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From: burgess@hrd769.brooks.af.mil (Dave Burgess)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.announce,comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: FAQ_02
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Date: 25 Apr 1993 16:11:30 -0700
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Section 2. (Common installation questions)
2.0 Install process
The bsd386 system is distributed in many ways. One of the most common is
via DOS diskettes, (either 3 1/2 or 5 1/4, both high density) with the
actual distribution being a 'cpio archive' broken into 240K pieces. This
allows the distribution to fit onto a minimum number of floppies and still
be unchanged when it comes time to actually install.
Once the files are on floppies, thoughts usually turn to questions about
how to install the boot image on a floppy. The rawrite program (for DOS)
is used to write the bootable images (distbin and fixitbin) onto floppies.
The same image is used for 3 1/2 and 5 1/4 high density diskettes. Low
density diskettes are not supported in this version of 386bsd.
Once the binary distributions are loaded onto floppies, put the install
disk into the A: drive and reboot. If the system does not boot, see section
2.5 below for more information.
If the disk boots, type install and proceed to use the INSTALL.NOTES
to get more information.
Problems with the install are either related to hardware (i.e. Do you want
to install on your T.V.?) or software. Of the hardware issues, the most
common FAQs are usually straight out of the installation notes. Of the
software issues, there are only two that really concern us. The first is
bad files.
On some systems, files that are loaded from floppy appear to 'go bad' when
they arrive on the hard disk. Try some of these solutions:
- You forgot binary. Don't get insulted. Those of us that FTP for a living
forget sometimes. If so, the distribution will come out with all different
sizes and install will complain about every disk.
- One or two of the files are no good. Try getting them again. As a
precaution, rename the bad files on your hard drive to names like foo.1 and
bob.23. Copy the files again from floppy. If they are still bad, rename the
file immediately before the first bad file (bin01.23 if bin02.24 is bad) and
reget it. If they are still bad, re FTP those files (including the
one before and after the bad one) and try again.
The reason for renaming the files is that sometimes, especially with
drive that do not automagically record bad sectors, you could copy a distri-
bution file onto a bad spot on the disk. If this happens, you want to isolate
the bad spot. The easiest way to do that is just leave the bad file on it.
- Keep trying, these same files have been used by literally thousands of
people to install 386bsd.
2.0.1 Tiny boot disk (versions and media formats)
There is currently one official boot disk, referred to as the "Tiny" boot
disk. In addition, there is at least one pacthed unofficial boot disk
available from agate and its mirror sites.
There are a few FAQs from the boot/install disk.
2.0.1.1 Where does extract go when I reboot?
It was in /tmp, which is cleaned the first time you reboot the system. If you
have just booted from the hard drive for the second time, chances are you just
wiped out extract. It is not really needed, since the instructions for
building your own install are included in section 2.5.2 of the FAQ, under custom
installation.
2.0.1.2 I put the floppy in and try to boot, and nothing happens. What now?
This is usually referred to as the Compaq boot problem. The easiest solution is
to get a patched boot disk. The normal source for this disk is agate (also
known by its real name agate.berkeley.edu) in the directory
/pub/386BSD/386bsd-0.1/unofficial/{something}.
2.0.1.3a The floppy booted, but now the hard disk won't boot?
2.0.1.3b I am trying to reinstall. I run install and it loops asking
me if I want to use the whole disk?
The most likely culprit is your hard disk controller. It is probably doing
some type of disk translation for you. If this is the case (assume it is)
then you will need to find out the real disk controller geometry, and
rewrite your disk label. See section 2.6.2, but not before you get the
program fdisk.exe from agate (It is out there, somewhere in the
~unofficial/ref-tfs stuff). This program will tell you what the controller
geometry is (right before it reboots your computer). Make the disklabel
agree with this program and your system should boot. You may have to
reinstall, but at least your disklabel will be right.
2.0.1.4 There are a bunch of flashing colored things on the screen. Now what?
See section 2.6.3 below. It gives a rather detailed description of the
cause and solution.
2.0.2 Fix-it boot disk
The fix-it disk contains a series of programs that are particularly
handy for 'fixing' your disk in case you can't get logged in. It includes
the disklabel program and other utilities for system maintenance.
2.1 Binary distribution
The binary distribution consists of virtually all of the programs that a
typical Unix system would be expected to have. The include mail, uucp,
GCC version 1.39, and others.
