From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Mar 10 07:41:59 1995 Return-Path: questions-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id HAA17111 for questions-outgoing; Fri, 10 Mar 1995 07:41:59 -0800 Received: from netcom15.netcom.com (pascal@netcom15.netcom.com [192.100.81.128]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with ESMTP id HAA17105 for ; Fri, 10 Mar 1995 07:41:53 -0800 Received: by netcom15.netcom.com (8.6.10/Netcom) id HAA20094; Fri, 10 Mar 1995 07:40:57 -0800 Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 07:40:57 -0800 From: pascal@netcom.com (Richard A Childers) Message-Id: <199503101540.HAA20094@netcom15.netcom.com> To: questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: I/O devices; mouse Sender: questions-owner@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Eric Solberg inquires : "At boot the system recognizes comports as sio0 detected with IRQ 4 # the correct IRQ for COM 1 sio1 detected with IRQ 3 # the correct IRQ for COM 2 Or something to that effect." This means that (a) the kernel was configured to recognize those two devices ( actually serial I/O chips ), and (b) the devices (chips) were there when it went looking. "Anyway, no entries for either device are found in /dev. ... If this is not a bug, then: Do these need to be made explicitly ?" Yup. I've noticed stuff missing from /dev, too. This is part and parcel of sys administration, however ... both the procedural approach to diagnosis and the willingness to correct it. ( Plus a coherent description of the problem, the workaround(s), and suggested solution(s) to the responsible engineers. ) Reading /dev/MAKEDEV is an educational experience. It's a shellscript. A full knowledge and understanding of /dev, MAKEDEV, mknod(8) and major and minor device numbers is probably one of the prerequisites to understanding Un*x, and thus, well worth the investment in time and effort, IMHO. "I also get an error when trying to mount the CD-ROM drive. mount /dev/cd0a /mnt returns the error Can't mount /dev/cd0a on /mnt: ??Invalid or Illegal?? super block What might be the problem here?" You need to explicitly tell the operating system that it is a CDROM drive with the '-t' ( for 'type' flag ). See the man page for mount(8). ( Calls to 'mount' with '-t' flag map into invocations of separate mount_'type' program, FYI. ) -=8=- Second ( third, fourth ? ) the request for a repost of the proposed BSD Con- -sortium document ... ... Second ( third, fourth ? :-) the congratulations, on a job well done ... -- richard | | | "A cloak is no longer a cloak if it does not keep one warm." | | | | richard childers san francisco, california pascal@netcom.com |