Danny Amor's Online Library/Danny Amor's Online Library - Volume 1.iso/html/faqs/faq/386bsd-faq/part3

Text File | 1995-07-25 | 76.4 KB | 1,858 lines

Subject: [comp.os.386bsd] BNR/2 derived BSD for PCs FAQ (Part 3 of 10)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.announce,comp.answers,news.answers
From: [e-mail] (Dave Burgess)
Date: 13 Nov 1994 10:41:39 -0600

Posted-By: auto-faq 3.1.1.2
Archive-name: 386bsd-faq/part3

Section 2.    (Common installation questions)


2.0    Install process

    The 386bsd system is distributed in many ways.  One of the most
    common is via DOS diskettes, (either 3 1/2 or 5 1/4, both high
    density) with the actual distribution being a 'CPIO archive'
    broken into 240K pieces.  This allows the distribution to fit
    onto a minimum number of floppies.

    Once the files are on floppies, thoughts usually turn to
    questions about how to install the boot image on a floppy.  The
    rawrite program (for DOS) is used to write the bootable images
    (dist.fs and fixit.fs) onto floppies.  The same image can used
    for 3 1/2 and 5 1/4 high density diskettes.  Low density
    diskettes are not supported in this version of 386bsd.

    Once the bootable images are written onto the floppies, insert
    the dist.fs disk into the A: drive and reboot.  If the system
    does not boot, see section 2.5 below for more information.

    If the disk boots, type install and proceed to use the
    INSTALL.NOTES to get more information.

    Problems with the install are either related to hardware (i.e.
    Do you want to install on your T.V.?) or software.  Of the
    hardware issues, the most common FAQs are usually straight out
    of the installation notes.  Of the software issues, there are
    only two that really concern us.  The first is bad files.

    On some systems, files that are loaded from floppy appear to
    'go bad' when they arrive on the hard disk.  Try some of these
    solutions:

    - You forgot binary.  Don't get insulted.  Those of us that FTP
    for a living forget sometimes.  If so, the distribution will
    come out with all different sizes and install will complain
    about every disk.

    - One or two of the files are no good.  Try getting them again.
    As a precaution, rename the bad files on your hard drive to
    names like foo.1 and bob.23.  Copy the files again from floppy.
    If they are still bad, rename the file, and the one immediately
    before the first bad file (bin01.23 if bin01.24 is bad) and
    copy them again.  If they are still bad, download those files
    again from the distribution site (including the one before and
    after the bad one) and try again.

    The reason for renaming the files is that sometimes, especially
    with drive that do not auto-magically record bad sectors, you
    could copy a distribution file onto a bad spot on the disk.  If
    this happens, you want to isolate the bad spot.  The easiest way
    to do that is just leave the bad file on it.

    Keep trying, these same files have been used by literally
    thousands of people to install 386bsd.

    For those of you that have received your system on a CD-ROM,
    you will need to find at least three things.  One is this file.
    Since you are reading it, I assume that you got it already. :-)
    If you can't read this file (you got it from the newsgroup, for
    example) there is one thing that you need to know so you don't
    look like a complete idiot on the net.

    There is no such thing as a Unix CD-ROM.  They are all in
    something called the ISO CD-ROM format.  You can read them as
    the D: drive in DOS, or mount them on your Sun or SVR4 system
    or whatever.

    Second, you will need to find the directory with the bootable
    disk images in it.  They will have self explanatory names like:

    kerncopy.fs
    base0-9.fs
    fred.fs
    genericaha.fs
    boot-me-first.fs
    this-is-the-file-with-the-fs-extension.fs

    You get the idea, right?  Look for the MS-DOS program
    "RAWRITE.EXE".  It should be right near the file system (.fs)
    files.  Another clue for the truly lost will be that the file
    system files will all be 1.2 Meg big.  These files will fit
    onto either a 1.2Meg 5.25 inch diskette, or a 1.44Meg 2.5 inch
    diskette.  Use rawrite to write the fs files to diskettes and
    boot from the diskettes.

    You did back your system up, right?


2.0.1    Boot disks  (versions and media formats)

    There is currently one official 386bsd 0.1 boot disk, referred
    to as the "Tiny" boot disk.

    Because of the nature of the agreement between USL and
    Berkeley, it is rapidly becoming impossible to get 386bsd 0.1
    diskettes.  The archive at agate.berkeley.edu has been
    eliminated completely.  The NetBSD archive that was there has
    also been eliminated.

    There are a few FAQs from the boot/install disk.


2.0.1.1    Where does extract go when I reboot?

    It was in /tmp, which is cleaned the first time you reboot the
    system from the hard drive.  If you have just booted from the
    hard drive for the second time, chances are you just wiped out
    extract.  It is not really needed, since the instructions for
    building your own install are included in section 2.5.2 of
    the FAQ, under custom installation.

    When installing NetBSD, the set_tmp_dir and extract programs are
    part of the .profile that is booted when you are installing.
    This .profile is overwritten as part of the install process, and
    extract then disappears.  If you need extract again, you can mount
    the install disk and source .profile.  This will recreate these
    two routines.

    There is also an install procedure that FreeBSD uses that does
    the same job.  It is defined as part of the .profile on one of the
    installation floppies.  You can either copy it from there, or use
    the procedure for 'real disk partitioning'.


2.0.1.2    I put the floppy in and try to boot, and nothing happens.  What now?

    There are lots of possibilities.  We will start with the oldest
    (386bsd 0.1) problems.

    This is usually referred to as the Compaq boot problem.  The
    easiest solution is to get a patched boot disk.

    Another source of possible hope for you is to grab the NetBSD
    bootable disks.  They are compatible with 386BSD and allow you
    to install on some of the more recalcitrant hardware.

    The FreeBSD install process is said to be better than the NetBSD
    program for some machines.  Could be.  They are all available for
    free from the net.  Try it.


2.0.1.3a    The floppy booted, but now the hard disk won't boot?
2.0.1.3b    I am trying to reinstall.  I run install and it loops
          asking me if I want to use the whole disk?

    The most likely culprit is your hard disk controller.  It is
    probably doing some type of disk translation for you.  If this
    is the case (assume it is) then you will need to find out the
    real disk controller geometry, and rewrite your disk label.
    See section 2.6.2, but before doing that get the program
    pfdisk.exe.  This program will tell you what the controller
    geometry is (right before it reboots your computer).  Make the
    disklabel agree with this program and your system should boot.
    You may have to reinstall, but at least your disklabel will be
    right.  Note that this is a nearly required step for all NetBSD
    and FreeBSD installs.  You need to know what the disk geometry
    is before the BIOS messes with it.  If you start having these
    kinds of installation problems, I can virtually assure you that
    it is because your controller geometry and your disklabel
    geometry are different.

    NOTE:  If the hard disk controller does NOT have an option for
    turning off the geometry, you may well be completely out of
    luck.  There are very few controllers that fall into this
    category.  The ones that do full time translation will often
    boot up in translated mode.  pfdisk will help you determine the
    correct geometry for your drive by telling you what the geometry
    looks like when 386bsd boots up.

    But on the other hand, maybe not...

    See section 2.5.5 below for a detailed set of instructions about
    getting NetBSD (and by implication 386BSD and FreeBSD) to work with
    a system that uses full time translation.


2.0.1.4    What are the options on the boot prompt?

    The most amazing thing about the boot process in *BSD is the
    boot up alternatives that are available.  There is little that
    a person can NOT do from the boot prompt.  The boot diskette or
    disk can be selected (fd(1,a) for fd1a (my B: drive is DOS))
    can be the source of my kernel.  In addition, the name of the
    kernel can be chosen (this allows you to boot with a test
    kernel or reboot an older kernel if the new one gets hosed).
    Finally, there are three choices for options that may or may
    not work, depending on the age and proclivities of your boot
    blocks.  These options are:


        -s............... boot into single user mode
        -a............... ask the user what device to use as root
            just before mounting it (Not presently supported)
        -d............... once you have the kernel loaded and
            VM and such up and going, drop into the kernel
            debugger.  Great for debugging probe code.
            ( not sure if this is presently working)

2.0.1.5    I just used the '-s' option on the boot, but I can't write
    anything onto the disk.  What is wrong.  If I use a plain 'mount'
    command it tells me that my root file system is read-only.