Known problems with the binary distribution include the following:
1. Mtools as shipped in the bindist does not always work. The ones on
the install disk seem to work fine.
2. The install script built into the binary distribution does not correctly
install all of the files and symbolic links that it should. For example,
some of the symbolic links to the /usr/include directory are botched up.
3. 'tip', the modem control program, does not always work right out of
the box.
4. Any program that relies on a valid symbol table in the kernel (e.g. ps)
will not work because the kernel is stripped so that it will fit onto the
disk.
2.2 Source distribution
The source distribution contains all of the source code for every program in
the bindist. Known problems (which are fixed in the patchkit) include the
following:
1. There is an error message during install about install.src01 not being
found. It is not an error, there isn't an install.src01. Think of it as
Bill and Lynne's idea of a practical joke.
2. There are several symbolic links that are not made correctly. In
addition, there are several files that should have been deleted (to
ensure clean 'make's) before the files were packed.
3. The /usr/src tree does not compile cleanly.
2.3 Additional software distribution
The etc distribution contains source trees for many programs that are of
interest to 386bsd users. The complete ISO software development environment,
as well as many additional software packages (and all of the games) are
included in this distribution.
The most common problem with the etc distribution is the error "too many
files open". Followed closely by "install.etc01 not found". The latter
is a annoyance (see above) but the former can be easily overcome in a couple
of ways.
The "too many files open" is a result of the "cat" command leaving
files open after it has read a file. Dwight E. Cass (email address at
dec@lazarus.nrtc.northrop.com) has provided us with this anecdotal
work around for his own experiences:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
So - back to installation. This time, when I get to the etc01
partition, I am a bit more awake, so I run it from csh (with the
open file limit at 256). Works pretty well - but complains at the end
that it could not do the final configuration because it could not find
the configuration file - I checked the MANIFEST and the file is not
there, so I finally decided to ignore the message (but it was
bothersome!) Once etc01 was done - source was easy ... and I am now
up and running, and quite impressed!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Another method is to use a loop construct in the Bourne shell. For example:
for i in (etc01.*)
do
cat $i
done | compress -d | cpio -idalmu
will also solve the problem handily.
2.4 Patch-kit
Rod Grimes is the patchkit coordinator. It is his job to ensure that
patches suggested by the 386bsd user community integrate into the current
patchkit and do not cause new problems. His cadre of dedicated and
professional patch writers and testers work at a fever pitch preparing and
disseminating patches.
There are two mailing lists dedicated to the patchkit. They are as follows:
386bsd-patchkit@foo.cs.montana.edu which is primarily for discussion of
upcoming patches and patchkit philosophy.
patches@foo.cs.montana.edu, which is dedicated to disseminating new, untested
patches.
The current version of the patchkit is 0.2.2, which by the way has
absolutely no relationship with the new version of 386bsd. The next
version of the patchkit (0.2.3) is in alpha testing and will be released
when it is fully tested.
2.5 Configuration
By far, the most common configuration questions are partitioning, followed
closely by all of the other software in the system. Sendmail and named are
also problems occasionally, but the documentation that comes with them usually
gets you through. If you run into a problem, post a question to
comp.os.386bsd.questions.
A less frequently asked question is "Where can I get info on how to configure
a kernel?" The answer to this question has been provided by Richard Murphey
(email address rich@Rice.edu).
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Ready-to-print PostScript files for each section of the net2 system
maintainer's manual are on nova.cc.purdue.edu in
pub/386bsd/submissions/bsd.manuals.
smm.02.config.ps.Z describes kernel configuration for the vax, however
some of it is relevant to 386BSD. There is no freely available
rewrite for 386BSD that I know of.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
2.5.1 Partitions
This section describes many of the questions that people ask about hard disk
partitioning.
The first is a brief explanation of the BSD system disk partitions.
It important to understand how the BSD partitions the disk. There are two
partition tables on the disk. The first is the DOS partition table, with
it's four partitions and obscure partition types. These partitions are fixed
at a specific location on the disk and are maintained by the DOS program,
fdisk, and its Unix relatives. This partition has four numbered partitions,
with the bootable DOS partition being partition 1, etc. These are also the
partitions with the partition types like 0xA5.
