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Internet Message Format | 1994-04-02 | 66.0 KB

Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!hookup!news.moneng.mei.com!howland.reston.ans.net!news.cac.psu.edu!news.pop.psu.edu!ctc.com!news.mic.ucla.edu!ux1.lmu.edu!cynjut.ogisd.ess.harris.com!jocas-al.brooks.af.mil!hrd769.brooks.af.mil!not-for-mail From: burgess@hrd769.brooks.af.mil (Dave Burgess) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.announce,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: [comp.os.386bsd] BNR/2 derived BSD for PCs FAQ (Part 3 of 10) Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc Date: 31 Mar 1994 21:37:33 -0000 Organization: Armstrong Laboratory, Brooks AFB, TX Lines: 1577 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Distribution: world Expires: 04/18/94 Message-ID: <386bsd-faq-3-765149856@hrd769.brooks.af.mil> References: <386bsd-faq-1-765149856@hrd769.brooks.af.mil> Reply-To: 386bsd-faq@hrd769.brooks.af.mil (386bsd FAQ Maintainer) NNTP-Posting-Host: hrd769.brooks.af.mil Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu comp.os.386bsd.announce:308 comp.answers:4388 news.answers:17177 Posted-By: auto-faq 2.4 Archive-name: 386bsd-faq/part3 Section 2. (Common installation questions) 2.0 Install process The 386 BSD 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. 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 (dist.fs and fixit.fs) onto floppies. The same image can 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 bootable images are written onto the floppies, insert the dist.fs 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, and the one immediately before the first bad file (bin01.23 if bin01.24 is bad) and copy them again. If they are still bad, download those files again from the distribution site (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 auto-magically record bad sectors, you could copy a distribution 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 patched 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 from the hard drive. 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. When installing NetBSD, the set_tmp_dir and extract programs are part of the .profile that is booted when you are installing. This .profile is overwritten as part of the install process, and extract then disappears. If you need extract again, you can mount the install disk and source .profile. This will recreate these two routines. There is also an install procedure that NetBSD uses that does the same job. It is defined as part of the .profile on one of the installation floppies. You can either copy it from there, or use the procedure for 'real disk partitioning'. 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/patchkit. Another source of possible hope for you is to grab the NetBSD bootable disks. They are compatible with 386BSD and allow you to install on some of the more recalcitrant hardware. 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 before doing that get the program pfdisk.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. NOTE: If the hard disk controller does NOT have an option for turning off the geometry, you may well be completely out of luck. There are very few controllers that fall into this category. The ones that do full time translation will often boot up in translated mode. pfdisk will help you determine the correct geometry for your drive by telling you what the geometry looks like when 386bsd boots up. But on the other hand, maybe not... See section 2.5.5 below for a detailed set of instructions about getting NetBSD (and by implication 386BSD and FreeBSD) to work with a system that uses full time translation. 2.0.1.4 There are a bunch of flashing colored things on the screen. Now what? See section 2.7 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 list includes 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 bootable disk. These problems are all cured either by patches available in the patchkit, or through re-compilation. 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. This is fixed by the patchkit, as of 0.2.3. 3. The /usr/src tree does not compile cleanly. This is fixed by the patchkit, as of 0.2.3, or by NetBSD or FreeBSD. 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 (his Email address is 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 -or- for i in (etc01.*) do zcat $i done | cpio -idalmu will also solve the problem handily. This solution solves the problem by running cat multiple times, with one file each. Since cat now only has one file, there are no limits on the number of files that can be used for the distribution set. 2.4 Patch-kit The patchkit has been completely deprecated. FreeBSD and NetBSD are both mature programs that will serve the average user extremely well. The patchkit may still be available, but it os only required if you are installing the original 386BSD 0.1 version. There are two mailing lists dedicated to the patchkit. They are as follows: 386bsd-patchkit@cs.montana.edu, which is primarily for discussion of up-coming patches and patchkit philosophy. patches@cs.montana.edu, which is dedicated to submitting new, untested patches. The current (and final) version of the patchkit is 0.2.4, which has absolutely no relationship with the new version of 386bsd. It is available by anonymous FTP from several sites throughout the net. 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. 2.5.1.1 What is a 'disklabel' and why do I need one? 