Martin Neubauer schrieb:
I started out with a small installation on a spare partition of a laptop to
get the hang of the system. Later I set up a standalone file server I can
boot a terminal from (usually said laptop.) This can be regarded as the
normal mode of operation. The installation never gave me trouble in either
case.
"My" trouble just begins at the task "Locate and mount the distribution
archive" or to be correct at the prompt for the "distribution disk".
Before that point everything is running "flush".
Using /dev/sdD0/data worked for me. Did you actually try it?
One must decide between the prompt "mountdisk", where the input
"/dev/sdD0/data" is correct and the prompt "distribution disk" that
follows up, where the input "/dev/sdD0/data" will never be accepted (at
least in my configuration). I tried that many times for hours over hours
with many different test assemblies, bacause I blindly trusted the
"Installation Instructions". Well, I have explained in detail that I did
more than one trials to make shure that this is reproducible. Let me
repeat that the only successful and by the system accepted input (in my
case) is simply "/". May be that there is a difference between
installing on a separate partition and the one I did on a complete
Harddrive. I really do not understand what is wrong and I cannot fix the
source of "my" problem. (I use an old acer travelmate 220 with a Mobile
Intel Celeron 1.33 GHz with a 20 GB harddisk - I forgot the manufacturer
in the installation process it will be printed on the screen. And as a
historical curiosity it really has a floppy drive!)
Not to forget that the input to "distribution disk" did not work the
first time at all and always needs a second run (in my case!).
May be the problem I described here is very unique for my case of a
stand alone installation of plan 9. If you do not believe me give me
advices for test assemblies and experiments if you plan to fix the
source of the problem. It is not a problem to install plan 9 again,
because in the meantime after hours I can do that blindly.
All that is known to the system at that point is that there is a drive sdD0
with a boot image you are using to start the system.
I agree that this is the only thing the system knows at that state of
installation, but that is very many. If I trust the "Installation
Instructions" ( I have not tried) the installer assumes that the
CD-Drive is on the second IDE master and also assumes that this is the
boot device. (That usually is the case by default settings of todays
Bios.) In any other case (so the "Installation Ins'tructions") you will
see the following error:
Unknown boot device: sdD0!cdboot!9pcflop.gz
Boot device: fd0
boot from:
Than there is given a recipe for the case the CD is not the second IDE
master...... And than there is given more text:
If you find yourself at a "boot from:" prompt or a "root is from:"
prompt, it is likely that the bootstrap program has not detected your
floppy drive. See installation Troubleshooting (a link).
I repeat this in this extension to point out explicitely that in any
case the system knows where it is booting from! It is very, very likely
that that device is the distribution disk with the archive as well.
The distribution media isn't already mounted.
That is absolutely true. But as I (or say the "Installation
Instructions") explained that the system knows from where it was booted
(see above) it can mount that drive automatically by a simple script.
That is what I have in mind. (In the case your archive is on another
device you may tell this the system by an option.) Just now there is
made a rule aout of an exception.
You could also start the installer from a boot floppy. In that case you have
to provide some access to the distribution. (And to the system booting from
cd looks essentially the same as booting from floppy.) You also might want
to reuse a cd for booting and get the current distribution by other means.
(Blank cd-r's are damn cheap nowadays, though.)
As I (or say "Installation Instructions") explained above, that the
system always know the device it is booted from! Booting from floppy
cannot happen "incognito", even if the Bios has the floppy set as a boot
device. I would say that getting the archive from another place is an
exeption that must be made possible by an option. The rule is the
archive on the boot device . (May be I am wrong.)
2. Why does the install process offer an XGA monitor as default? VESA is
save with nearly all hardware nowadays. VESA as adefault would move away
another banana skin of the installation process for non-professionals,
especially as VESA is not offered to the user so one must know that
possibility. (And it is not described in the "Installation Manual".) So
I think VESA should be default with an offer of XGA as an option.
That's partially a historic development as I think the vesa driver is a
fairly late addition. Also if I recall correctly, it will turn off all
hardware acceleration for the graphics. (I'm not sure about the details as I
didn't use it.)
A zitat from Wikipedia:
The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) is an international
body, founded in the late 1980s by NEC Home Electronics and eight other
video display adapter manufacturers. The initial goal was to produce a
standard for 800x600 SVGA resolution video displays. Since then VESA has
issued a number of standards, mostly relating to the function of video
peripherals in IBM PC compatible computers.
(Remark: Please see also the Criticisms in the wikipedia original. )
So one can say that VESA is not an exotic thing, but a well proven and
widely accepted standart. XGA, the Extended Graphics Array, is
introduced in 1990 by IBM. (So it is more or less the standard of a
company, the market did not follow.) As it is sayd that plan 9 was
developed between the mid-1980s and 2002, there is not such a large time
gap between plan 9 and the VESA standard. (But I can live without as
well, I know to type VESA at the proper place. That was only an
improvement suggestion, as well as the other recommendations. )
3. The task "formatventi" and the task "copydist" will not be prompted
as described in the "Installation Manual" but run automatically and that
is a good idea. But the point is that the description is wrong and
confusing. (In the case of "formatventi" certainly that will only happen
if you chose fossli+venti at the prompt "configfs" and copydist will
certainly only run if the process described above was successful.)
That's somewhat strange. The last time I installed a system the prompt was
there in both cases. (As they should. The opportunity to revisit previous
steps at any stage is a big win.) Are you sure the distribution is actually
copied?
Martin
I used the Fourth Edition of Plan 9. Concerning to the release notes
that is: "Plan 9 From Bell Labs, Fourth Release April, 2002, updated
June, 2003". The task "formatventi" and the task "copydist" will not be
prompted and do not need any user action. But they will be logged on the
screen (when automatically done).
The "Installation Instructions" gives as a time stamp: "Last modified
Tue Sep 11 19:44:04 EDT 2007". May be there has something changed that
was not dedected by the updater of the document. I cannot and will not
insist on any execution of my improvement suggestion, especially as a
setup on a complete harddisk is very seldom done, but I hope that my
mails may help other new coming plan 9 fans.
Regards
Bernhard
PS: Is there any extensive description to compile the kernel?