The BSD partition table supplements the DOS partition table. The entries in
this table are meaningful to BSD. There are eight partitions in the BSD
partition table, and they are normally lettered from a: to h:. This partition
table is not only usable by BSD, but it is also the only one that BSD uses.
The two different partition tables can happily coexist on the disk drive.
An example might help explain it.
A DOS partition table has four partitions:
1: DOS
2: DOS-extended
3: Linux
4: 386bsd
Within partition 4:, there are eight BSD partitions:
a: /
b: swap
c: Describes the same area as 4: (above)
d: Describes the WHOLE DISK, including the other partition areas.
e: /usr
f: /something
g: /something-else
h: /some_third_thing
If the disk is a 100Meg Disk, and is divided equally among the 4 DOS
partitions, That means that 25Meg is available for 386bsd. Let's look at
an extended example:
DOS occupies tracks 0-24
DOS-extended occupies tracks 25-49
Linux occupies tracks 50-74
386bsd occupies tracks 75-99
In the BSD partition table, a: will start at track 75, as will c:. The a:
partition is generally considered to be the root (/) partition, and is
usually considered the first physical partition. The d: partition will
start at track 0 (since that is where the disk starts) and the other bsd
partitions will start between 75 and 99.
Cgd posted a description of how to manually install 386bsd and create 'real'
BSD partitions. It is excerpted below:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
HOW TO GET 386bsd 0.1 INSTALLED WITH "REAL" PARTITONING:
(remember, if things don't work, they might be in places that aren't
normally looked in... things should work as below, but you might have
to use explicit paths occasionally... the 'better' stuff -- mount,
umount, cp, etc... is in /usr/distbin on the fixit floppy... even
mknod is there, if the devices you need aren't on the fixit floppy...)
(1) boot the fixit floppy
(2) disklabel the disk as appropriate
(3) newfs the partitions
(4) mount the new root partition under /mnt
(5) mkdir /mnt/usr
(6) mount the new /usr partition under /mnt/usr
(7) cpio directory-by-directory (recursively -- by hand!) the entire
contents of the fixit floppy to the hard drive
you'll do something like:
cd /
ls | cpio -pdalmu /mnt
cd /sbin
ls | cpio -pdalmu /mnt/sbin
cd /usr
ls | cpio -pdalmu /mnt/usr
cd /usr/bin
ls | cpio -pdalmu /mnt/usr/bin
etc. yes, it's tiring.
(8) copy /usr/distbin/mount and /usr/distbin/umount to /mnt (so that
they'll be in the new root partition, so you can mount the
new /usr partition...)
(9) shutdown
and the eject the floppy.
(10) reboot off the hard drive, the fsck -p <root raw device>
If there are any errors, after the fsck is done, hit
ctl-alt-delete, and repeat this step.
(11) fsck -p <usr raw device>
(12) mount -u <root device> /
(13) mount <usr device> /usr
(14) insert 0.1 boot/install floppy (dist.fs) into floppy drive
and "mount /dev/fd0a /mnt"
(15) cd /mnt
and then
usr/bin/zcat etc/baselist.Z | usr/bin/cpio -pdalmu /
(16) cd /
and then
/mnt/usr/bin/zcat /mnt/etc/baseutils.cpio.Z | /mnt/usr/bin/cpio -idalmu
(17) umount /mnt then eject the floppy
(18) umount /usr
(19) shutdown
(20) reboot off the hard drive, and get all of the various files (the
bindist files, srcdist files, etc...).
I put them into /usr/tmp, because there wasn't enough space
in /tmp (because it was on a small root partition...).
(21) cd / ; cat <all the binary files> | uncompress | cpio -idalmu
(22) rm <all the binary files>
(23) put your hostname into "/etc/myname" and put your ip addr/hostname
into /etc/hosts.
(24) make an fstab for yourself. specifically, you want something like:
<root device name> / ufs rw 1 1
<usr device name> /usr ufs rw 1 2
congrats. you now have a working system!
you can repeat step 21 for the srcdist and etcdist files, as well,
if you wish...
2.5.2 Swap space (increasing, second partition)
Nate Williams provides a short tutorial on swap space in 386bsd, excerpted
below:
To be able to use additional swap partitions, you need to specify them
in the config (/sys/i386/conf/WHATEVER) file.
