On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 8:08 AM, Bernd Maier <[email protected]> wrote: > I spend this weekend a lot of time in trying to get Plan9 to work > on real hardware. > > My experience: > > I started with the plan9.iso. No look so far because the ahci > driver > seems not to be in the install kernel. 9load seems to find my disks > > but when I choose 1 (Install Plan9) there is only the CDROM drive > there. > When I choose 2 (Boot Plan9) the disks are there. > > I switched then to 9atom because there are a lot of information in > this mailing list about 9atom. So boot from cdrom works fine. This > time I do not need to switch from sdD0 to sdC0 but the keyboard > freeze > sometimes. I was using PS/2 keyboard and mouse. So I switched to > usb > mouse and usb keyboard and all works fine. > > There was a issue after installation when I compiled the CPU- > kernel. > This takes about 15 minutes and the maschine had a very hight load. > > After booting wiht the new CPU kernel I did the compile again and > it > worked in a few seconds (after a mk clean). I have no idea about > this > issue but now all seems to be well. > > Actually I am using a very old AMD motherboard: > > (ASUS M2A-VM - http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM2/M2AVM/) > > because all other boards in my home lab does not worked with plan9. > > So I would like to ask for a recommendation for an new motherboard? > > However I am happy to have a plan9 an real hardware now. > > -Bernd >
I've run into this problem myself. You can solve it, but it is kind of hackish. Basically, boot the CD using option 2 (boot into Plan 9, not install). Then, use the scripts in /sys/lib/dist/pc/inst to do the installation manually. I recall that by doing the correct bindings you can then simply run inst/textonly, but I can't remember which bindings are necessary. IIRC, I did something like this: ramfs mkdir /tmp/bin cp /sys/lib/dist/cmd/*.c /tmp/bin/ cd /tmp/bin compile each .c file into the appropriately-named binary bind -a /tmp/bin /bin bind -a /sys/lib/dist/pc/ /bin inst/textonly That's all I can remember, but you may find a missing link or two. You can also go through and do all the steps by hand by reading the scripts in /sys/lib/dist/pc/inst and executing the commands manually based on what you want. So, for instance, if you want a fossil+venti server, you'd run disk/fdisk and disk/part to set up fossil and venti partitions yourself, then you'd format fossil and venti, write a config to fossil, start fossil, copy the files, create an appropriate plan9.ini, etc. This option will be very difficult if you are not familiar with Plan 9 and don't know how a regular installation will typically proceed. Oh, and regarding the "issue" after compiling the CPU kernel--was this your first boot after installing? After you initially make a fossil+venti system, on the first boot it will spend some time syncing fossil to venti. This will take anywhere between a few minutes (best case) and a few hours (if you have old hardware and don't have DMA and RWM turned on). Good luck! John