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 supplemental partition table is often refereed to as the 'disklabel'. This tutorial is provided by by "<haley@husc.harvard.edu>" and provides an excellent overview of the hard disk partitioning procedure from start to finish. "Disk Partitioning for the Compleat Idiot" There are times, in our trials with our computers, that it becomes necessary to mess about with the disklabel. For those not knowledgeable of BSD or Unix Systems administration, this somewhat simple task can be somewhat daunting. This document is the result of my own short experience. This does not cover physical installation of the disk. For those who are having trouble with that, I direct you to any of the fine manuals dealing with hard drives and your hardware. It also does not deal with the vagaries of the DOS partition manager. It assumes you have done that as well, if need be... After the drive is physically installed and is recognized in the BSD startup, and it mentions both your drives, in the order you expect them... Or perhaps just the one, if you had special problems with installation. Now all you have to do is "disklabel" the drive... Well, what is *THAT*??? The disklabel is used by the kernel and other utilities to tell how you want or have the drive set up *logically*. In a beautiful world, we might have a very free hand at this set-up and expect it to work. Unfortunately, the authors of the software dealing with the hard drives either decided or were forced by circumstance to make certain things about the disklabel inviolate. When you let the installation disk set the disklabel for you first drive it comes out like this: The a: partition is the primary partition. The b: partition is the swap partition. The c: partition is the amount of the disk used by 386bsd (swap and data) The d: partition is the entire disk. Of these, the only one that could be different is a:... (Note for those of us who have spent far too much time using DOS: the labels a: b: c: d: e: f: g: h: DO NOT refer to DOS drives, but to partitions in your 386bsd partition... confusing, eh? For the sake of consistency I will never make a reference to DOS drives except by saying something like "DOS drive C:". ) It's possible to divide up the disk a bit differently, but three things MUST be: c: must refer to every cylinder you wish 386bsd to use, either for your data or the swap space. d: Must refer to the whole disk, from cylinder 0 to the last one... b: Should always refer to a swap partition. Note that on any other than the first disk it does not have to, but if you enable swapping on that drive, and you are using b: for something else, that something else will be killed. The reason for this is simple: It's hard coded in. "WHY?" you ask? (I did...) Probably time constraints, maybe tradition. But if you look at the code in "isofs" and "ufs" in your sys.386bsd directory, you will see numerous comments asking some of the same questions, which leads me to believe this may change in the future, making our lives both more complicated and easier at the same time... Getting past the esoteric explanations, here is a method for figuring out and "labeling" your disk. We'll start with the disklabel from my second disk, in the form most understandable by humans... #'s signify the start of a comment. # /dev/rwd1d: type: ESDI disk: maxtor7245 label: flags: bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 31 tracks/cylinder: 16 sectors/cylinder: 496 cylinders: 967 rpm: 3600 interleave: 1 trackskew: 0 cylinderskew: 0 headswitch: 0 # milliseconds track-to-track seek: 0 # milliseconds drivedata: 0 5 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg] a: 198400 0 4.2BSD 512 4096 16 # (Cyl. 0 - 399) b: 31744 447392 swap # (Cyl. 902 - 965) c: 479136 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 965) d: 479136 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 965) e: 248992 198400 4.2BSD 512 4096 16 # (Cyl. 400 - 901) Some math: Looking at the comments at the end and the size and offset columns, size is a function of (last - first + 1) * sectors per cylinder: a: 399 - 0 + 1 = 400 * 496 = 198400 b: 965 - 902 + 1 = 64 * 496 = 31744 c: & d: (Since I have no DOS partition, whatsoever) 965 - 0 = 1 = 966 * 496 = 479136 e: 901 - 400 = 502 * 496 = 248992 248992 + 198400 + 31744 = 479136 (all the parts should equal the whole) Some things I discovered (for all you in novice land like me...) 1. As you can see this disk has 967 cylinders, but I only refer to 966 of them, 0 - 965... This is because it's good practice to leave the "Landing Zone" cylinder out of it... This is usually the last cylinder, and it's where the read/write heads hang out when your disk is off... Note from TSgt Dave: Most modern drive heads come to rest on a polished surface inside the highest cylinder. I could be mistaken, of course, and the Hard Drive Bible (or other appropriate reference manual) will tell the tale for each drive. 2. a: can be a regular partition, b: should be swap, c: everything 386bsd will get to use, including swap. d: is the entire disk from 0 - (cylinder_per_disk - 2) [leaving out the Landing Zone] On the boot drive (The drive that actually contains the kernel), a: is the boot partition. On all other drives, it is a regular partition. You can then use e - h for your other partitions. I am not sure whether you could specify b: as other than a swap partition and not run into trouble, but you could surely make it a zero sized one starting and stopping on the Landing Zone... Note from TSgt Dave: This is a good idea. Another way to accomplish this is to simply not specify it in the map. 3. Stupid human trick: When doing the math don't forget that 400 - 900 refers to 50*1* cylinders. I did, for a while. No great problem I suspect, but why waste a cylinder... 4. newfs'ing really is that simple if you have the label right: "newfs /dev/rwd?x config_template" where the question mark is the physical disk, the x is a partition letter, and the config_template is the configuration from /etc/disktab for your disk drive. * NOTE: This is a thumbnail sketch; read the man page to verify all of the options and be sure about how to proceed... 5. then fsck the partition: fsck /dev/rwd?x Don't forget that fsck should be run on the RAW device. 