Linux/VAX boot protocol

[Maciej W. Rozycki]

Jan,

> 1. Has there been any success booting up with recent linux kernels ?

 No idea, I've got stuck at 2.6.18.  That's not much different e.g. to my 
MIPS side though -- I just need to refresh myself on the kernel side 
sometime once I've got past the big userland changes.  One change at a 
time.

> 2. To what extent is the CLI operational when the kernel boots up (even
> older kernel) ?

 Mostly works.  There are occasional hiccups, obviously owing to bugs here 
and there, probably in the compiler.

 One annoyance I know of is completion does not work in BASH where there 
are multiple matches (i.e. sending <Tab> twice to get a list).  I'll see 
if I can debug it once I'm done with binutils -- it shouldn't be *that* 
difficult to track down the cause now that we have working GDB.  If that 
is indeed a compiler bug then tracking down the cause there is another 
story and will likely a bit tougher of course, although, as usually, it 
depends.  I reckon GCC does something silly about some more arcane VAX 
addressing modes, so it may be that.

  Maciej