From owner-freebsd-stable Sun Nov 7 8: 6: 9 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from nisser.com (c1870039.telekabel.chello.nl [212.187.0.39]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2A62814D24 for ; Sun, 7 Nov 1999 08:06:03 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from roelof@nisser.com) Received: from nisser.com (roelof [10.0.0.2]) by nisser.com (8.9.3/8.9.2) with ESMTP id RAA25111; Sun, 7 Nov 1999 17:11:13 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from roelof@nisser.com) Message-ID: <3825A36E.5920209D@nisser.com> Date: Sun, 07 Nov 1999 17:06:06 +0100 From: Roelof Osinga Organization: eboa - engineering buro Office Automation X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mike Smith Cc: Randy Bush , FreeBSD Stable Subject: Re: easyboot far into disk References: <199911062057.MAA07266@dingo.cdrom.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Mike Smith wrote: > > > Nice, if the boot process can work with the CHS driver. The problem > > is that is not always the case. E.g. mine. So you can't *get* up and > > running. > > Ok. Would you care to share some details of your problems, rather than > just the bile and vitriol? It has been over on -questions. B.t.w. I fail to see bile and/or vitriol in stating that a problem occurres. You should've seen the first draft, written after a week of diligently trying, studying manpages, discussing over on -questions, reading relevant pages in Greg's book, etc. > > SOL. You can copy the boot0cfg onto the fixit, but what about the > > Build it static. We were, and are, talking newbies here. > "We" being whom, here? Most of us can just fine. If your BIOS won't > translate "right" past the 1024 cylinder mark then you're in the > minority these days. But even then, you can build a new boot1/boot2 > with packet-mode as default enabled and install them on the floppy. The > loader doesn't do packet mode yet simply because I haven't found a case > where it's been needed. Some others over on -questions. Would I have had a case for you! In case you're interested it's a Plato MB with a Quantum EL 5.1A. Again, I'm pretty much sure all this can be build and installed. What I dare to dispute, however, is the easy accessibility of friendly instructions outlining the process. For newbies. > That wouldn't have been nice; we tested it (I've mentioned this > publically before), and it kills quite a number of machines dead. You > wouldn't have been able to boot them at all. That would have been bad. There you go, I mentioned the details publically before. You seem to have missed those, I seem to have missed your mention. But I agree that a larger number of machines dead is worse. > > - boot had the -o packet option > > I don't follow what you're suggesting here. Simple. boot0cfg clearly does something to something. boot can be interupted. Why not put the code that does something to something into boot so that on ancient machines that need it it can be had without going through the hoopla's needed to get it currently. From a newbie's perspective pressing space and entering "boot -o packet" is way more prerable than building a statically linked boot0cfg, injecting that - usually by magic incantation - into some diskette, executing said executable together with new cabalistic handweaving only to end up with something that could mayhap have been incorporated in the first place. > > - the install disks could be used to access ones root disk > > They can. So people keep telling me. I spend over a week on it an I tell you they can't. Not in any sensible way, that is. Compared to this, say, Linux is pure bliss. You pop in the disk enter the root and you're off. Better yet, the process is described in the installation README. Even a newbie can do that, especially with some handholding. > They have been, but ideally there shouldn't be any magic required. Granted on the latter, but as to the former... what does one need to ritually slaughter in order to find those reputed instructions? > > - people that yell RTFM would be automatically throttled > > That's stupid. Documentation exists to save our time and effort. If > you're too lazy to read it, you've got it coming to you. I don't know. It's a good way to cull population growth. But you're missing the point. What newbie would know what docs to read in the first place? Don't tell me boot0cfg is intuitively named . From a newbie's perspective that wouldn't know a boot if it reset him. E.g. nisser:/home/www/Slak$ man boot | grep packet nisser:/home/www/Slak$ man loader | grep packet nisser:/home/www/Slak$ man boot0cfg | grep packet packet Use the disk packet (BIOS Int 0x13 extensions) interface `nopacket'. Use of the `packet' option may cause `boot0' to fail, depending on the nisser:/home/www/Slak$ So you can, and I did, study man-pages till you drop; but if you somehow fail to miss the right one you're up the creek without a paddle. And then you come here only to read people saying "oh, it's so easy, all you need to do is read the man-pages" WHAT manpage! or how about "took me awhile but I figured it out, it's easy once you know how". So tell us the steps allready! Boot and loader are covered by some 31 manpages. Most of which is and alway will be absolutely irrelevant for the average user, never mind the newbie. BTW count is straightforward aporpos: nisser:/home/www/Slak$ echo `apropos boot | wc -l` " + " `apropos loader | wc -l` | bc 31 > TFM still tells you to put the root filesystem below 1024 cylinders. > In most cases, you can get away with anything up to 8GB, but we don't > document that because of people like yourself. Yeah, yeah. Got a system running quite happily with >10 GB. Thank you very much. The problem here is that FreeBSD on this particular box does not do what Linux does, namely correctly detecting the disk geometry. And therein, as they say, lies the rub. Completed, naturally, by being locked into the installation process if you go back to the install disks. Come hell or high water, when you exit it you reboot. If there is a way to install the root in such a way that it uses the correct disk geometry I have failed to find it. In which I am not alone, b.t.w. Mind you, these are just my findings. To with as you please. I've already come to the conclusion that it will be just a bit more time efficient to wipe that disk, install a small DOS partition and reinstall the OS. Funny, though, that FreeBSD needs DOS to run ;). Roelof -- Home is where the (@) http://eboa.com/ is. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message