Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 07:37:24 +1000 From: Peter Jeremy <peter.jeremy@alcatel.com.au> To: Rob B <rbyrnes@ozemail.com.au> Cc: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Handbook installation chapter for Alpha architecture Message-ID: <20010913073724.J48793@gsmx07.alcatel.com.au> In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010913064612.00a6eda0@pop.ozemail.com.au>; from rbyrnes@ozemail.com.au on Thu, Sep 13, 2001 at 06:47:37AM %2B1000 References: <XFMail.010912100232.jhb@FreeBSD.org> <20010912085018.X48793@gsmx07.alcatel.com.au> <XFMail.010912100232.jhb@FreeBSD.org> <20010913064252.G48793@gsmx07.alcatel.com.au> <5.1.0.14.2.20010913064612.00a6eda0@pop.ozemail.com.au>
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On 2001-Sep-13 06:47:37 +1000, Rob B <rbyrnes@ozemail.com.au> wrote: >At 06:42 13/09/2001, Peter Jeremy wrote: >>On 2001-Sep-12 10:02:32 -0700, John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.ORG> wrote: >> > >> >On 11-Sep-01 Peter Jeremy wrote: >> >> One comment: >> >> Unlike the i386, Alpha boot flags must be specified via the SRM - eg it >> >> isn't possible[1] to boot single user by issuing 'boot -s' to the >> >> FreeBSD boot-loader, you have to use 'boot -fl s' at the SRM. >> >> >> >> [1] At least it wasn't a couple of months ago when I last updated my >> >> system. >> > >> >Erm, I've used 'boot -s' from the loader many, many, many times on my >> >alpha test systems. >> >> >>Interesting, I've never had it work on my Multia. It hasn't annoyed >>me enough (and is useful on occasion) to chase it up. I guess I'll >>have to dig into the Alpha boot process a bit deeper and find out why >>it doesn't work for me. > >You'll probably find it's a "feature" of SRM. The Multia SRM is really >really old, and doesn't do a lot of the things the newer SRM version can do. My assumption (usual caveats) is that the boot loader reads the SRM boot flags, over-rides them with flags specified on the 'boot' line in the boot loader and then passed the result directly to the kernel. SRM mis-features shouldn't stop the boot loader over-riding user- specified flags. Having poked through the code a bit, this is the way things should behave (see /sys/boot/alpha/libalpha/elf_freebsd.c:elf_exec() ). It's possible that the Multia's prom_getenv() is returning an incorrect value - preventing elf_exec() from appending the user flags. I shall have to investigate... Peter To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message
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