[9fans] that cursed MP platform

[9fans] that cursed MP platform

[lucio]

With the release of the new kernel code, I thought I'd return to my
one and only dual processor host and try to get it to run Plan 9.

This is an old dual Pentium 100MHz computer with EISA and PCI.  No
EISA adapters and Adaptec SCSI (sadly) on the motherboard.

The failure symptoms are an inability to recognise the elnk3 adapter
(PCI) _always_ in 9load.  In MP mode, it's more an issue of not
receiving the incoming interrupts (educated guess) because the card is
recognised and even issues DHCP requests, but networking just never
seems to get established in any fashion.  Sometimes, the problems hit
sooner and the machine stops before prompting for file server and auth
server IPs, but mostly it just stops after these prompts (details are
a bit vague, right now).

I'm going to try Linux (Ubuntu) and NetBSD 2.1 as soon as I get a
chance on the same platform, to see how successful these are.  It ran
RedHat for a while and SCO Unix and MPX before then, both without a
glitch.  Linux was never used much, to be honest.

++L