I just rediscovered that aux/timesync seems to freeze the stock 9plug kernel. I don't yet know why. I worked around it weeks ago in /bin/cpurc with this:
if (! ~ $sysname feared openrd) # timesync seems to kill /sys/src/9/sheeva if(! ps|grep -s timesync) { aux/timesync -n pool.ntp.org if (test -e '#r/rtc') @ { sleep 10 # let timesync correct the time awk '{print $1}' /dev/time >'#r/rtc' # fix hw clock } & } and then forgot about it until it bit me today when I tried to boot a new machine. You may want to do the same until this bug is fixed. Meanwhile, it turns out that the 9plug kernel also runs on the openrd-client board, which has more peripherals, notably vga and a second Gb ether.