6. As long as it checks out, you can then mount it and do disk things with it... 7. Add it to the fstab... (follow the man page). Don't forget that your new swap partition won't work if your kernel isn't configured for it, but it won't cause you any problem to have it there. One last note from TSgt Dave: And I have yet to figure out a way to determine if it is or isn't using the swap partition anyway. There is a program called 'swapinfo' and it is part of the NetBSD source tree. On my system, it tells me that I never use the swap area. :) Comnonly used definitions: bsize: Block Size: This is the smallest allocatable area on a disk file system, sort of. A file uses the maximum amount of blocks until it can not completely fill up a block. fsize: Fragment Size: This is the size of the 'leftover' data that didn't fit into a full block. For example, assuming a using an 8K Block Size/1K Fragment Size, a 34.5K file, would use up 4-8K Blocks (4 * 8K = 32K) and 3 1K fragments (3 * 1K = 3K). There is 512 bytes of wasted space, since 32K + 3K = 35K, which is 512 bytes larger than 34.5K. If you want to reduce the amount of wasted space, you can reduce your fragment size, but you also reduce the amount of data you read at one time, so your disk performance decreases also. A good setup is 8K/1K for performance, but if you are really concerned about wasted space you can consider using a 4K/512byte filesystem. For further information, find an article that explains the Berkeley FFS in more detail. cpg: Cylinders Per Group, it determines the cylinder group size, which in turn determines the number and location of the alternate superblocks. 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" PARTITIONING: (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 the entire contents of the fixit floppy to the hard drive cd / ls .profile * [0-ln-z]*/* */*/* | cpio -pdalmu /mnt (NOTE: [0-ln-z]*/* is to avoid matching mnt/mnt) (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, then 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 congratulations! 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 Common Disk Label Problems. 2.5.2.1 Swap space. 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 by default. I may be wrong, but I have swapped to two different partitions w/out any problems since patchkit 0.1, and there aren't any patches to swap386bsd.c Once the install is complete, swapping will not be enabled on the second drive. 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 wipe out your boot sectors and other important disk stuff. (This appears to be fixed in the current NetBSD sources) 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 boot up. 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. 2.5.2.2 Increasing the 386bsd partition size. Once the install is finished, the system has it's 386bsd partition. This includes a 5Meg swap partition, which is altogether too small. There is no easy way to increase this swap partition without relabeling the drive. Unfortunately, relabeling usually involves reinstalling. That involves re-doing just about everything you have just finished doing. The good news is that if all you have done is the base installation, you don't have a lot of time and energy invested in the system. Take the time, and make sure that your swap space is at least as big as your memory; many people recommend even larger. There is no real limit to the size that this space can take. If you have two disk drives, you can have space space on both. Simply follow the instructions above, and you will be all set. If your swap space is smaller than your real memory, system core dumps will be disabled. 2.5.2.3 I can access the DOS partition on my second disk from Unix but not DOS? Any suggestions? One kinky problem that almost got me was when I tried to disklabel my second drive in order to use the DOS partition on it, and use the rest as swap for BSD (FreeBSD-1.0 Eps, SCSI drive on an AHA1542B, to be exact). The DOS partition was visible from UNIX, but *not* from DOS. What I tried to do: Using PFDISK (from DOS), make one big DOS partition at the start and use the rest for a BSD partition (type 165). Something that came out like 1 6 0 69 DOSbi # .. 2 165 70 98 unkno for a 99 cyl drive. Using BSD disklabel generate disk description/label as documented in the FAQ. Make only 'c' (total BSD DOS part), 'd' (complete disk) and 'b' (intended swap) BSD partitions. Problem: When writing the label, disklabel would ask about overwriting DOS partition table. Whether I said y or n, the DOS partition table was screwed up, as seen from DOS (BSD saw the DOS file system very nicely indeed). Cause, solution: BSD disklabel wants to write the label to the start of the 'a' partition; I had *not* defined an 'a' partition (since I was only using the disk for swap). This tells disklabel that the 'a' partition is the start of the disk, which means there is no DOS partition. Disklabel then writes the label at the start of the drive, which is why it talks about overwriting (aha!); this is *bad* for the DOS partition table. One solution is to have a non-empty (e.g. one cylinder) 'a' partition at the start of the BSD part of the disk, and resize the 'b' swap partition accordingly. Now everything works just fine. One other fly in this ointment. The disklabel program has historically asked "Overwrite disk with DOS-partition [n]: " then the normal inclination is to believe the prompt and press return for 'no'. The default answer may or may not be 'no'. There are several versions of disklabel where the default answer is actually 'yes' even though the prompt implies that you can press return and get 'no'. In this case, it might be best to assume that the default answer doesn't exist until you have had a chance to actually look at the disklabel code. 2.5.3 How do I set up the system so that I can boot from more than one operating system/file-loader without using floppies? There are many people that wish to be able to boot DOS or 386bsd at will. There are several programs that allow this. The program "os-bs" is one such program, "BOOTEASY" is another, 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. Yu-Han Ting provides this tutorial on partitioning and booting multiple systems with a single hard disk. After spending one day fighting with the nasty partition table, finally I had NetBSD, DOS 5 (Sorry, I don't use DOS 6), and OS/2 2.1 March beta co-existing on my hard drive. Here is the answer: Since that my original hard disk setup was corrupted by NetBSD's installation program, I decided to rebuild it. I would like my partition table looks like this: Partition 0: OS/2 2.1 beta (Primary, HPFS, C:) Partition 1: MS-DOS 5.0 (Primary, C:) Partition 2: MS-DOS 5.0 (Extended, D: & E:) Partition 3: NetBSD You will need the following tools before you can setup a similar environment: 1) Mr. Wolfram's OS-BS. (It's an excellent boot selector, much better than OS/2's boot manager, IMHO) 2) PFDISK.EXE. (It's available from wuarchive.wustl.edu:mirrors/ linux/dos_utils/pfdisktc.zip.) 3) A binary editor. I use Norton Utilities' DiskEdit. 