From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 13 14:01:37 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AC16737B401; Tue, 13 May 2003 14:01:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gw.catspoiler.org (217-ip-163.nccn.net [209.79.217.163]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8669043F85; Tue, 13 May 2003 14:01:36 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from truckman@FreeBSD.org) Received: from FreeBSD.org (mousie.catspoiler.org [192.168.101.2]) by gw.catspoiler.org (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id h4DL1QM7051267; Tue, 13 May 2003 14:01:30 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from truckman@FreeBSD.org) Message-Id: <200305132101.h4DL1QM7051267@gw.catspoiler.org> Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 14:01:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Don Lewis To: rwatson@FreeBSD.org In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; charset=us-ascii cc: re@FreeBSD.org cc: hschaefer@fto.de cc: current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: 5.1-RELEASE TODO X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 21:01:38 -0000 On 13 May, Robert Watson wrote: > > On Tue, 13 May 2003, Heiko Schaefer wrote: > >> > That said, we are actively discussing what, if any, workarounds are >> > appropriate, including some alternative workarounds from the ones >> > currently present. >> >> bosko (who was mentioned here various time, regarding a patch to work >> around this) has contacted me, and i am looking forward to try his >> patch. assuming that the patch is correct (whatever that would mean in >> this context), and there is some chance of accepting it anytime soon, >> maybe it would be sensible to try to get that into the release - or >> delay the release until this is sorted out ?! >> >> wouldn't a release that corrupts data in many, relevant, cases (i >> consider the box i had the trouble with entirely mainstream) be worse >> than no release at all? > > You don't need to argue to me that we need stability (I'm a fan of it > myself): what I need is evidence that some set of changes is actually > solving the problem, not masking it. If there exists a patch that > substantially improves stability on some set of systems (and not at the > cost of another set), I think you can rest assured that we'll get it into > the release. As with you, we're very concerned by the recent spate of > instability, especially in the beta cycle, and how to address that is very > much on our minds. Both my AMD system running -current and PII system running -stable are afflicted with these data corruption problems. The limited amount of information that I've seen about these problems leads me to believe that in order to use the 4 MB page feature without danger to system integrity is to relocate the kernel. If this is the case, then it would seem to make sense to disable the use of 4 MB pages by adding the DISABLE_PSE option until the system is patched. PG_G is probably different. A better case can be made that using this option is only masking software bugs that should be fixable. The problem is that these bugs are only rarely triggered, look a lot like flakey hardware, and it's just about impossible for most FreeBSD users to track the problem to its root cause.