[SunRescue] Proper use of VME scsi controllers?????

[jwbirdsa at carfallin.picarefy.com]

>The sun2 controller is Multibus controller (thus requiring one of the
>many Multibus-VME adapters)

   No, it's not. There was a Multibus SCSI/serial controller, used in the
2/120 and 2/170, but it was never placed in a Multibus-VME adapter. The
sun2 SCSI controller as used in VME machines is just a 6U VME board in the
3x2 VME adapter -- just like the sun3 SCSI controller.
   Perhaps you are thinking of the Xylogics 451 or other Multibus boards
which were put into Multibus-VME adapters and used in VME machines.

>that is extremely brain-dead, somewhat
>slower than the sun3 controller, and probably not 100% SCSI compliant.

   I keep hearing this story, and it may even be true, but the other thing
I've heard repeatedly is people having trouble with the sun3 controller
whereas the sun2 in the same configuration worked reliably.
   Sadly, nothing but SunOS supports the sun2 controller, which means that
VME Sun-3 crates aren't very useful anymore. SunOS is getting just a bit
too old and insecure; you can't run NetBSD with a disk because eventually
you'll get one too many SCSI errors and eat your root filesystem; and you
can't run NetBSD diskless because the ie driver is almost as bad as the si
driver and has a similar tendency to crash the machine.

   --James B.