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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!agate!tfs.com!tfs.com!julian
From: julian@tfs.com (Julian Elischer)
Subject: Re: New to this... Questions
Message-ID: <1992Dec7.014250.29047@tfs.com>
Organization: TRW Financial Systems
References: <1992Dec6.232051.14786@pool.info.sunyit.edu>
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1992 01:42:50 GMT
Lines: 69
In article <1992Dec6.232051.14786@pool.info.sunyit.edu> odpp@pool.info.sunyit.edu (Daniel Peck) writes:
>Am thinking about installing 386BSD onto my 386SX at home... I have a second
>IDE, Western Digital drive to devote completely to it. I've downloaded
>Tiny BSD and Fixit floppies and quickly tried the 'install' on the TinyBSD.
>It seems to only look at my first drive. Does it have to be the first
>drive?? Here are some questions I have:
The BIOS only boots from the first drive so the 386bsd bootblocks
have to be on the first drive (that's what the BIOS loads)
It would theoretically possible to have a version of EZBOOT or
os-bs that would load the unix bootblocks from the other drive.
(they replace the standard DOS sector 0 bootblock with something
a bit more intelligent (e.g. a menu with a timeout))
Failing the availablity of that,
the easiest thing to do is put a 10MB 386bsd root partition
on the first drive and mount the others from the second drive
once the system has booted. (you do need the patched kernel
that can handle a second drive but Most kernels should do that
by now, (the patch has been out as long as the kernel).
>
>1. Does it have to be installed on part/all of the first drive.
>2. Can it be booted/accessed when already using MS-DOS?
well not at the same time.. but you can boot to either with
an menu (see EZBOOT or os-bs (available on agate,)).
>3. Can it be booted using a floppy?
yes
>4. If it can be installed on a second system drive... how???
I suggest making a small partn on the first drive first
and then using fdisk to divide up the second drive and
disklabel to label the second drive and divide the 386bsd
part up into further 386bsd partitions.
then use newfs to make filesystems on them.
don't forget the cardinal rules:
1/ try use the same geometry for all OS's even if it means using a translated
cylinder size under 386bsd.
2/ all partitions should start on a cylinder boundary
3/ all partitions shold end on a cylinder boundary.
there's more to it than that, but they should guide you past most
pit-falls.
and
>
>I have erased all partitions on the second drive, and it's completely free
>for use. I can get the rest of the binaries & such if I find I can install
>this, and do the above things.
>
if you can get to a 386bsd machine (e.g. ref.tfs.com (guest))
do:
man disklabel
man fdisk
man mkfs
man swapon
man fstab
+----------------------------------+ ______ _ __
| __--_|\ Julian Elischer | \ U \/ / On assignment
| / \ julian@tfs.com +------>x USA \ in a very strange
| ( OZ ) 2118 Milvia st. Berkeley CA. \___ ___ | country !
+- X_.---._/ USA+(510) 704-3137(wk) \_/ \\
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