Big problems with 7.1 locking up :-(

[Pete Carah]

I have done some (lots of) kernel debugging in the past.  I have several 
points:

1. I shouldn't *have* to kernel debug for a normal usage of an
official release.

2. One of the soekris boxes is 2800 MILES away, in a remote location,
with noone present that is a skilled (or, indeed, any kind of) programmer.
I usually thought I could trust a release, especially when I had been
using the stable branch updated at about monthly intervals on 3 servers
with no problems.  (actually, I waited a while on 7.0 because .0 releases
are traditionally quirky; in this case 7.0-rel worked fine and 7.1 has
problems.)  (and my servers are still running the *same* compilation of
kernel/world with no problems; the hangs are unique to either the laptop
(which only started doing this badly with a Jan 9 csup) and the Soekris boxes
(which started hangs sometime in December; they clearly don't run X...)
[ I've backed my house source to -stable of 12/1/08 and hope this will help;
I don't have the time to fool around too much, and particularly to kernel
debug something that shouldn't need it.]

I can't even start X at all on this laptop now.  At least I can boot it,
but it isn't much use for work unless it can run X.

3. I can't afford the time to debug my tools (freebsd is a tool, not an
experiment, for lots of people, including me...)  I use this laptop at 
work in a place where I am *not* working on freebsd. (nor am I even allowed
to at work...)

-- Pete