Test Post

[Richard Snow]

Hello this is Richard Snow.  I have talked to you guys on irc some since 
I started using Lunar again but I had not subscribed to the list until 
now.

I on the Linux VAX mailing list.  I have two VAX machines, and my net 
boot host for the VAXes will be my lunar linux box.

I had an idea about trying to port the lunar tools to the Linux-VAX 
system.  as far as the tools go that should be fairly simple as bash can 
be compiled for the vax once the library situation is figured out (its 
kind of in a state of flux right now as is the kernel itself).

But running a source-based system entirely natively on the VAX would be 
a real drag because most of the VAX systems are very slow. As most of 
the VAXes need a host to boot from and support NFS file mounts anyway, a 
hybrid approach would be better.  That is do the builds on the lunar 
linux i86 platform and have the lunar tools on the VAX systems download 
and install the binary packages from an ftp server on the i86 linux 
system.  (I say binary packages because most of the VAX systems also 
have relatively small hard drives).

I think I have the ability to take your existing code starting with the 
current ISO as a base, and try to do this myself.  I would not need 
write access to your CVS repository to do this, as I would be doing a 
port.  I could however give access to MY cvs repository to anybody in 
the Lunar team willing to help out with the port. It is possible to also 
run the VAX software on an intel platform using the Simh vax simulator. 
  This is working quite well, supports networking, and can boot and 
install netbsd for sure.  One of the main linux-vax developers is doing 
this on a laptop.

This is just a thought which I have just thrown out to both lists, and I
am not sure of the response which I will get from either of you.

However I have lots of time and if I can get this idea to work it would 
save lots of manual labor for building a complete linux-vax system which 
I want to help out with anyway as I have two of these machines sitting 
idle now.

Richard