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Date:      Sat, 21 Dec 2002 11:10:11 +1100
From:      Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy@optushome.com.au>
To:        freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org
Subject:   RC1 experiences
Message-ID:  <20021221001011.GA385@server.c18609.belrs1.nsw.optusnet.com.au>

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I know it's a bit late, but I've just had the opportunity to check
5.0-DP2 and 5.0-RC1 on my AlphaServer 400.

On the positive side, both now find the ATA channels that are
physically present (though DEC didn't mention them in the doc'n).
I'll see if I've got some spare ATA devices and see if it actually
works at some stage.

On the negative side:

Firstly, I have a TI ThunderLAN based NIC which works OK in -STABLE,
but is very cranky in -CURRENT.  When it's ifconfig'd, it reports:
	tl0: adapter check: 100007
and sometimes reports
	tl0: device timeout
and consistently refuses to either send or receive packets.  In order
to get it to both send and receive packets, it's necessary to down and
up the interface several times, as well as disconnecting and
reconnecting the switch.  Generally, it'll receive packets after one
down/up/reconnect cycle but may take several more before outgoing
packets work.  Both the switch and the NIC consistently auto-negotiate
100baseTX full duplex, it's just actually getting the data to flow
that is the problem (the switch is a cheap dumb one that only supports
auto-negotiate).  RC1 seems worse than DP2, but I might have just been
lucky when I was booting DP2.

Once I get it to come up, it seems to work OK.

The relevant probe messages are:
tl0: <Compaq Netelligent 10/100> port 0x10180-0x1018f mem 0x82010180-0x8201018f irq 9 at device 12.0 on pci0
tl0: interrupting at ISA irq 9
tl0: Ethernet address: 00:80:5f:8b:e2:3b
miibus0: <MII bus> on tl0
nsphy0: <DP83840 10/100 media interface> on miibus0
nsphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
tlphy0: <ThunderLAN 10baseT media interface> on miibus0
tlphy0:  10base2/BNC, 10base5/AUI

Secondly, there seem to be still a few rough edges in sysinstall: It
reports that the installation was "complete with errors" - presumably
because there are no packages on the CD-ROM.  This makes it skip the
post-install configuration section.  When I work through the post-
install configuration manually, I don't seem to have the option to
enable ntpd (though I might have missed it).  

Thirdly, performance is still significantly below -STABLE (NFS is CPU-
limited at about half the speed of -STABLE).  I presume (hope) this is
just the impact of all the debug code still in -CURRENT.

At this stage, my only critical concern is that tl0 won't come up
automatically.  Anyone got any ideas?

Please copy me on any responses.

Peter


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