    In single-user (system booted with -s or an error in one of
    the processes started by /etc/rc) the root filesystem mounts
    as read-only by default. This was intended so that some range
    of problems would not be made worse by writes to the disk.

    The 'dos' partitions mount as read-only in that there are
    reservations as to how well some of the FreeBSD tools work with
    the pcfs.  The same kind of reservations exist with NetBSD and
    the '-t msdosfs' option.  These options (-r for read-only, -w
    for read-write) can be set in /etc/fstab.

    The status of both can be changed with 'mount -wu /{mount.dir}'
    (where {mount-dir} is the name of the directory that the
    offending partition is mounted) to read-write.  Particularly for
    the dos filesystem, the man page for mount should be read in
    detail and the 'noexec' option examined.

    Note that mounting the file systems using the '-a' option will
    mount all of the file systems that are normally mounted with
    their usual read-write bits set normally.  Using this option
    makes your root partition writable, and also mounts the rest of
    the partitions in your /etc/fstab that are normally mounted
    during boot-up.

2.0.2    Fix-it boot disk

    The fix-it disk contains a series of programs that are
    particularly handy for 'fixing' your disk in case you can't get
    logged in.  It includes the disklabel program and other utilities
    for system maintenance.

    For NetBSD and FreeBSD, you will probably have to build your own
    Fixit disk.  You can mount the original file system floppy and
    beat it to death if you want.  Put programs on it that you will
    need to build a new system.  As I think of them, I will put them
    in.

2.1    Binary distribution

    The binary distribution 386bsd 0.1 consists of virtually all of
    the programs that a typical *nix system would be expected to have.
    The list includes mail, UUCP, GCC version 1.39, and others.

    Known problems with the binary distribution include the following:

    1.  Mtools as shipped in the bindist does not always work.  The
    ones on the install disk seem to work fine.

    2.  The install script built into the binary distribution does
    not correctly install all of the files and symbolic links that it
    should.  For example,  some of the symbolic links to the
    /usr/include directory are botched up.

    3.  'tip', the modem control program, does not always work right
    out of the box.

    4.  Any program that relies on a valid symbol table in the kernel
    (e.g. ps) will not work because the kernel is stripped so that it
    will fit onto the bootable disk.

    These problems are all cured either by patches available in the
    patchkit, or through re-compilation.

    FreeBSD and NetBSD have solved these problems.  This information
    is included primarily for those few people that get sucked into
    using an old version of 386bsd for a class or something.


2.2    Source distribution

    The source distribution 386bsd 0.1 contains all of the source code
    for every program in the bindist.  Known problems (which are fixed
    in the patchkit) include the following:

    1.  There is an error message during install about install.src01
    not being found.  It is not an error, there isn't an install.src01.
    Think of it as Bill and Lynne's idea of a practical joke.

    2.  There are several symbolic links that are not made correctly.
    In addition, there are several files that should have been deleted
    (to ensure clean 'make's) before the files were packed.  This is
    fixed by the patchkit, as of 0.2.3.

    3.  The /usr/src tree does not compile cleanly.  This is fixed by
    the patchkit, as of 0.2.3, or by NetBSD or FreeBSD.


2.3    Additional software distribution

    The etc distribution contains source trees for many programs that
    are of interest to 386bsd users.  The complete ISO software
    development environment, as well as many additional software
    packages (and all of the games) are included in this distribution.

    The most common problem with the etc distribution is the error
    "too many files open".  Followed closely by "install.etc01 not
    found".  The latter is a annoyance (see above) but the former can
    be easily overcome in a couple of ways.

    The "too many files open" is a result of the "cat" command leaving
    files open after it has read a file.   Dwight E. Cass (his Email
    address is [e-mail]) has provided us with this
    anecdotal work around for his own experiences:

    --------------------------------------------------------------------
    So - back to installation.  This time, when I get to the etc01
    partition, I am a bit more awake, so I run it from Csh (with the
    open file limit at 256).  Works pretty well - but complains at the
    end that it could not do the final configuration because it could
    not find the configuration file - I checked the MANIFEST and the
    file is not there, so I finally decided to ignore the message (but
    it was bothersome!)  Once etc01 was done - source was easy ... and
    I am now up and running, and quite impressed!!!
    --------------------------------------------------------------------

    Another method is to use a loop construct in the Bourne shell.  For
    example:

    for i in (etc01.*)
    do
      cat $i
    done | compress -d | cpio -idalmu

    -or-

    for i in (etc01.*)
    do
      zcat $i
    done | cpio -idalmu

    will also solve the problem handily.  This solution solves the problem
    by running cat multiple times, with one file each.  Since cat now only
    has one file, there are no limits on the number of files that can be
    used for the distribution set.

2.4    Patch-kit

    The patchkit has been completely deprecated.  FreeBSD and NetBSD
    are both mature programs that will serve the average user extremely
    well.  The patchkit may still be available, but it is only required
    if you are installing the original 386BSD 0.1 version.

    There are two mailing lists dedicated to the patchkit.  They are as
    follows:

    [e-mail], which is primarily for discussion of
    up-coming patches and patchkit philosophy.

    [e-mail], which is dedicated to submitting new,
    untested patches.

    The current (and final) version of the patchkit is 0.2.4, which
    has absolutely no relationship with the new version of 386bsd.
    It is available by anonymous FTP from several sites throughout
    the net.


2.5    Configuration

    By far, the most common configuration questions are partitioning,
    followed closely by all of the other software in the system.
    Sendmail and named are also problems occasionally, but the
    documentation that comes with them usually gets you through.  If
    you run into a problem, post a question to comp.os.386bsd.questions.


    A less frequently asked question is "Where can I get info on how
    to configure a kernel?"  The answer to this question has been
    provided by Richard Murphey (Email address [e-mail]).

    --------------------------------------------------------------------
    Ready-to-print PostScript files for each section of the net2 system
    maintainer's manual are on nova.cc.purdue.edu in
    pub/386bsd/submissions/bsd.manuals.

    smm.02.config.ps.Z describes kernel configuration for the VAX,
    however some of it is relevant to 386BSD.  There is no freely
    available rewrite for 386BSD that I know of.
    --------------------------------------------------------------------

    Most of these manuals are now included in the standard release of
    NetBSD and FreeBSD in the /usr/share/doc directories.

2.5.1    Partitions

    This section describes many of the questions that people ask about
    hard disk partitioning.

    The first is a brief explanation of the BSD system disk partitions.

2.5.1.1    What is a 'disklabel' and why do I need one?

    The BSD partition table supplements the DOS partition table.  The
    entries in this table are meaningful to BSD.  There are eight
    partitions in the BSD partition table, and they are normally
    lettered from a: to h:.  This supplemental partition table is
    often refered to as the 'disklabel'.

    This tutorial is provided by by "<[e-mail]>" and
    provides an  excellent overview of the hard disk partitioning
    procedure from start to finish.

        "Disk Partitioning for the Compleat Idiot"

    There are times, in our trials with our computers, that it becomes
    necessary to mess about with the disklabel. For those not
    knowledgeable of BSD or Unix Systems administration, this somewhat
    simple task can be somewhat daunting. This document is the result of
    my own short experience.

    This does not cover physical installation of the disk. For those who
    are having trouble with that, I direct you to any of the fine manuals
    dealing with hard drives and your hardware.