4) 386BSD's 'tinyBSD' distribution disk. After you have the necessary tools handy: 1) Use OS/2 'fdisk' to create partition 0. Make it install-able and install the system as usual. 2) Use OS/2 'fdisk' to create partition 1. Assign drive C: to the partition. Then reboot from DOS. 3) Use DOS 'fdisk' to create the extended partition. Assign logical drive D and E to the partition. 4) Reboot from DOS again. Format drive C: (for DOS), D:, and E:. 5) Use 'tinyBSD', NOT 'NetBSD', to boot the machine. Create a genuine 386BSD partition. Once the 386BSD partition has been made, boot DOS from floppy and execute PFDISK.EXE. For example, issue the following commands once you get into DOS: C>pfdisk 0 <enter> pfdisk> L <enter> ("pfdisk>" is the command prompt and "L" is the actual command.) The second line, i.e., command 'L', will tell you the starting address and the length of each partition you have. Record the information for step 6. 6) Reboot NetBSD from floppy. Install NetBSD over the original 386BSD partition. Fill out the information you get from step 5 to the installation program. 'halt' the system after you have installed 'install2.fs'. (Ed.Note: This step is the same for 386bsd or NetBSD) 7) Boot OS/2 from floppy. Use fdisk to assign drive C: to the OS/2 partition. In my case, partition 0. Note that fdisk will change the ID of partition 1 from '0x06' to '0x16'. '0x06' stands for 16-bit DOS FAT; while '0x16' stands for non-DOS partition. In the next step, we have to change '0x16' back to '0x06' manually. You can get the ID information by issuing "I" under PFDISK. It will tell you what the IDs represent. 8) Boot DOS from floppy. Use the binary editor to change the partition type as stated in step 7. 9) Install OS-BS under DOS. Remember to enable "Modify startup ID before booting". 10) Now you can boot any partition w/o floppy diskettes during startup. :) The above procedures may not be optimized. But it works for me. I won't spend anytime to deal with tedious work again :) You might feel strange why we need 'tinyBSD'. Simply trust me. By using 'tinyBSD' to create a partition for NetBSD, it will make your life a lot easier. Hope this helps. Ed. Note: The reason is because several versions of NetBSD and FreeBSD will not label a disk that doesn't have a disklabel. Catch-22. PS: %%%%% REMEMBER TO BACKUP YOUR SYSTEM BEFORE YOU CONDUCT THE EXPERIMENT !!! %%%%% Here is Christoph's explanation of how to set up a dual hard drive system so that the 386BSD/NetBSD system is stored entirely on the second hard drive. I have done this with two IDE drives. IDE+SCSI should be a bit simpler. There's a boot selector called BOOTEASY that can load from the second drive (you can get it from ftp.tu-graz.ac.at:pub/386BSD/0.1/unofficial/booteasy). What I have done to boot 386bsd from the second (IDE) drive: - installed booteasy on the first drive - (you can install booteasy on the second drive, too, if you have multiple partitions there) - modified Julian's boot blocks to use the second drive per default (Ed. Note: See below for the illumination of this step) - rebuilt the kernel to have root and swap on wd1 (probably not necessary for you, since your second disk is sd0, which is already in the config file). It worked perfectly for me. This should also work with equal facility for 386bsd users. Julian Elischer (julian@jules.dialix.oz.au) adds: To make the bootcode default to drive 1 look in /sys/{arch/}i386/boot/boot.c for the following (or similar.. It has changed a little) code: loadstart: /***************************************************************\ * As a default set it to the first partition of the first * * floppy or hard drive * \***************************************************************/ part = unit = 0; maj = (drive&0x80 ? 0 : 2); /* a good first bet */ name = names[currname++]; and change it to: loadstart: /***************************************************************\ * As a default set it to the first partition of the SECOND * * floppy or hard drive * \***************************************************************/ ! part = 0; ! unit = 1; maj = (drive&0x80 ? 0 : 2); /* a good first bet */ name = names[currname++]; And in yet another interation, Luke Mewburn (lm@yallara.cs.rmit.oz.au) decided to hack that a bit further in his NetBSD 0.9 (as_shipped i.e., non-current) to set the drive to the unit which the boot blocks loaded off. So, instead of: part = unit = 0; do: part = 0; unit = (drive & 0x7F); (the FAQ suggests `part = 0; unit = 1;' ) This way, whatever drive the bb's loaded from, it has that as default. In my case, I get wd(0,a) when I have my netbsd drive as C:, and wd(1,a) when I have it as D:. (I've been swapping drives left right and centre the last day getting dos to boot on one drive and netbsd on another). 