 8) this will take
> perhaps 10 hours each.  So now we have a billion testing hours required,
> or 114,000 testing-years.  

	Actually, a lot of this has been already done, and is being done 
all the time by numerous people. Perhaps a file could/should be created, 
where one could contribute their experiences? That way everybody asking 
about their configurations could be pointed first to that file...

> 
> Do you understand yet why what you ask is impossible?
> 

	That way it would soon become a bit more possible.

> Now, if you said "this is my hardware", and listed everything you have,
> including the CPU manufacturer and motherboard chipset, it's possible that
> someone will know something, and will tell you.  If not, you can add your
> two systems to the grouop that FreeBSD does _not_ work on due to 
> fundamental hardware problems.
> 
> However, it could just be that you have faulty memory, and your motherboard
> is actually fine, or your CPU could be faulty...
> 


	Or faulty SRAM - you can't find out unless you try again using 
proven RAM...

		Sander.



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