    It also does not deal with the vagaries of the DOS partition manager.
    It assumes you have done that as well, if need be...

    After the drive is physically installed and is recognized in the BSD
    startup, and it mentions both your drives, in the order you expect
    them... Or perhaps just the one, if you had special problems with
    installation. Now all you have to do is "disklabel" the drive... Well,
    what is *THAT*???

    The disklabel is used by the kernel and other utilities to tell how
    you want or have the drive set up *logically*.

    In a beautiful world, we might have a very free hand at this set-up
    and expect it to work. Unfortunately, the authors of the software
    dealing with the hard drives either decided or were forced by
    circumstance to make certain things about the disklabel inviolate.

    When you let the installation disk set the disklabel for you first
    drive it comes out like this:

        The a: partition is the primary partition.
        The b: partition is the swap partition.
        The c: partition is the amount of the disk used by 386bsd
            (swap and data)
        The d: partition is the entire disk.

    Of these, the only one that could be different is a:...

    (Note for those of us who have spent far too much time using DOS: the
    labels a: b: c: d: e: f: g: h: DO NOT refer to DOS drives, but to
    partitions in your 386bsd partition... confusing, eh?  For the sake
    of consistency I will never make a reference to DOS drives except by
    saying something like "DOS drive C:". )

    It's possible to divide up the disk a bit differently, but three
    things MUST be:

    c: must refer to every cylinder you wish 386bsd to use, either
    for your data or the swap space.

    d: Must refer to the whole disk, from cylinder 0 to the last
    one...

    b: Must always refer to a swap partition. Note that on any
    other than the first disk it does not have to, but if you
    enable swapping on that drive, and you are using b: for
    something else, that something else will be killed.

    The reason for this is simple: It's hard coded in.

    "WHY?" you ask? (I did...) Probably time constraints, maybe tradition.
    But if you look at the code in "isofs" and "ufs" in your sys.386bsd
    directory, you will see numerous comments asking some of the same
    questions, which leads me to believe this may change in the future,
    making our lives both more complicated and easier at the same time...

    Getting past the esoteric explanations, here is a method for figuring
    out and "labeling" your disk.

    We'll start with the disklabel from my second disk, in the form most
    understandable by humans... #'s signify the start of a comment.

    # /dev/rwd1d:
    type: ESDI
    disk: maxtor7245
    label:
    flags:
    bytes/sector: 512
    sectors/track: 31
    tracks/cylinder: 16
    sectors/cylinder: 496
    cylinders: 967
    rpm: 3600
    interleave: 1
    trackskew: 0
    cylinderskew: 0
    headswitch: 0        # milliseconds
    track-to-track seek: 0    # milliseconds
    drivedata: 0

    5 partitions:
    #      size  offset  fstype [fsize bsize   cpg]
      a:   198400       0  4.2BSD    512  4096    16     # (Cyl.    0 - 399)
      b:    31744  447392    swap                      # (Cyl.  902 - 965)
      c:   479136       0  unused      0     0           # (Cyl.    0 - 965)
      d:   479136       0  unused      0     0           # (Cyl.    0 - 965)
      e:   248992  198400  4.2BSD    512  4096    16    # (Cyl.  400 - 901)

    Some math:
    Looking at the comments at the end and the size and offset columns,
    size is a function of (last - first + 1) * sectors per cylinder:
    a: 399 - 0 + 1 = 400 * 496 = 198400
    b: 965 - 902 + 1 = 64 * 496 = 31744
    c: & d: (Since I have no DOS partition, whatsoever)
          965 - 0 = 1 = 966 * 496 = 479136
    e: 901 - 400 = 502 * 496 = 248992

    248992 + 198400 + 31744 = 479136 (all the parts should equal the whole)

    Some things I discovered  (for all you in novice land like me...)

    1. As you can see this disk has 967 cylinders, but I only refer to 966
    of them, 0 - 965... This is because it's good practice to leave the
    "Landing Zone" cylinder out of it... This is usually the last
    cylinder, and it's where the read/write heads hang out when your disk
    is off...

    Note from TSgt Dave:

    Most modern drive heads come to rest on a polished surface inside the
    highest cylinder.  I could be mistaken, of course, and the Hard Drive
    Bible (or other appropriate reference manual) will tell the tale for
    each drive.

    2. a: can be a regular partition, b: should be swap, c: everything
    386bsd will get to use, including swap. d: is the entire disk from
    0 - (cylinder_per_disk - 2)   [leaving out the Landing Zone]

    On the boot drive (The drive that actually contains the kernel), a:
    is the boot partition.  On all other drives, it is a regular partition.

    You can then use e - h for your other partitions. I am not sure
    whether you could specify b: as other than a swap partition and not
    run into trouble, but you could surely make it a zero sized one
    starting and stopping on the Landing Zone...

    Note from TSgt Dave:

    This is a good idea.  Another way to accomplish this is to
    simply not specify it in the map.

    3. Stupid human trick: When doing the math don't forget that 400 - 900
    refers to 50*1* cylinders. I did, for a while. No great problem I
    suspect, but why waste a cylinder...

    4. newfs'ing really is that simple if you have the label right:
    "newfs /dev/rwd?x config_template" where the question mark is the
    physical disk, the x is a partition letter, and the config_template
    is the configuration from /etc/disktab for your disk drive.

    * NOTE:  This is a thumbnail sketch; read the man page to verify all
    of the options and be sure about how to proceed...

    5. then fsck the partition:
    fsck /dev/rwd?x

    Don't forget that fsck should be run on the RAW device.

    6. As long as it checks out, you can then mount it and do disk things
    with it...

    7. Add it to the fstab... (follow the man page).  Don't forget
    that your new swap partition won't work if your kernel isn't
    configured for it, but it won't cause you any problem to have
    it there.

    One last note from TSgt Dave:

    And I have yet to figure out a way to determine if it is or
    isn't using the swap partition anyway.  There is a program called
    'swapinfo' and it is part of the NetBSD source tree.  On my system,
    it tells me that I never use the swap area. :)

    Comnonly used definitions:

    bsize:
    Block Size:  This is the smallest allocatable area on a disk file
    system, sort of.  A file uses the maximum amount of blocks until it
    can not completely fill up a block.

    fsize:
    Fragment Size:  This is the size of the 'leftover' data that didn't
    fit into a full block.  For example, assuming a using an 8K Block
    Size/1K Fragment Size, a 34.5K file, would use up 4-8K Blocks (4 *
    8K = 32K) and 3 1K fragments (3 * 1K = 3K).  There is 512 bytes of
    wasted space, since 32K + 3K = 35K, which is 512 bytes larger than
    34.5K.  If you want to reduce the amount of wasted space, you can
    reduce your fragment size, but you also reduce the amount of data
    you read at one time, so your disk performance decreases also.
    A good setup is 8K/1K for performance, but if you are really
    concerned about wasted space you can consider using a 4K/512byte
    filesystem.

    For further information, find an article that explains the Berkeley
    FFS in more detail.

    cpg:
    Cylinders Per Group, it determines the cylinder group size, which
    in turn determines the number and location of the alternate
    superblocks.


    Cgd posted a description of how to manually install 386bsd and
    create 'real' BSD partitions.  It is excerpted below:

    --------------------------------------------------------------------
    HOW TO GET 386bsd 0.1 INSTALLED WITH "REAL" PARTITIONING:

    (remember, if things don't work, they might be in places that aren't
    normally looked in... things should work as below, but you might
    have to use explicit paths occasionally... the 'better' stuff --
    mount, umount, cp, etc... is in /usr/distbin on the fixit floppy...
    even mknod is there, if the devices you need aren't on the fixit
    floppy...)