2.5.4 How do I disklabel my second hard drive? The obvious answer is to use 'disklabel -w -r /dev/rwd1d'. Unfortunately, this does not always put a real disklabel on the drive. The symptom is that the drive labels and can be used until the system is reset, at which point the system tries to read the label from the disk. It was never actually written to the disk, so the operation fails. There are also reports that the /usr/mdec files are corrupted in some of the distributions. If you have tried everything else, you can either load the files from one of the many archive sites that keep the /usr/mdec files around, or you can recompile them yourself. Mark Weaver (mhw@cs.brown.edu) provides us with an illuminating answer to this perplexing problem. I had the same problem and there is a simple solution. I'm not sure why this works, but it does. Instead of specifying the entire device path name (i.e. /dev/rsd0c), only specify the two letters of the device type and the unit number (i.e. "sd0"). Disklabel figures out the rest, and it works. For instance, the following line works for me: disklabel -w -r sd0 <drive-type> assuming of course that the boot block files are in /usr/mdec/ and the <drive-type> is in the /etc/disktab. This is also a symptom of some of the versions of FreeBSD and NetBSD where the disklabel code was 'fixed' to only write a disklabel on a drive with a disklabel. Oops. 2.5.5 386bsd/NetBSD/FreeBSD cannot handle disk geometry translations, but it turns out that my disk geometry is translated. It has five zones, each with a different sec/track! What kind of things can I do about the disk translation my hard disk controller uses? It turns out that what *BSD cannot handle is not translation, but translation that changes during the boot-up process. For example, the configuration above will work just fine IF the translation that the controller uses when it powers up is the same one that it uses when it boots. On many PC clones, the BIOS loads a different geometry after it boots to make the geometry agree with one that is loaded in CMOS. This is the fatal flaw for *BSD. Fortunately, once the problem has been identified, it is relatively easy to handle. Simply make sure that the BIOS is configured to set the controller to the translated geometry that the card powers up with. There are several ways to get around these problems with disk geometry translation. If you are using a SCSI controller, you can specify the geometry such that each 'cylinder' is 1 Meg (64 sectors by 32 tracks for example). Most SCSI controllers will blithely ignore what YOU tell it the geometry is and press on using this type of 1 Meg cylinder had to get the job done. NOTE: If you are going to try this, try to ensure that each 'pseudo cylinder' is a reasonable size (like 1Meg or 512K). An interesting method for dealing with disk geometry comes from Alan Barrett (barrett@lucy.ee.und.ac.za): This sort of problem happens when you try to install NetBSD in a partition of a disk whose controller does geometry translation. I have not had time to find the bug that causes the problem. One option is to disable the geometry translation: Use ide_conf to find the true geometry, use the CMOS setup program to tell your BIOS about the true geometry, and reformat everything. I successfully did that on one of my systems. If you are not able to, or do not wish to, disable the geometry translation then the following work-around might work for you. This requires that the disk have unused space on {cylinder 0, head 0}, from sector 2 to sector 16. Almost all DOS disks that I have ever seen satisfy this condition, because they usually start the DOS partition in {cylinder 0, head 0, sector 1}, leaving most of {cylinder 0, head 0} unused apart from the partition sector in {cylinder 0, head 0, sector 1}. However, many partitioning programs like to hide this fact from you, and pretend that the DOS partition starts at the front of the disk; don't believe them until you have checked with a raw disk editor. 0. Make sure you have adequate backups. 1. Use a partition sector editor (fdisk, pfdisk, os-bs, booteasy, Norton utilities, whatever) to mark the partition that you want for NetBSD as bootable with type 0xA5 (decimal 165). 2. Halt the system. Boot the NetBSD kernel copy floppy. When it asks you to insert the floppy for the root file system, switch to the Install-1 floppy and press enter. 3. Answer all the installation prompts, using numbers based on the translated geometry. When it asks if you really want to label the disk, be brave and say yes. 4. Halt the system. Boot to DOS. Run a disk editor program, such as Norton utilities. 5.1. Verify that the partition sector in {cyl 0, head 0, sec 1} is undamaged. Verify that the disklabel program run as part of the NetBSD install has written the NetBSD primary boot block to {cylinder xx, head 0, sector 1}, written the disk label to {cyl xx, head 0, sec 2}, and written the secondary boot program to {cyl xx, head 0, sectors 3 to 16}. ("xx" represents the translated cylinder number you chose for the start of the NetBSD partition. You did choose to start on a cylinder boundary, I hope.) 5.2. Verify that the space in {cyl 0, head 0, sectors 2 to 16} is still available. Copy the fifteen sectors containing the NetBSD disk label and secondary boot block from {cyl xx, head 0, sectors 2 to 16} to {cyl 0, head 0, sectors 2 to 16}. 5.3. Edit the partition table in {cyl 0, head 0, sec 1}. Change the system ID of the NetBSD partition from 0xA5 (decimal 165) to something else (I use 0xA4, decimal 164), but keep it flagged as bootable. This will let you boot to the NetBSD primary boot block. 5.4. Edit one of the previously unused partition table entries (I hope you have one), to contain the following information: {sys id = 0xA5, boot flag = 0, start cylinder/head/sector = 0/0/1, end cylinder/head/sector = anything, initial offset = 0, total size = anything}. This will tell the NetBSD primary boot block, or a NetBSD system booted from a floppy, that it should look for the NetBSD disk label in {cyl 0, head 0, sec 2}. 6. Halt the system. Boot the NetBSD kernel copy floppy. When it asks you to insert the floppy for the root file system, just press enter without changing disks. 7. Copy the kernel, and proceed with the rest of the installation as per the instructions provided with NetBSD. It should now work because of the trickery with the partition table etc. 2.6 Common installation problems. There are many common installation problems. This section covers the most basic and common of these problems. In addition to this section, you should also read through the other sections of the FAQ, since many of the less common questions are answered in other places in the doc. 