[Simh] SIMH VAX 3.8-1 causing Linux kernel crashes

[Lennert Van Alboom]

On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 01:28:23PM -0500, Michael Kerpan wrote:
>I've tried several times to install OpenVMS 7.3 into a recently-built
>copy of the MicroVAX emulator and each time my system has frozen up
>completely. After a few hard crashes of this sort, I decided to try an
>experiment: I started the install process and then pulled up the Linux
>error console. Sure enough, right as the system froze up, a kernel
>"oops" appears that states something to the effect of "The ATA driver
>has crashed and brought down the system" Given that I can do other
>disk-intensive tasks like running disk benchmarks, imaging CD media
>and playing long video files, it would appear that this is a software
>error rather than a hardware one. Any suggestions here?

As far as my experience goes, if an application can get a system to
freeze, that is a system issue, not an application problem; a userland
application should not be able to do that *regardless of what it does*.

It is possible however that simh managed to trick the system into an
already present bug. What specific module caused the oops? Can you get
the actual oops backtrace somewhere? And does it freeze the system
completely, or just your session/X11 environment/... ? Can you still ssh
into it after it occurs?

Regards,

Lennert