    (1) boot the fixit floppy
    (2) disklabel the disk as appropriate
    (3) newfs the partitions
    (4) mount the new root partition under /mnt
    (5) mkdir /mnt/usr
    (6) mount the new /usr partition under /mnt/usr

    (7) cpio the entire contents of the fixit floppy to the hard drive
        cd /
        ls .profile * [0-ln-z]*/* */*/* | cpio -pdalmu /mnt
        (NOTE: [0-ln-z]*/* is to avoid matching mnt/mnt)
    (8) copy /usr/distbin/mount and /usr/distbin/umount to /mnt (so that
        they'll be in the new root partition, so you can mount the
        new /usr partition...)
    (9) shutdown
        and the eject the floppy.
    (10) reboot off the hard drive, then fsck -p <root raw device>
        If there are any errors, after the fsck is done, hit
        ctl-alt-delete, and repeat this step.
    (11) fsck -p <usr raw device>
    (12) mount -u <root device> /
    (13) mount <usr device> /usr
    (14) insert 0.1 boot/install floppy (dist.fs) into floppy drive
        and "mount /dev/fd0a /mnt"
    (15) cd /mnt
        and then
        usr/bin/zcat etc/baselist.Z | usr/bin/cpio -pdalmu /
    (16) cd /
        and then
    /mnt/usr/bin/zcat /mnt/etc/baseutils.cpio.Z | /mnt/usr/bin/cpio -idalmu
    (17) umount /mnt    then eject the floppy
    (18) umount /usr
    (19) shutdown
    (20) reboot off the hard drive, and get all of the various files (the
        bindist files, srcdist files, etc...).
        I put them into /usr/tmp, because there wasn't enough space
        in /tmp (because it was on a small root partition...).
    (21) cd / ; cat <all the binary files> | uncompress | cpio -idalmu
    (22) rm <all the binary files>
    (23) put your hostname into "/etc/myname" and put your ip addr/hostname
        into /etc/hosts.
    (24) make an fstab for yourself.  specifically, you want something like:
        <root device name>    /    ufs rw 1 1
        <usr device name>    /usr    ufs rw 1 2

    congratulations!  you now have a working system!

    you can repeat step 21 for the srcdist and etcdist files, as well,
    if you wish...


2.5.2    Common Disk Label Problems.
2.5.2.1    Swap space.

    Nate Williams provides a short tutorial on swap space in 386bsd,
    excerpted below:

    To be able to use additional swap partitions, you need to specify
    them in the config (/sys/i386/conf/WHATEVER) file.

    Ex:

    config          "386bsd"        root on sd0 swap on sd0 and sd1

    Allows swap on sd0 and sd1

    config          "386bsd"        root on wd0 swap on wd0 and sd0

    This would allow swap on both wd0 and sd0 OR whichever (both/either)
    of the two had a valid disklabel.  Note, you can really screw
    yourself up with this, if you should happen to not want to swap to
    this partition, and it happens to be the first one found...

    The problem of not being able to swap was from the config file not
    having wd1 in it.

    controller      wd0     at isa? port "IO_WD1" bio irq 14 vector wdintr
    disk            wd0     at wd0 drive 0
    disk            wd0     at wd0 drive 1
                    ^^^
    This should have been wd1, and that's why it didn't get added by
    default.  I may be wrong, but I have swapped to two different
    partitions w/out any problems since patchkit 0.1, and there aren't
    any patches to swap386bsd.c

    Once the install is complete, swapping will not be enabled on the
    second drive.  The following steps can be used to make sure that it
    is enabled correctly.

    If there is a 'b' partition in your root disk 386bsd partition, it
    will be used automatically (MAKE SURE B is not the start of the
    disk, and MAKE SURE b doesn't contain any data you wish to keep).
    If b starts at disk offset 0, it will promptly wipe out your boot
    sectors and other important disk stuff.  (This appears to be fixed
    in the current NetBSD sources)

    If you want an additional partition, put an entry similar to this
    in /etc/fstab:

    /dev/sd1b    none            swap        sw

    I'm swapping on sd0b and sd1b, and 'swapon' is run on this partition
    on boot up.

    Swapping to a file is still not implemented.  Rumor has it 0.2 will
    have such things.  If someone wanted to add it, the vnops_* files
    would have to be radically modified to get it to work correctly.


2.5.2.2    Increasing the 386bsd partition size.

    Once the install is finished, the system has it's 386bsd partition.
    This includes a 5Meg swap partition, which is altogether too small.
    There is no easy way to increase this swap partition without
    relabeling the drive.   Unfortunately, relabeling usually involves
    reinstalling.  That involves re-doing just about everything you have
    just finished doing.  The good news is that if all you have done is
    the base installation, you don't have a lot of time and energy
    invested in the system.  Take the time, and make sure that your swap
    space is at least as big as your memory; many people recommend even
    larger.  There is no real limit to the size that this space can
    take.  If you have two disk drives, you can have space space on both.
    Simply follow the instructions above, and you will be all set.
    If your swap space is smaller than your real memory, system core
    dumps will be disabled.


2.5.2.3    I can access the DOS partition on my second disk from Unix but not
    DOS?  Any suggestions?

    One kinky problem that almost got me was when I tried to disklabel
    my second drive in order to use the DOS partition on it, and use
    the rest as swap for BSD (FreeBSD-1.0 Eps, SCSI drive on an
    AHA1542B, to be exact). The DOS partition was visible from UNIX,
    but *not* from DOS.

    What I tried to do:
        Using PFDISK (from DOS), make one big DOS partition at the start
        and use the rest for a BSD partition (type 165).  Something that
        came out like
          1    6    0    69 DOSbi # ..
          2    165  70    98 unkno
        for a 99 cyl drive.


        Using BSD disklabel generate disk description/label as documented
        in the FAQ. Make only 'c' (total BSD DOS part), 'd' (complete disk)
        and 'b' (intended swap) BSD partitions.

    Problem:
        When writing the label, disklabel would ask about overwriting DOS
        partition table.  Whether I said y or n, the DOS partition table
        was screwed up, as seen from DOS (BSD saw the DOS file system
        very nicely indeed).

    Cause, solution:
        BSD disklabel wants to write the label to the start of the 'a'
        partition; I had *not* defined an 'a' partition (since I was
        only using the disk for swap).  This tells disklabel that the 'a'
        partition is the start of the disk, which means there is no DOS
        partition.  Disklabel then writes the label at the start of the
        drive, which is why it talks about overwriting (aha!); this is
        *bad* for the DOS partition table.  One solution is to have a
        non-empty (e.g. one cylinder) 'a' partition at the start of the
        BSD part of the disk, and resize the 'b' swap partition
        accordingly.  Now everything works just fine.  Note that
        this solution can be used whenever you want the DOS
        partition table to be safe and the DOS partition to be
        mountable.

        One other fly in this ointment.  The disklabel program has
        historically asked "Overwrite disk with DOS-partition [n]: "
        then the normal inclination is to believe the prompt and
        press return for 'no'.  The default answer may or may not be
        'no'.  There are several versions of disklabel where the
        default answer is actually 'yes' even though the prompt
        implies that you can press return and get 'no'.  In this case,
        it might be best to assume that the default answer doesn't
        exist until you have had a chance to actually look at the
        disklabel code.


2.5.3    How do I set up the system so that I can boot from more than one
    operating system/file-loader without using floppies?

    There are many people that wish to be able to boot DOS or 386bsd
    at will.  There are several programs that allow this.  The
    program "os-bs" is one such program, "BOOTEASY" is another, and
    there are three or four others.  There are problems in some
    configurations using the os/2 boot manager for this, so beware.

    In addition to being able to boot from either of two partitions,
    some people want to operate more than one disk drive (and perhaps
    boot from either as well).  Christoph Robitschko provided one
    description of this.  Since there are virtually limitless
    possibilities for configurations for BSD systems, it will be
    impossible to answer all of the possible questions about these
    features.  Many people operate with multiple disk drives on one
    or more controllers.