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 on a second disk will not get used if it is not in your /etc/fstab file. Your /etc/fstab should have the swap space identified. The following is a representative fstab: /dev/wd0a / ufs rw 1 1 /dev/wd1b swap swap sw 0 0 Another common question is that the install program installs the swap partition in the 'b' partition, but does not mark it correctly as a swap partition. The swapping software will use the swap partition regardless of what it is called, but it should still be identified in the disklabel as the swap partition. Use 'disklabel' to change the partition type from 'unused' to 'swap'. NOTE: I mean it when I say that 386bsd will use the b: partition for swap without regard to what you called it. If it was your root partition, it will be toast the first time you try to swap a process out to disk. I'm not kidding! 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. This problem is solved for almost all controllers in the patchkit and both FreeBSD and NetBSD. The correct solution is to use a patched "dist.fs" or "fixit.fs" boot disk. These have been provided by the patchkit maintainers and are located on the machine agate.berkeley.edu in the directory pub/386BSD/386bsd-0.1/unofficial/patchkit. In addition, new patches kernels or a NetBSD kernel may be able to solve your immediate 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. Also, they are included in the patchkit as of version 0.2.2. 2.7 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 diskette. In addition, this is the 'miscellaneous' section of the FAQ. These problems are included here because they are usually preceded by 'I just finished installing...' 2.7.1 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. - Unsupported hardware. There are several SCSI controllers on the market that are not fully supported by 386bsd. The Ultrastore 24F (when not running in ISA emulation mode) is a good example of this. There are also some network cards that are not directly supported in 386bsd. If you get into a real bind, you can post a question to comp.os.386bsd.questions, and one of the many experienced 386bsd gurus that reads that group will probably try to help you. 2.7.2 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-existence "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 0x16 and 0x15, 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 work-around: If you download the new patchkit bootables from agate.berkeley.edu they have fixed these problems. If not, 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. 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. 2.7.3a I get the error "isr 15 and error: isr 17" on an NE2000 card. 2.7.3b I have some card on IRQ2 and it doesn't work; why? 2.7.3c I am getting lousy performance out of my network card. What are some of the other possibilities? 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. The VGA card uses IRQ 2 during vertical retrace to prevent sparklies. 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, re-jumper or reconfigure the card to match the IRQ you have selected, and enable it. From time to time, this problem will manifest itself as a general tendency of the network card to transfer either very sporadically or very slowly. It is precisely the same problem. James Van Artsdalen (email at james@bigtex.cactus.org) has given us a solution: -------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 solution 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-bipartite driver, you would want to catch the retrace interrupt to get rid of "sparklies" or to implement a driver for a very high resolution monitor for X. In this happens, given a choice between alcohol and solder, I vote for alcohol. Either way, you will probably find that your VGA card uses IRQ 2 strictly for compatibility with older cards. With the advent of dual-ported memory for video cards, virtually all of these types of problems have disappeared. 2.7.4 What is the difference between IRQ2 and IRQ9? Are they really the same, or are they really different? On the XT, there was one interrupt controller, an Intel 8259, which handled 8 interrupts numbered IRQ0 through IRQ7. IRQs 2 through 7 were accessible via bus lines IRQ2 through IRQ7. The AT had two interrupt controllers. Due to the design of the 8259, one has to be the master and the rest (up to 8) must be slaves. Each slave controller output its interrupt request to and input on the master controller. In the case of the AT, the master controller handles IRQ0 through IRQ7. The slave handles IRQ8 through IRQ15. The interrupt request from the slave to the master goes through IRQ2, which is termed the cascase input. This means. of course, that the bus line for IRQ2 could no longer be used for external interrupts. Instead, the bus line that WAS IRQ2 in the XT became IRQ9 on the AT. This whole issue is confused further by the fact that some vendors refer to this external interrupt as IRQ2, while others refer to it as IRQ9. In either case, if you are talking about an external interrupt, it means the same thing. BTW, IRQ8 is used for the Real Time Clock, and does not have an external interrupt. Here is a map, in case anyone still needs it: Internal External Function IRQ0 n/a Refresh/Timer IRQ1 n/a Keyboard IRQ2 n/a Cascade Input to Master IRQ3 IRQ3 Free (Com port) IRQ4 IRQ4 Free (Com port) IRQ5 IRQ5 Free IRQ6 IRQ6 Free IRQ7 IRQ7 Free (Printer) IRQ8 n/a Real Time Clock IRQ9 IRQ2 Free (Network card) IRQ10 IRQ10 Free etc. 2.7.5 Some of my SCSI devices (like a tape drive) don't work; why? That is because the original SCSI drivers didn't recognize any devices past the first two (ID 0 and ID 1). Also, there was a bug in the distribution floppy regarding the devices at ID 6. The 'dev' files for that id need to be remade. Use MAKEDEV to do that. The disks and tapes will be recognized and configured when they are first accessed. 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. This driver is included in the patchkit. In addition, many of these types of devices are supported in FreeBSD and NetBSD. If one of the devices you are interested in using is not supported in 386BSD, you might try one of these newer systems. 