🚀 go-pugleaf

andrew@cubetech.com writes
|  bense@heart4 (Booker C. Bense) writes:
| >-I've found 64 to work fine for me on a 20meg '040 Mono NeXTstation. 
| 
| I use 64 on my workstation (NSC 32/400) and 128 on my server (NSC
| 20/big_drives) and performance is just really zippy.  Only the system,
| tmp, and paging ocurrs on the local machine.  My home-directory,
| /usr/local, and /Local* are all on the server.  The server also is the
| mail and news host, and the compile server...
| 
| works great.

I can't remember how this thread started, but I assume that the numbers 64 and  
128 refer to values for the nbuf parameter when booting the NeXT.

In any event, I'd like to share the solution (at least it seems to work so far)  
to a problem I've had ever since installing Release 3.0: namely, I had been  
booting with nbuf set to 359 on my 28MB NeXTcube.  A local Unix-head suggested  
that NeXT's cache limit of 10% of the installed RAM was far too small - and  
therefore recommended the maximum setting possible.  For 28MB RAM, 2.79MB was  
the highest amount I could allocate using nbuf=359

All was well until I installed 3.0 and starting experiencing at least one  
system panic per day.  Each time, the line in /usr/adm/messages read something  
like this:
Sep 29 09:39:05 sounds mach: panic: (Cpu 0) No more room in kernel map

At least one other Usenet posting mentioned trouble with system panics which  
logged this same message.

A call to NeXT Systems Support was returned the next business day with the  
suggestion that I either get more RAM, or reduce nbuf below 256.  The engineer  
stated that the 3.0 kernel was now larger and that there were known problems  
with high nbuf values, but that 255 had been verified as safe to use.

If you have less than 19.9MB of System RAM, the kernel will limit the cache to  
10% of your RAM regardless of your setting and you'll probably be safe.
-- 
Brian Willoughby	Software Design Engineer, BSEE NCSU
BrianW@SoundS.WA.com	Sound Signal Processing Software and Consulting
NeXTmail welcome	- NO EMAIL SOLICITATION without prior permission