    Yu-Han Ting provides this tutorial on partitioning and booting
    multiple systems with a single hard disk.

    After spending one day fighting with the nasty partition table,
    finally I had NetBSD, DOS 5 (Sorry, I don't use DOS 6), and
    OS/2 2.1 March beta co-existing on my hard drive.  Here is the
    answer:

    Since that my original hard disk setup was corrupted by NetBSD's
    installation program, I decided to rebuild it.  I would like my
    partition table looks like this:

    Partition 0: OS/2 2.1 beta (Primary, HPFS, C:)
    Partition 1: MS-DOS 5.0 (Primary, C:)
    Partition 2: MS-DOS 5.0 (Extended, D: & E:)
    Partition 3: NetBSD

    You will need the following tools before you can setup a similar
    environment:

    1) Mr. Wolfram's OS-BS.  (It's an excellent boot selector, much
       better than OS/2's boot manager, IMHO)
    2) PFDISK.EXE.  (It's available from wuarchive.wustl.edu:mirrors/
       linux/dos_utils/pfdisktc.zip.)
    3) A binary editor.  I use Norton Utilities' DiskEdit.
    4) 386BSD's 'tinyBSD' distribution disk.

    After you have the necessary tools handy:

    1) Use OS/2 'fdisk' to create partition 0.  Make it install-able
       and install the system as usual.
    2) Use OS/2 'fdisk' to create partition 1.  Assign drive C: to
       the partition.  Then reboot from DOS.
    3) Use DOS 'fdisk' to create the extended partition.  Assign logical
       drive D and E to the partition.
    4) Reboot from DOS again.  Format drive C: (for DOS), D:, and E:.
    5) Use 'tinyBSD', NOT 'NetBSD', to boot the machine.  Create a genuine
       386BSD partition.  Once the 386BSD partition has been made,
       boot DOS from floppy and execute PFDISK.EXE.  For example, issue
       the following commands once you get into DOS:

        C>pfdisk 0 <enter>
        pfdisk> L <enter>  ("pfdisk>" is the command prompt and "L"
                    is the actual command.)

       The second line, i.e., command 'L', will tell you the starting
       address and the length of each partition you have.  Record the
       information for step 6.
    6) Reboot NetBSD from floppy.  Install NetBSD over the original
       386BSD partition.  Fill out the information you get from step
       5 to the installation program.  'halt' the system after you
       have installed 'install2.fs'.
       (Ed.Note:  This step is the same for 386bsd or NetBSD)
    7) Boot OS/2 from floppy.  Use fdisk to assign drive C: to the OS/2
       partition.  In my case, partition 0.  Note that fdisk will
       change the ID of partition 1 from '0x06' to '0x16'.  '0x06'
       stands for 16-bit DOS FAT; while '0x16' stands for non-DOS
       partition.  In the next step, we have to change '0x16' back to
       '0x06' manually.  You can get the ID information by issuing "I"
       under PFDISK.  It will tell you what the IDs represent.
    8) Boot DOS from floppy.  Use the binary editor to change the
       partition type as stated in step 7.
    9) Install OS-BS under DOS.  Remember to enable "Modify startup ID
       before booting".
    10) Now you can boot any partition w/o floppy diskettes during
        startup. :)

    The above procedures may not be optimized.  But it works for me.
    I won't spend anytime to deal with tedious work again :)

    You might feel strange why we need 'tinyBSD'.  Simply trust me.
    By using 'tinyBSD' to create a partition for NetBSD, it will
    make your life a lot easier.  Hope this helps.

    Ed. Note:  The reason is because several versions of NetBSD and
    FreeBSD will not label a disk that doesn't have a disklabel.
    Catch-22.


    PS:  %%%%% REMEMBER TO BACKUP YOUR SYSTEM BEFORE YOU CONDUCT THE
            EXPERIMENT !!! %%%%%

    Here is Christoph's explanation of how to set up a dual hard drive
    system so that the 386BSD/NetBSD system is stored entirely on the
    second hard drive.

    I have done this with two IDE drives. IDE+SCSI should be a bit
    simpler.  There's a boot selector called BOOTEASY that can load
    from the second drive (you can get it from
    ftp.tu-graz.ac.at:pub/386BSD/0.1/unofficial/booteasy).

    What I have done to boot 386bsd from the second (IDE) drive:

    - installed booteasy on the first drive
    - (you can install booteasy on the second drive, too, if you
      have multiple partitions there)
    - modified Julian's boot blocks to use the second drive per default
      (Ed. Note:  See below for the illumination of this step)
    - rebuilt the kernel to have root and swap on wd1 (probably not
      necessary for you, since your second disk is sd0, which is
      already in the config file).

    It worked perfectly for me.

    This should also work with equal facility for 386bsd users.

    Julian Elischer ([e-mail]) adds:

    To make the bootcode default to drive 1 look in
    /sys/{arch/}i386/boot/boot.c for the following (or similar.. It has
    changed a little) code:

loadstart:

    /***************************************************************\
        * As a default set it to the first partition of the first    *
        * floppy or hard drive                        *
      \***************************************************************/
        part = unit = 0;
        maj = (drive&0x80 ? 0 : 2);             /* a good first bet */
        name = names[currname++];


    and change it to:


loadstart:

    /***************************************************************\
    * As a default set it to the first partition of the SECOND    *
    * floppy or hard drive                        *
    \***************************************************************/
!    part = 0;
!    unit = 1;
    maj = (drive&0x80 ? 0 : 2);             /* a good first bet */
    name = names[currname++];

    And in yet another interation, Luke Mewburn ([e-mail])
    decided to hack that a bit further in his NetBSD 0.9 (as_shipped i.e.,
    non-current) to set the drive to the unit which the boot blocks
    loaded off.

    So, instead of:
        part = unit = 0;
    do:
        part = 0;
        unit = (drive & 0x7F);

    (the FAQ suggests `part = 0; unit = 1;' )

        This way, whatever drive the bb's loaded from, it has that as
    default.  In my case, I get wd(0,a) when I have my netbsd drive as
    C:, and wd(1,a) when I have it as D:.  (I've been swapping drives
    left right and centre the last day getting dos to boot on one drive
    and netbsd on another).


2.5.4    How do I disklabel my second hard drive?

    The obvious answer is to use 'disklabel -w -r /dev/rwd1d'.
    Unfortunately, this does not always put a real disklabel on the
    drive.  The symptom is that the drive labels and can be used
    until the system is reset, at which point the system tries to
    read the label from the disk.  It was never actually written to
    the disk, so the operation fails.

    There are also reports that the /usr/mdec files are corrupted in
    some of the distributions.  If you have tried everything else, you
    can either load the files from one of the many archive sites that
    keep the /usr/mdec files around, or you can recompile them
    yourself.

    Mark Weaver ([e-mail]) provides us with an illuminating
    answer to this perplexing problem.

    I had the same problem and there is a simple solution.  I'm not
    sure why this works, but it does.

    Instead of specifying the entire device path name (i.e. /dev/rsd0c),
    only specify the two letters of the device type and the unit number
    (i.e. "sd0").  Disklabel figures out the rest, and it works.

    For instance, the following line works for me:

      disklabel -w -r sd0 <drive-type>

    assuming of course that the boot block files are in /usr/mdec/ and
    the <drive-type> is in the /etc/disktab.

    This is also a symptom of some of the versions of FreeBSD and
    NetBSD where the disklabel code was 'fixed' to only write a
    disklabel on a drive with a disklabel.  Oops.

    Also, some folks want to mix SCSI and IDE drive together in the
    same system.

