SUNOS 4.1 woes

[Steven Gutfreund]

I have been unable to get SUN OS 4.1 running on my SparcStation.

Configuration:

	* Sparc 4/60C GX
	* 24 Meg Memory (Clearpoint) 
	* 1.2 Gbyte HP 9754S Shoe box

Symptoms:

I have been running Sun OS 4.0.3 since January. No significant problems.
Two months ago I tried to upgrade to 4.1. Under 4.1 the system operates
sporatically. Man, more, rc occational report illegal instructions.  Man
sometimes gives core dumps. Occasional kernel dumps.  Fsck finds corrupted
files, dups, etc. Basically it feels like flakey memory.

However, diagnostics do not show any memory problems. I have also tried
swapping CPU boards without success. 

What did work was going back to 4.0.3. The system has run flawlessly for
1.5 months under 4.0.3. Under 4.1 ever third time I try and boot the
system rc gets an illegal instruction trap or xnews blows up, or ps or man
does not work.

Corrupted distribution tape does not seem to be the problem. I tried the
upgrade three times. Each time wiping the entire file system.  Twice with
one tape, and once with a different distribution tape.  Other people have
had successful installs with one of the tapes.

I have prom rev 1.1, I run 4.1 with the generic_small kernel. No pmeg
patches yet. I have tried building the GENERIC kernel, but it halts after
setting up swap and dump.

Yechezkal Shimon Gutfreund		 		  sgutfreund at gte.com
GTE Laboratories, Waltham MA			    harvard!bunny!sgutfreund