Fresh install won't compile requirement libraries for cvsup

[Ian Smith]

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007, Andrew Falanga wrote:
 > On 6/13/07, Ian Smith <smithi at nimnet.asn.au> wrote:
 > > On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:02:38 -0600 Andrew Falanga <af300wsm at gmail.com> wrote:
 > >
 > >  > a hard hang.  Nothing worked.  I could not even Alt+<num> to a
 > >  > different pseudo terminal.  The system just hard hanged.  I rebooted
 > >  > and tried the install again with the same result.
 > >
 > > At the same place?  If so, I'd tend to suspect memory rather than cpu.
 > 
 > No it did not stop at the same place.  I still suspect memory versus
 > the cpu, especially considering that, apparently, there were several
 > generations of the K6.  I didn't know this.  For several years, I did
 > not have the time or money to play with hardware and therefore lost
 > touch with much of the hardware that was out there.

Andy, you're making me remember stuff I thought I'd about done with :) 

 > >  > I'm wondering if it could be hardware, specifically memory.  I've
 > >  > never seen a FreeBSD, OpenBSD or Linux (for that matter) hard hang on
 > >  > program compilation apart from hardware problems.  Also of particular
 > > [..]
 > >  > System configuration is as follows:
 > >  >
 > >  > AMD K6 700mHz
 > >  > 256mb RAM (PC 133)
 > >  > 13gb HDD
 > >
 > > 700MHz?  Please show us the line from your /var/run/dmesg.boot showing
 > > the exact cpu and clock.  This will also indicate features & stepping

I'm still curious ..

 > > That's a K6-2, though it doesn't say so there.  From memory, the fastest
 > > ever K6-2 was ~550MHz, but people did tend to wildly overclock them ..

525MHz, on reflection.  I built a box for a friend on a budget and went
for the 450, which another friend had managed to screw up to about 600
with a huge heatsink and fan/s.  These were Gigabyte mobos with 100MHz
FSB - I see you've been pointed to wikipedia re that - and PC133 RAM,
and both 'mine' are still rocking 8 years on, running standard spec ..

I'm still rather awed to hear 700MHz though, especially when you say: 

 > pretty sure this was never over clocked.  It was the secretaries
 > computer of the church I attend.  I'm working on remaking the system
 > into a web server as the secretary was just given a laptop.

You'll need to find out the motherboard make/model and google up its
manual to have any chance of resetting bus speed / clock divider and
such.  There's another whole trip about setting the cpu core voltage
for different speeds; overclocking these beasts involved black magic to
which whole websites were/are fanatically dedicated, gamer folks mostly.

 > > If you really are running it at 700MHz (at what bus speed setting?) then
 > > I'd treat it to a new heat sink with fresh thermal paste and a BIG fan.
 > 
 > Ok, sounds good.  I'll see what I can find for this CPU.

Seeing you'll want to replace the no doubt well dried out thermal paste
anyway, K6-2s are clearly marked with notional speed and model numbers. 

 > > And sure it's best to run matched-speed memory.  Your BIOS probably lets
 > > you play with wait states and such, but the basic PCI bus speed might be
 > > something weird if you've managed to crank the cpu up to 700MHz ..
 >
 > How do wait states relate to memory speed?  Please enlighten me.  I
 > have an idea, but I'm only theorizing, I'd like to know what it really
 > means.  If it's more in depth than one would like to type in a
 > response, sending a link is fine.  I learned quite a bit on the "Sig
 > 11" links given earlier.

This is drifting well past getting FreeBSD to behave under load on it,
but I googled "AMD K6 wait states" and got heaps of hits, including the
above.  Basically, wait states delay the processor long enough to read
or write to comparatively slow memory devices; better to wait than burn. 

You mentioned later trying some 100MHz memory, but you'll either need a
slower bus speed than 100MHz (or more / some wait states) for that, and
would be better off finding more PC133 RAM.  Dumpster diving, anyone? :)

Cheers, Ian