    A report about someone with an Austin Tower (486DX/50), AMI BIOS,
    Caviar 2250 IDE, Adaptec 1542CF, and Toshiba SCSI disk (1.2GB)
    posted this set of instructions:

    The BIOS is configured to boot from the IDE drive as type 47
    (user defined).  The IDE drive currently has NetBSD 1.0 BETA on it.

    The 1542CF switches are 1-4 off (open), 5-8 on.  The meaning is as
    follows:

        1(off)=Termination software controlled.
        2,3,4(off)=I/O Port x330.
        5(on)=disable floppy.  I use the Austin floppy controller.
        6,7,8(on)=disable Adaptec BIOS.

    Note that this means the Adaptec 1542CF on-board setup program is
    also disabled.  If I need to change my SCSI termination, I first
    have to enable the Adapted BIOS (sw 6,7,8), enter 1542CF setup
    and change termination, then change switches again.

    I could not configure the system to boot from the SCSI drive having
    the IDE as a secondary drive.

    (Ed Note: There is more news on this front all of the time.
    Since I personally don't have much interest in doing this (I
    boot from my IDE drives and mount my SCSI drives) I don't see
    the problem. )


2.5.5    386bsd/NetBSD/FreeBSD cannot handle disk geometry translations,
    but it turns out that my disk geometry is translated.  It has
    five zones, each with a different sec/track!  What kind of
    things can I do about the disk translation my hard disk
    controller uses?

    It turns out that what *BSD cannot handle is not translation, but
    translation that changes during the boot-up process.  For example,
    the configuration above will work just fine IF the translation
    that the controller uses when it powers up is the same one that it
    uses when it boots.  On many PC clones, the BIOS loads a different
    geometry after it boots to make the geometry agree with one that is
    loaded in CMOS.  This is the fatal flaw for *BSD.  Fortunately,
    once the problem has been identified, it is relatively easy to
    handle.  Simply make sure that the BIOS is configured to set the
    controller to the translated geometry that the card powers up
    with.

    There are several ways to get around these problems with disk
    geometry translation.  If you are using a SCSI controller, you can
    specify the geometry such that each 'cylinder' is 1 Meg (64 sectors
    by 32 tracks for example).  Most SCSI controllers will blithely
    ignore what YOU tell it the geometry is and press on using this
    type of 1 Meg cylinder had to get the job done.  NOTE:  If you are
    going to try this, try to ensure that each 'pseudo cylinder' is a
    reasonable size (like 1Meg or 512K).

    An interesting method for dealing with disk geometry comes from
    Alan Barrett ([e-mail]):

    This sort of problem happens when you try to install NetBSD in a
    partition of a disk whose controller does geometry translation.  I
    have not had time to find the bug that causes the problem.  One
    option is to disable the geometry translation:  Use ide_conf to
    find the true geometry, use the CMOS setup program to tell your
    BIOS about the true geometry, and reformat everything.  I
    successfully did that on one of my systems.

    If you are not able to, or do not wish to, disable the geometry
    translation then the following work-around might work for you.
    This requires that the disk have unused space on {cylinder 0,
    head 0}, from sector 2 to sector 16.  Almost all DOS disks that
    I have ever seen satisfy this condition, because they usually
    start the DOS partition in {cylinder 0, head 0, sector 1},
    leaving most of {cylinder 0, head 0} unused apart from the
    partition sector in {cylinder 0, head 0, sector 1}.  However,
    many partitioning programs like to hide this fact from you,
    and pretend that the DOS partition starts at the front of the
    disk; don't believe them until you have checked with a raw
    disk editor.

        0.  Make sure you have adequate backups.

        1.  Use a partition sector editor (fdisk, pfdisk, os-bs,
            booteasy, Norton utilities, whatever) to mark the partition
            that you want for NetBSD as bootable with type 0xA5
            (decimal 165).

        2.  Halt the system.  Boot the NetBSD kernel copy floppy.
        When it asks you to insert the floppy for the root file
        system, switch to the Install-1 floppy and press enter.

        3.  Answer all the installation prompts, using numbers based
        on the translated geometry.  When it asks if you really
        want to label the disk, be brave and say yes.

        4.  Halt the system.  Boot to DOS.  Run a disk editor program,
        such as Norton utilities.

        5.1.  Verify that the partition sector in {cyl 0, head 0,
        sec 1} is undamaged.  Verify that the disklabel program
        run as part of the NetBSD install has written the NetBSD
        primary boot block to {cylinder xx, head 0, sector 1},
        written the disk label to {cyl xx, head 0, sec 2}, and
        written the secondary boot program to {cyl xx, head 0,
        sectors 3 to 16}.  ("xx" represents the translated
        cylinder number you chose for the start of the NetBSD
        partition.  You did choose to start on a cylinder boundary,
        I hope.)

        5.2.  Verify that the space in {cyl 0, head 0, sectors 2 to
        16} is still available.  Copy the fifteen sectors containing
        the NetBSD disk label and secondary boot block from {cyl
        xx, head 0, sectors 2 to 16} to {cyl 0, head 0, sectors 2
        to 16}.

        5.3.  Edit the partition table in {cyl 0, head 0, sec 1}.
        Change the system ID of the NetBSD partition from 0xA5
        (decimal 165) to something else (I use 0xA4, decimal 164),
        but keep it flagged as bootable.  This will let you boot
        to the NetBSD primary boot block.

        5.4.  Edit one of the previously unused partition table entries
        (I hope you have one), to contain the following information:
        {sys id = 0xA5, boot flag = 0, start cylinder/head/sector =
        0/0/1, end cylinder/head/sector = anything, initial
        offset = 0, total size = anything}.  This will tell the
        NetBSD primary boot block, or a NetBSD system booted from
        a floppy, that it should look for the NetBSD disk label
        in {cyl 0, head 0, sec 2}.

        6.  Halt the system.  Boot the NetBSD kernel copy floppy.  When it
            asks you to insert the floppy for the root file system, just
            press enter without changing disks.

        7.  Copy the kernel, and proceed with the rest of the installation
            as per the instructions provided with NetBSD.  It should now
            work because of the trickery with the partition table etc.

2.5.6    My disk label is complaining about '256 heads' in the disklabel.
    This is obviously bogus, but it doesn't seem to be hurting anything.
    Is it Okay or should I fix it?

    Steve Gilbert ([e-mail]) provided us with this answer:

        First, If you do a "fdisk wd1" (It may be wd1d, I don't
    remember what it wanted), it will list out the partition table
    for you.  This is something totally different from BSD's idea
    of a partition, mind you.  The last partition (#3) should be BSD.
    All of those figures are correct except for the "ending head" field
    which is set to 255 (thus, 256 heads).

    1. BACK UP EVERYTHING!

    2. fdisk -u wd1

        ...this will prompt you for the stuff you want to change.
        Remember, everything is correct execpt for the ending
        head.  Accept all the default values it gives you at first.
        You'll have to tell it that you want to explicitly define
        the beginning and ending values.

    3. My 420 MB Conner drive has 16 heads, so I just enter 15 as
       the ending head number.

    4. When you are back out of fdisk, you can do another fdisk wd1
       to make sure the values are correct.  Don't worry if you mess up,
       you can always change it again.  Anything you didn't back up is
       probably gone by now anyway :-)

    5. Reboot and watch NO error message pop up!

    ...remember that all you want to do is fdisk the drive.  You do NOT
    want to run disklabel again or newfs the partitions again.  This will
    write the incorrect 256 crap back.  I did this three times before
    I finally got smart and did it right.


2.5.7    What are the options for the bootup prompt?

    The options are supposed to be as follows:

    -s............... boot into single user mode
    -a............... ask the user what device to use as root
              just before mounting it (Not presently supported)
    -d............... once you have the kernel loaded and VM and such up
              and going, drop into the kernel debugger.
              (great for debugging probe code)
              (not sure if this is presently working)


2.5.8    I am having trouble installing WRT 'syslogd: bind: Can't assign
    requested address' errors.  What are some of the things I should
    look at?  I also am having trouble with the network: 'starting
    network ... ifconfig: localhost: badvalue'.

