[HECnet] DECnet broken with 4.4.0-151 kernel

[Ross Sponholtz]

The main problem is that most micro-USB cards are really slow..

I'd say use a raspberry pi with a USB disk or SSD attached as the root disk.  I've done that for a couple of simh vax emulators that I've set up, and I get quite reasonable performance - certainly better than in my physical Vaxstation VLCs.  Anyway, what better does that RPi have to do for the whole day?

BTW, You probably should use a raspberry pi with a heatsink or fan on the CPU if it's going to be compiling all day!

Cheers,
Ross  

On 6/27/19, 5:19 PM, "owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE on behalf of Gregg Levine" <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE on behalf of gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com> wrote:

    Hello!
    Thank you for the files. We are aware that even on a decently sized
    Pi, such as the Pi3, building a new kernel which for example on my 20
    year old P3 Intel machine takes just about an hour, on the Pi last I
    had heard its something on the order of all day. And that's on it
    mind. I've no idea how long it takes to cross compile a kernel via
    either a VM of whatever release name matches the date you selected for
    your match. I'm not sure what I am going to do, I had originally some
    idea to setup an AWS instance of Debian (which presupposes that it
    exists) and do the whole thing in there.
    
    Suggests please folks?
    -----
    Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
    "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."
    
    On Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 6:13 PM John Forecast <john at forecast.name> wrote:
    >
    > Old versions of Raspbian can be downloaded from:
    >
    >         <http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/images/>
    >
    > Given the dates on my file system, I would say “raspbian-2018-06-29”. You can upgrade the userland code but don’t update the kernel after you build the modified version.
    >
    >   John.
    >
    > > On Jun 27, 2019, at 5:23 PM, Tony Blews <tonyblews at gmail.com> wrote:
    > >
    > > I've got a spare Pi I was about to get going and try this on... which
    > > is the best version of Raspbian to go for?
    > >
    > > On 26/06/2019, John Forecast <john at forecast.name> wrote:
    > >
    > >>
    > >> My reply with an attached .zip file did not seems to make it so I’ve made it
    > >> available through dropbox:
    > >>
    > >>      <https://www.dropbox.com/s/apmy08ydd9jjo6e/decnet-6_25_2019.zip?dl=0
    > >> <https://www.dropbox.com/s/apmy08ydd9jjo6e/decnet-6_25_2019.zip?dl=0>>
    > >>
    > >> This is a snapshot of my decnet directory and dnprogs from about a year ago
    > >> when I got this working. The base kernel was cloned by:
    > >>
    > >>      git clone —depth=1 -branch rpi-4.14.y https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux
    > >> <https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux>
    > >>
    > >> Extract all the files from the above zip file and:
    > >>
    > >> 1. Copy files from the zip file include directory to <kernel>/include/net
    > >>
    > >> 2. Replace the <kernel>/net/decnet directory with the zip file decnet
    > >> directory
    > >>
    > >> 3. Config to add decnet support and rebuild kernel+modules
    > >>
    > >> I have no idea if this will work with newer kernels.
    > >>
    > >> I made a few changes to the original source code I received:
    > >>
    > >> Kernel code:
    > >>
    > >>      Added special handling for the 0 area:
    > >>
    > >>              Connect to 0.0 connects to the local node
    > >>              Connect to 0.n connects to node “n” in the local node’s area
    > >>
    > >> Utility programs:
    > >>
    > >>      Fixed a number of bugs in cterm and DAP especially related to talking to
    > >> Tops-10.
    > >>
    > >>      Allow the DAP utilities (dncopy, dntype etc) to use DECnet-Ultrix syntax
    > >> for specifying access control infomation:
    > >>
    > >>              node/username/password/account::
    > >>
    > >>      which avoids the double quoting required to use the VMS syntax on Linux. To
    > >> enable this feature, create an environment variable called
    > >>      USE_ULTRIX_SYNTAX
    > >>
    > >> Given that Raspberry Pi just released their version of Debian Buster which
    > >> uses kernel 4.19.x I’ll probably take a look at getting running there and
    > >> create a github repository for the changes. I need to finish my current
    > >> project so it will probably be a couple of weeks or so.
    > >>
    > >>  John.
    > >>
    > >>
    > >
    > >
    > > --
    > >
    > > Tony Blews
    > > tonyblews at gmail.com         http://www.tonyblews.co.uk/
    > > Mob: +44(0)7832 237251    Twit: @tonyblews
    >