Bugs exist in the 3.51a kernel from the fixdisk distribution.

[Lenny Tropiano]

Now that everyone who got and installed the 3.51a kernel that was one
of the couple of fixes found on the Fixdisks available from the National
Systems Support Hotline, bugs have been claimed to exist.

I haven't personally experienced these yet, although I am not running
the generic UUCP either, which seems to have some weird correlation.

Here's a posting that a friend of mine (the actually person who "discovered"
the problems, and reported it initially to the hotline [many times]).  He
asked me to post this for him, so I do....


|>From rjg at sialis.mn.org...(Robert J. Granvin):
|>  or rjg at nis.mn.org

|>Subject: 3.51a kernel
|>
|>After a fair amount of phone calls and working with ATT phonetechs,
|>they have finally determined that there is indeed a problem with the
|>3.51a kernel that is being distributed on the current (and only) set
|>of 3.51 fixdisks.
|>
|>This problem has not yet been currently resolved, but is being worked
|>on in some sort of priority mode.  They have actually offered to call
|>me when a new version is available (I don't really believe them, so
|>I'll keep nagging them :-)
|>
|>Anyways, the 3.51a kernel has a tendancy to panic your 3b1 on sporadic
|>occasions with the message:
|>
|>	panic: addr fault in kernel
|>
|>It seems to happen most when you are sending output to your console
|>screen, and sometimes during uucico.  Although, it can apparently
|>happen for no specific reason at all.
|>
|>The problem is not damaging in any way, except for the inconvenience
|>of having to reset your machine on occasion.  Also, all the other fixes
|>included in the fixdisk (such as the uucico patches) are all correct
|>and work correctly.  This is purely a problem with the kernel (I know.
|>That's not really all that comforting :-).
|>
|>So, if you believe you've been having some instability since installing
|>3.51a, 3.51a is to blame.  If you have not currently installed 3.51a, 
|>you may want to consider waiting until the repair is available (no time
|>frames were provided).  However, please note that the other fixes 
|>provided for in 3.51a do improve other areas of stability (the uucico
|>patches, for example, solve the uucico-crash-burn-and-hang problems)
|>so there is definately value in installing them anyways.  You'll have
|>to weigh the pro's and con's in your particular situation.
|>
|>As mentioned previously, I have the full 3.51a fixdisk set available
|>via UUCP.  If you would like to obtain it, please drop me a note and
|>we'll set up a link if neccesary. 
|>
|>--
|>"Continental Life.  Why do you ask?"        Robert J. Granvin
|>                                            National Information Systems, Inc.
|>
|>rjg at nis.mn.org                   ...uunet!{amdahl,hpda,rosevax}!bungia!nis!rjg
|>
-- 
US MAIL  : Lenny Tropiano, ICUS Computer Group        IIIII  CCC U   U  SSS
           PO Box 1                                     I   C    U   U S
	   Islip Terrace, New York  11752               I   C    U   U  SS 
PHONE    : (516) 968-8576 [H] (516) 582-5525 [W]        I   C    U   U    S
TELEX    : 154232428 [ICUS]                           IIIII  CCC  UUU  SSS 
AT&T MAIL: ...attmail!icus!lenny  
UUCP     : ...{mtune, ihnp4, boulder, talcott, sbcs, bc-cis}!icus!lenny