    This is caused by incorrect settings in /etc/netstart and/or
    /etc/hosts.

    In /etc/hosts, you must have a line that says:

    127.0.0.1        localhost    localhost.my.domain

    Errors that will result if you don't do this: ifconfig will not
    be able to figure out what IP address goes with the name
    'localhost' and you'll get 'localhost: bad value.'

    In /etc/netstart, you must do:

        ifconfig lo0 localhost
        route add {hostname} localhost

    Errors that will result if you don't do this: the loopback
    device will not be properly configured and/or you will have no
    route to it. The result is that programs expecting to have
    networking enabled (including syslog and friends) will get
    horribly confused.

    *AND*, if you're not going to be directly connected to a
    network, you should change /etc/host.conf to say:

        hosts
        bind

    It's set up the other way around by default. I don't like it
    that way myself.

    Errors that can result if you don't do this: if you don't have
    a nameserver available to you, the resolver will have trouble
    translating hostnames into IP addresses.  Bogosity levels will
    be off the scale. (Note also that if you do have access to a
    nameserver, you need to set up /etc/resolv.conf to point to
    it.)  By changing the order, you'll be telling the resolver to
    check the host files for matches *first*, then roll over to the
    nameserver (if any) if no match is found.

    Make sure that:

    - There are no typos in any of the three files mentioned above.
    - There are no bogus non-ASCII characters in the files
    mentioned above.
    - All three files have their read permission bits set.

    Lastly, be very careful with /etc/hosts.equiv. If you add a
    hostname to it, say 'otherhost.domain,' then root on
    otherhost.domain will be able to rsh/rlogin to your machine
    without a password.

    Once you have everything set correctly, you should be able to
    type 'telnet localhost' and establish a connection to yourself.
    If you get an error such as 'localhost: unknown host' or
    'network unreachable' then you still have work to do.


2.6    Common installation problems.

    There are many common installation problems.  This section covers
    the most basic and common of these problems.  In addition to this
    section, you should also read through the other sections of the
    FAQ, since many of the less common questions are answered in other
    places in the doc.

2.6.1    Swap space not identified correctly.

    There are several levels of problems associated with swap space.
    The first is that the swap space on a second disk will not get
    used if it is not in your /etc/fstab file.  Your /etc/fstab should
    have the swap space identified.  The following is a representative
    fstab:

    /dev/wd0a        /        ufs  rw 1 1
    /dev/wd1b        swap        swap sw 0 0

    Another common question is that the install program installs the
    swap partition in the 'b' partition, but does not mark it correctly
    as a swap partition.  The swapping software will use the swap
    partition regardless of what it is called, but it should still be
    identified in the disklabel as the swap partition.  Use 'disklabel'
    to change the partition type from 'unused' to 'swap'.

    NOTE:  I mean it when I say that 386bsd will use the b: partition
    for swap without regard to what you called it.  If it was your
    root partition, it will be toast the first time you try to swap
    a process out to disk.  I'm not kidding!


2.6.2    Endless reboot cycles.

    Endless reboot cycles are the single most vexing aspect of 386bsd.
    Part of the problem is that the 0.1 distribution boot routines
    were never checked against many types of computers and have bugs.
    Most of the bugs are fixed in the patchkit, but that doesn't do
    the average novice user any good.

    In general, this will show up as a "bad disk label" error, and
    can result in in not booting from the hard drive "most of the time".
    You may be able to partially (or even completely) work around this
    problem by making your machine run at a lower clock rate.

    This problem is the result of the kernel reading the wrong register
    waiting for the drive controller to come ready.  On some
    controllers, this isn't a problem; on others, it's fatal.
    This problem is solved for almost all controllers in the patchkit
    and both FreeBSD and NetBSD.

    The correct solution is to use a patched "dist.fs" or "fixit.fs"
    boot disk.  Since these are no longer available, using an
    unpatched 386BSD 0.1 is a not a possibility any longer if you
    have this problem.  You will have to upgrade to either FreeBSD
    or NetBSD.

    Another incarnation of this symptom is that the disk geometry on
    your disk label (as installed by install) is different than the
    geometry that your hard drive controller thinks it is using.  This
    will most often manifest itself on controllers that insist on
    operating in some type of translation mode.  Normally the fix is to
    find out what the controller geometry is and make the disk label
    agree.  There are programs available to help with this problem.

    Julian's new boot blocks may also solve this problem.  They are
    available where fine precompiled kernels may be found.  Also, they
    are included in the patchkit as of version 0.2.2.


2.7    The computer just sits there, or 'that isn't right'.

    This class of problems is sometimes caused by an incorrect FTP of
    the boot disk.  Make sure that the files were grabbed in 'binary'
    mode and that the size reported back is 1244000 bytes.  Use the
    Unix program 'dd' or the DOS program RAWRITE to put these files
    onto the diskette.  In addition, this is the 'miscellaneous'
    section of the FAQ.  These problems are included here because they
    are usually preceded by 'I just finished installing...'

    Another incarnation of this problem is that, sometimes, the major
    or minor device numbers for a particular device may not get made
    correctly in the install (or upgrade) procedure.  If you have a
    problem where you can install and everything seems to go well
    until you try to boot onto the hard drive, try running the
    MAKEDEV script that resides in /dev.  More the file to see what
    kind of options you should include (if the sd0a drive needs to
    be fixed, for example, the command './MAKEDEV sd0' should get
    your devices back on the road.  If that doesn't work, try one of
    the many things below.  It could be any (or all) of them....


2.7.1    The boot disk works all right on one computer but not another.

    This could be a problem with many different pieces, some of which
    are:

    - Misconfigured hardware.  The iomem, IRQ, and other board
    settings must match the ones listed in the INSTALL.NOTES.
    Unfortunately, the INSTALL.NOTES are on the disk that will
    not boot.  You can grab them via FTP from many archive sites.
    This installation file may have many names.  Look for something
    kind of obvious (like 'install.notes' or 'readme' or
    'configuration guide') and you should find it.  Finally, there
    have been many reports (particularly with the BusLogic SCSI
    cards (specifically reported was the BT445C VLB host adapter)
    where the system seems to boot up, but starts getting
    'stray interrupt c' messages.  This is usually caused by people
    having there SCSI card set up on some IRQ other than the one
    that the kernel expects.  The factory default for this card
    seems to be IRQ 12, but the kernel wants the card at IRQ 11.
    Setting the card (using the configuration program supplied)
    changes the setting so that it matches the kernel and the card
    then works.

    - Unsupported hardware.  There are several SCSI controllers on the
    market that are not fully supported by 386bsd.  The Ultrastore 24F
    (when not running in ISA emulation mode) is a good example of this.
    There are also some network cards that are not directly supported
    in 386bsd.  If you get into a real bind, you can post a question
    to comp.os.386bsd.questions, and one of the many experienced 386bsd
    gurus that reads that group will probably try to help you.


2.7.2    Really strange errors in the various *BSD flavors.

2.7.2.1    I am using the original 386bsd 0.1 with no patches installed
    and I get flashing multicolored characters and  a "ptdi 81061"
    prompt error?

    Since 386BSD 0.1 is no longer available, you will have to
    upgrade to either FreeBSD or NetBSD, which both deal with this
    problem directly.


2.7.2.2    Using the new code in NetBSD, I get a "panic: pdti 206067" in
    pmap_enter().  What should I do?

    Increase NKPDE in /sys/i386/include/pmap.h.  Be sure to keep
    the changes around as a patch file, since this is one of the
    files that will get overwritten during a source code update.