2.7.6 I try to run 'ps' or 'w' and get ': cannot get namelist' from the TinyBSD kernel. What did I do wrong? Nothing. There is a class of programs that interact directly with the current kernel. These programs include 'ps', 'w', 'uptime', and others. The shell on the TinyBSD disk is not capable of supporting these programs because the symbol table that these programs use has been stripped out of the kernel to save space. The easiest way to fix this is to get a different kernel (build it yourself, or from agate.berkeley.edu or one of the other FTP sites). Of course, you can have a fully functional system with these programs, but they are nice to have. 2.7.7 I get a 'Floating point constant out of range' when I try to compile package 'n'. What is broke? This problem was encountered during many package compilations, including compiling gcc-2.3.3 under NetBSD-0.8. NetBSD-0.9, and presumably FreeBSD, contain a repaired printf() function, which corrects this problem. The easiest solution for this (and MANY other) problems is to upgrade. In addition, these systems also include gcc-2.3.3 (or newer) as the default compiler. There is also a circular dependency for protoize.o/unprotoize.o in the Makefile. Add the lines touch protoize.o touch unprotoize.o after the line: touch stamp-proto After this "make bootstrap" will run to completion. gas apparently has bugs too. It should produce +Infinity. I think it is OK internally but it may be trusting the library too much. gcc can easily be changed to avoid printf for output, but input is harder. One of the problems is that various pieces of code rely on the value of DBL_MAX. A kludge to fix it is to change the line below: #define DBL_MAX 1.7976931348623157E+308 One value that works is #define DBL_MAX 1.7976931348623147E+308 ^ was 5 This is a kludge, but it does mostly work. The problem is entirely in printf() (really in cvt()), NOT in atof(). I have inspected the output of atof() bit by bit, and it is well within IEEE specification. The digits `157' are the `best' approximation. The code for printf() generates a representation which is not even in the range of doubles. Below are the details: atof("1.7976931348623157e+308") returns 0x7fefffffffffffff which is the maximum double value and is correct. However, printf() of the previous yields `1.7976931348623168e+308', which isn't even within the floating point range. It is clearly printf() that is broken, and a quick inspection of the code is enough to determine that it uses a pessimal algorithm. atof() has been tested with many other values, and it has never been off by more than is allowed by IEEE 754 (though it is not optimal). 2.7.8 I want to use the Adaptec 1542C SCSI controller. What are the problems/tricks you need to know to get it working? The first thing to check when trying to use the 1542C is the setting of 'Enable Disconnection' under the 'SCSI Device Configuration' menu. It should be set to YES for all devices, as the manual warns you. Matthias Urlichs (urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de) has provided this description of the types of things that can cause problems for the controller and devices attached to it. The problem is that the Adaptec 1542C has (a) rather powerful line drivers, and (b) is sensitive to transient signals which can be induced by them via either a bad cable or a bad external terminator. A bad cable is almost any cable which doesn't meet SCSI-2 specs. A bad external terminator is one which doesn't adequately buffer its resistor network. So... - Remove the internal terminator from the last drive in your chain. Replace with an active SCSI-2 external terminator. Side improvement: active terminators consume a bit less power. - Check cables. Specifically, some cables carry less than the nominal 50 signal wires. Manufacturers sometimes think they can get away with this because almost all odd-numbered pins are GROUND anyway. So, if pins 1 and 3 or 3 and 5 are connected, you're likely to have a marginal cable. - Make sure that the terminator power is supplied by all devices and that the power pin is actually connected on your cable. The problem here is that some idiot device manufacturers save on 2-cent diodes, which means that the thing will pull terminator power to ground if it's not plugged in. (Two of these on one bus are even worse.) - Consider creating your own cabling. Take a 50-wire flat ribbon and press the appropriate connectors onto it in precisely the right places. (Move your devices as to minimize cable length.) Be aware that if a device has two external connectors, you must take the SCSI bus in at one connector and out at the other -- don't leave the other connector dangling; this isn't within the SCSI specs because the cable usually is too long. - Better but more expensive: use 2-twisted cable. (I.e., wires 1&2 are twisted around each other, wire 3&4, ...) This will improve reliability because the wires are twisted at different rates. These cables have short non-twisted segments every 50 cm (1.5') so that you can press on your connectors instead of heating up that soldering iron. - While you're rebuilding your system anyway...: If you have more than one drive per power supply, check if these drives have adequate condensors to buffer their power. I have two 80-MB Seagates which refused to work more than a few hours without glitches -- then I soldered two 10-uF Tantals onto their power connector and they've been flawless ever since. The terminator power is pin 26. Be aware that SCSI counts pins as they appear on a ribbon cable, not as they're sometimes numbered on the connectors. Pin 25 is supposed to be disconnected. 2.7.9 Did anyone ever find out on how to use the 3c509 etherlink III card yet for bsd? Herb Peyerl (hpeyerl@fsa.ca) responds: I have a mostly working 3c509 driver that I've been working on for far too long. There are a couple of problems with it that I've addressed (in my mind mostly). I have several things I have to do before I can go back to working on it (mostly Windsurfing, waterskiing, suntanning, climbing, and drinking)... I have yet to look at the recently announced Linux 3c509 driver but plan to do that to see if it can address any of the problems that I'm having. I always offer to give out my existing code on the off chance i that someone has more energy and time than I do to get it working. But invariably I end up getting requests to photocopy and mail my documentation which is something I'm tiring of doing. So, to everyone who's waiting for a 3c509 driver, I say "keep waiting, it'll happen someday"... 