Ex:
config "386bsd" root on sd0 swap on sd0 and sd1
Allows swap on sd0 and sd1
config "386bsd" root on wd0 swap on wd0 and sd0
This would allow swap on both wd0 and sd0 OR whichever (both/either) of
the two had a valid disklabel. Note, you can really screw yourself up with
this, if you should happen to not want to swap to this partition, and it
happens to be the first one found...
The problem of not being able to swap was from the config file not having
wd1 in it.
controller wd0 at isa? port "IO_WD1" bio irq 14 vector wdintr
disk wd0 at wd0 drive 0
disk wd0 at wd0 drive 1
^^^
This should have been wd1, and that's why it didn't get added, as far as
I know. I may be wrong, but I have swapped to two different partitions
w/out any problems since patchkit 0.1, and I don't remember seeing any
patches in it to patch swap386bsd.c
Once the install is complete, swapping will not be enabled correctly.
The following steps can be used to make sure that it is enabled correctly.
If there is a 'b' partition in your root disk 386bsd partition, it will
be used automatically (MAKE SURE B is not the start of the disk, and
MAKE SURE b doesn't contain any data you wish to keep). If b starts at
disk offset 0, it will promptly hose your boot sectors and other important
disk stuff.
If you want an additional partition, put an entry similar to this in
/etc/fstab:
/dev/sd1b none swap sw
I'm swapping on sd0b and sd1b, and 'swapon' is run on this partition on
bootup.
Swapping to a file is still not implemented. Rumor has it 0.2 will have
such things. If someone wanted to add it, the vnops_* files would have
to be radically modified to get it to work correctly.
2.5.3 Dual boot possibilities
There are many people that wish to be able to boot DOS or 386bsd at will.
There are several programs that allow this. os-bs is one such program, and
there are three or four others. There are problems in some configurations
using the os/2 boot manager for this, so beware.
In addition to being able to boot from either of two partitions, some people
want to operate more than one disk drive (and perhaps boot from either as
well). Christoph Robitschko provided one description of this. Since
there are virtually limitless possibilities for configurations for BSD
systems, it will be impossible to answer all of the possible questions about
these features. Many people operate with multiple disk drives on one or more
controllers. Below is a description of one of the ways that the multiple
drive configuration can be accomplished.
2.6 Common installation problems (include pointer to section 9).
2.6.1 Swap space not identified correctly.
There are several levels of problems associated with swap space. The
first is that the swap space allocated on the disk label (partition b:)
is only 5 Meg and is not correctly marked as a swap partition. Your
disk label should have the swap partition marked as 'swap' instead of
'unused'. In addition, your /etc/fstab should have the swap space
identified. The following is a representative fstab:
/dev/wd0a / ufs rw 1 1
/dev/wd0b swap swap sw 0 0
2.6.2 Endless reboot cycles.
Endless reboot cycles are the single most vexing aspect of 386bsd.
Part of the problem is that the 0.1 distribution boot routines were
never checked against many types of computers and have bugs. Most
of the bugs are fixed in the patchkit, but that doesn't do the
average novice user any good.
In general, this will show up as a "bad disk label" error, and
can result in in not booting from the hard drive "most of the time".
You may be able to partially (or even completely) work around this
problem by making your machine run at a lower clock rate.
This problem is the result of the kernel reading the wrong register
waiting for the drive controller to come ready. On some controllers,
this isn't a problem; on others, it's fatal.
The correct soloution is to use a patched "dist.fs" or "fixit.fs"
boot disk. These have been provided by Chris G. Demetriou, and
are located on the machine agate.berkeley.edu in the directory
pub/386BSD/386bsd-0.1/unofficial/newbootables.cgd. There are a
number of other bootables ther for WD8003 and Isolan ethernet cards,
since the probing for both can cause problems.
Another incarnation of this symptom is that the disk geometry on
your disk label (as installed by install) is different than the
geometry that your hard drive controller thinks it is using. This
will most often manifest itself on controllers that insist on
operating in some type of translation mode. Normally the fix is
to find out what the controller geometry is and make the disk label
agree. There are programs available to help with this problem.
Julian's new boot blocks may also solve this problem. They are
available where fine precompiled kernels may be found.
2.6.3 The computer just sits there, or 'that isn't right'.
This class of problems is sometimes caused by an incorrect FTP of the
boot disk. Make sure that the files were grabbed in 'binary' mode and
that the size reported back is 1244000 bytes. Use the Unix program 'dd'
or the DOS program RAWRITE to put these files onto the disk.