2.8 Other common problems that are attributed to the installation process but are caused other places. 2.8.1 Why don't the man pages for "magic" and "file" work? The manual page for magic and file all have two dots before the commands, e.g.. "..SH" it should be ".SH" just delete one of the double dots in the whole file and then it will work. These man pages are fixed by both the patch-kit, NetBSD, and FreeBSD. The only time this problem every occurs is when you are using the distribution from one of the old CD-ROM distributions are get the original 386bsd 0.1 release. 2.8.2 Why is apropos broke? The Makefile in /usr/othersrc/share/man/Makefile creates the whatis.db. The problem is that it doesn't strip the backspaces in the title and apropos can't handle that. So add a "col -b" to strip those. excerpt from the Makefile. makedb: for file in `find /usr/share/man -type f -name '*.0' -print`; do \ sed -n -f /usr/share/man/makewhatis.sed $$file; \ done | col -b | sort -u > whatis.db install -o ${BINOWN} -g ${BINGRP} -m 444 whatis.db \ ${DESTDIR}/usr/share/man This problem is also solved in the patchkit, and other *BSD releases. Also, if the Makefile is moved to the /usr/share/man directory, the whatis.db will reside where it needs to eventually reside, and the install will wipe it out. An easy fix for that problem is to change the two references of whatis.db in the excerpt above to /tmp/whatis.db. This will ensure the file is correctly built and installed. 2.8.3 I want to use more than 16 Megabytes of memory. Will any of the Net/2 derived BSD systems support it? Early on, 386bsd 0.1 would choke radically on any system that had more than 8M of memory. With the advent of the patchkit, this problem was, for the most part, solved; memory could then expand to the 16M limit inherent in the ISA bus. As people started using VESA and EISA busses, however, attempts were made to push the envelope even further. Memory limits have expanded seemingly without limit. Since the EISA bus (for example) has 32 address lines, it is capable of supporting more memory than the ISA bus with its 24 address lines. While the 386 and 486 are capable of addresses up to 4 Gigabytes (considerably more than the ISA bus allows) the ISA bus is still the primary limitation. When using NetBSD and FreeBSD, there is no SOFTWARE limitation on more than 16Meg of memory. There are still hardware limitations. The limit is caused by DMA controllers which copy memory images around the system. Many cards which people use in VESA and EISA machines either emulate ISA cards (in order to work with *BSD) or are really ISA cards. Jordan K Hubbard (jkh@thrush.lotus.com) has provided this explanation of the distinction: Just so long as you're using a DMA-using disk controller in EISA mode, rather than ISA mode, you can use more than 16 Meg of memory. For those who may find such a distinction confusing, let me explain: You can use an ISA controller (such as an Adaptec 1542) in an EISA machine, but as it will still think it's in an ISA box and refuse to use the extra address lines, this is no different than having an ISA machine as far as >16MB is concerned. You can use an EISA controller in "ISA mode", meaning it uses the older protocols for compatability reasons (examples being Adaptec 1742 in "standard" mode, DTC 3290 in "Adaptec" mode, etc) and again, does not use the extra address lines. The only way to get full EISA, 32MB-of-memory-and-everything, mode is to use an EISA controller in full EISA mode (for Adaptec 1742, this is "enhanced" mode, for DTC 3290 it's "DTC" mode). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - In addition, several other types of EISA controllers which do NOT use DMA will not cause problems. IDE, ESDI, and RLL controllers are examples of this type of card. The discussion above also applies to VESA and VLB cards. So, the bottom line is that you are limited to the amount of memory that your DMA equipped devices can access. Once again, the weakest link is the strength of your machine. 2.8.4 I tried to use a device in my computer that should be there. When I did, I got a "Device not configured error." What do I do now? Garrett A. Wollman (wollman@emba.uvm.edu) provides us with this brief discussion in answer to a specific question. It wears well as a generic answer as well. When any program tells you ``Device not configured'', it's trying to tell you something very important about what you tried to do: namely, that the device you tried to access is not configured into the running operating system. This is the error message corresponding to ENXIO. There are three major causes for this error: 1) The kind of device you requested was not configured into the system. This is Robert Wheeler's problem; the generic kernels are not distributed with the Berkeley Packet Filter enabled by default. To correct this, you must add the appropriate device or pseudo-device to your kernel configuration file and recompile. (In this particular case, `pseudo-device bpfilter number-of-network-interfaces'.) 2) The kind of device you requested was configured into the system, but either the device you requested is would use more than the maximum you configured into the system, or if a physical device, was not found during autoconfiguration. To solve this, either change your configuration file, or change the I/O settings on the device to match what the file says. 3) The major or minor device number specified by the device's entry(ies) in /dev is incorrect. To solve this, re-MAKEDEV the device (read the MAKEDEV script for more details). Hopefully whatever change caused the kernel's internal device tables to get changed also updated your MAKEDEV script; otherwise, you will have to grovel through the kernel to see what is going on.