2.6.3.1 The boot disk works all right on one computer but not another.
This could be a problem with many different pieces, some of which are:
- Misconfigured hardware. The iomem, IRQ, and other board settings must
match the ones listed in the INSTALL.NOTES. Unfortunately, the
INSTALL.NOTES are on the disk that will not boot. You can grab them via
FTP from /pub/386BSD/386bsd-0.1/filesystem.
2.6.3.2 The screen has "flashing multicolored characters and ptdi81061
prompt" error?
The problem is that the code checking the return from the read of the CMOS
RAM value falls through in the case of an invalid value. What really is
needed is the non-existance "else" case for a bad CMOS setup, which goes
and probes memory to see it's size. What currently happens is that the
code falls through, the Maxmem is set to zero, and the maxmem and physmem
are set to -1 (this is a bad thing).
To solve this, Terry Lambert wrote a program in (forgive him!) Turbo C to
read and write CMOS values, so that he could force the memory count to the
correct value. For a machine with a base memory of 640K, the expected
value in CMOS is 0280 (in bytes x16 and x15, respectively). What the
AT&T boxes and the HP vectra have is 027f, so it falls through to the
default case and blows up.
The quick and dirty workaround: If you download dist.fs from
Chris G. Demetriou's upload on agate.berkeley.edu for the hard disk
boot problem (this MUST be dist.fs, and not one of the other dist.fs
files modified for Isolan or WD ethernet and named something else!),
you can use uzap (available for anon ftp from wuarchive.wustl.edu,
located at mirrors2/unix-c/editors/uzap.tar-z) to binary edit the
dist.fs at byte offset 946834; it should be changed from 81FE8002
to 81FE7F02. This is the compare for 640K in the bogus code. You
can look for the pattern 81FE8002 in the other *.fs files, including
fixit.fs, and change it there, if you MUST use one of them instead.
Terry has uploaded a patched version of dist.fs, and mailed Chris, but
don't know how long this will take to become FTP'able. Realize
that you *MUST* fix the sources if you are going to build a kernel
which is bootable!
It should be noted that, if you download uzap, you should "touch"
uzap.c, as otherwise, make will try to use lex to create it, and
will probably fail. This is due to the tar extraction order from
the uzap tar archive.
2.6.3.3a I get the error "isr 15 and error: isr 17" on an NE2000 card.
2.6.3.3b I have some card on IRQ2 and it dosn't work; why?
The description of this problem is that one of the cards in your system;
most likely the VGA card, is either generating interrupts or is causing
the IRQ 2 to be actively disabled.
One solution would be to plan on not using your ethernet card until you
have rebuilt the kernel so that it expects it at an interrupt other than
IRQ 2 or 9, rejumper or reconfigure the card to match the IRQ you have
selected, and enable it.
James Van Artsdalen (email at james@bigtex.cactus.org) has given
us another answer:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Some VGA cards use IRQ 2 for a vertical retrace interrupt. Even when
the interrupt is not enabled in the VGA, some cards drive IRQ 2
inactive instead of leaving the signal tristate.
If this is the problem, you can use Scotch tape to cover the IRQ 2
signal on the VGA's ISA connector.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
There has been some discussion as to whether scotch tape is really
appropriate inside a card slot. My answer would be "yes". This is
because the alternate soloution of cutting the trace on the video
board seems, to my mind, to reduce the value of the board. It is
possible that, in the future, with a bi-partite driver, you would
want to catch the retrace interrupt to get rid of "sparklies" or to
implement a driver for a very high resoloution monitor for X. In
this happens, given a choice between alcohol and solder, I vote for
alcohol.
2.6.3.4 Some of my SCSI devices (like a tape) don't work; why?
Gary Ward (gpw10@phoenixcd.amdahl.com) has seemingly discovered
that the SCSI driver likes devices to start at 0 and work their
way up. That means that you should put your first device at
LUN 0, the second at LUN 1, and so on. The typical arrangement
of disks at 0 and 1, and a tape at 4 will cause the tape to
not be recognized. Change this to disks at 0 and 1 and the tape
at 2, and voila! the tape is suddenly there.
A new and improved SCSI driver has been written by Julian Elischer
and is available from many sources. It includes support for many
new types of SCSI controllers and many devices that are thereby
attached.
--
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