2.7.3a    I get the error "isr 15 and error: isr 17" on an NE2000 card.
2.7.3b    I have some card on IRQ2 and it doesn't work; why?
2.7.3c    I am getting lousy performance out of my network card.  What are
        some of the other possibilities?

    The description of this problem is that one of the cards in your
    system (most likely the VGA card) is either generating interrupts
    or is causing the IRQ 2 to be actively disabled.  Older VGA card
    uses IRQ 2 during vertical retrace to prevent sparklies.

    One solution would be to plan on not using your Ethernet card
    (or any other card you want on IRQ 2) until you have rebuilt
    the kernel so that it expects it at an interrupt other than
    IRQ 2 or 9, re-jumper or reconfigure the card to match the IRQ
    you have selected, and enable it.

    From time to time, this problem will manifest itself as a general
    tendency of the network card to transfer either very sporadically
    or very slowly. It is precisely the same problem.

    James Van Artsdalen ([e-mail]) has offered at
    least one solution:

        If this is the problem, you can use Scotch tape to cover
        the IRQ 2 signal on the VGA's ISA connector.

    There has been some discussion as to whether scotch tape is really
    appropriate inside a card slot.  My answer would be "yes".  This is
    because the alternate solution of cutting the trace on the video
    board seems, to my mind, to reduce the value of the board.  It is
    possible that, in the future, with a bi-bipartite driver, you would
    want to catch the retrace interrupt to get rid of "sparklies" or to
    implement a driver for a very high resolution monitor for X.  If
    this happens, given a choice between alcohol and solder, I vote for
    alcohol.

    Either way, you will probably find that your VGA card uses IRQ 2
    strictly for compatibility with older cards.  With the advent of
    dual-ported memory for video cards, virtually all of these types
    of problems have disappeared.


2.7.4    What is the difference between IRQ2 and IRQ9?  Are they really
    the same, or are they really different?

    On the XT, there was one interrupt controller, an Intel 8259, which
    handled 8 interrupts numbered IRQ0 through IRQ7.  IRQs 2 through 7
    were accessible via bus lines IRQ2 through IRQ7.

    The AT had two interrupt controllers.  Due to the design of the
    8259, one has to be the master and the rest (up to 8) must be
    slaves.  Each slave controller output its interrupt request to
    and input on the master controller.  In the case of the AT, the
    master controller handles IRQ0 through IRQ7.  The slave handles
    IRQ8 through IRQ15.  The interrupt request from the slave to the
    master goes through IRQ2, which is termed the cascase input.

    This means. of course, that the bus line for IRQ2 could no longer
    be used for external interrupts.  Instead, the bus line that WAS
    IRQ2 in the XT became IRQ9 on the AT.  This whole issue is
    confused further by the fact that some vendors refer to this
    external interrupt as IRQ2, while others refer to it as IRQ9.  In
    either case, if you are talking about an external interrupt, it
    means the same thing.

    BTW, IRQ8 is used for the Real Time Clock, and does not have an
    external interrupt.  Here is a map, in case anyone still needs it:

        Internal    External    Function
        IRQ0        n/a        Refresh/Timer
        IRQ1        n/a        Keyboard
        IRQ2        n/a        Cascade Input to Master
        IRQ3        IRQ3        Free (Com port)
        IRQ4        IRQ4        Free (Com port)
        IRQ5        IRQ5        Free
        IRQ6        IRQ6        Free
        IRQ7        IRQ7        Free (Printer)
        IRQ8        n/a        Real Time Clock
        IRQ9        IRQ2        Free (Network card)
        IRQ10        IRQ10        Free

        etc.


2.7.5    Some of my SCSI devices (like a tape drive) don't work; why?

    That is because the original 386bsd 0.1 SCSI drivers didn't
    recognize any devices past the first two (ID 0 and ID 1).  Also,
    there was a bug in the distribution floppy regarding the devices
    at ID 6.  The 'dev' files in 386bsd 0.1 for that id need to be
    remade.  Use MAKEDEV to do that.

    The disks and tapes will be recognized and configured when they
    are first accessed.

    A new and improved SCSI driver has been written by Julian Elischer
    and is available from many sources.  It includes support for many
    new types of SCSI controllers and many devices that are thereby
    attached.  This driver is included in the patchkit.

    In addition, many of these types of devices are supported in
    FreeBSD and NetBSD.  If one of the devices you are interested
    in using is not supported in 386BSD, you might try one of these
    newer systems.

    Even with the newer systems, you run the risk of having a
    problem with a SCSI device from time to time.  There are some
    cards (like the new Adaptec 27* series) that software drivers
    are either not in the works or the documentation is simply
    unavailable.  Another culprit here is that some machines are
    very touchy about the quality and length of cables, as well
    as SCSI IDs.  There was one report of a older hard drive that
    took a little longer to spin up than the rest of the drives
    in the chain.  Whenever this drive was put early in the ID
    string (like 1 or 2) it would be 'not found' but if it was
    placed near the end (like after the tape drive) it would have
    spun up and been found.

    Who says computers are logical?


2.7.6    I try to run 'ps' or 'w' and get ': cannot get namelist'
    from the TinyBSD kernel.  What did I do wrong?

    Nothing.  There is a class of programs that interact directly
    with the current kernel.  These programs include 'ps', 'w',
    'uptime', and others.  The kernel on the TinyBSD disk is not
    capable of supporting these programs because the symbol table
    that these programs use has been stripped out of the kernel to
    save space.  The easiest way to fix this is to get a different
    kernel (build it yourself).  Of course, you can have a fully
    functional system with these programs, but they are nice to have.


2.7.7    I get a 'Floating point constant out of range' when I try to
    compile package 'n'.  What is broke?

    This problem was encountered during many package compilations,
    including compiling gcc-2.3.3 under NetBSD-0.8.

    NetBSD-0.9, and presumably FreeBSD, contain a repaired printf()
    function, which corrects this problem.  The easiest solution for
    this (and MANY other) problems is to upgrade.  In addition, these
    systems also include gcc-2.3.3 (or newer) as the default compiler.

    There is also a circular dependency for protoize.o/unprotoize.o
    in the Makefile. Add the lines

          touch protoize.o
          touch unprotoize.o

    after the line:

          touch stamp-proto

    After this "make bootstrap" will run to completion.

    gas apparently has bugs too.  It should produce +Infinity.  I
    think it is OK internally but it may be trusting the library
    too much.  gcc can easily be changed to avoid printf for output,
    but input is harder.

     One of the problems is that various pieces of code rely on the
     value of DBL_MAX.  A kludge to fix it is to change the line
     below:

    #define DBL_MAX         1.7976931348623157E+308

    One value that works is

     #define DBL_MAX         1.7976931348623147E+308
                                            ^ was 5

    This is a kludge, but it does mostly work.


    The problem is entirely in printf() (really in cvt()), NOT in
    atof().  I have inspected the output of atof() bit by bit, and
    it is well within IEEE specification.

    The digits `157' are the `best' approximation.

    The code for printf() generates a representation which is not even
    in the range of doubles.  Below are the details:

    atof("1.7976931348623157e+308") returns

         0x7fefffffffffffff

    which is the maximum double value and is correct.  However,
    printf() of the previous yields `1.7976931348623168e+308', which
    isn't even within the floating point range.  It is clearly printf()
    that is broken, and a quick inspection of the code is enough to
    determine that it uses a pessimal algorithm.

    atof() has been tested with many other values, and it has never
    been off by more than is allowed by IEEE 754 (though it is not
    optimal).


2.7.8    I want to use the Adaptec 1542C SCSI controller.  What are the
    problems/tricks you need to know to get it working?

    The first thing to check when trying to use the 1542C is the setting
    of 'Enable Disconnection' under the 'SCSI Device Configuration'
    menu.  It should be set to YES for all devices, as the manual warns
    you.

    Matthias Urlichs ([e-mail]) has provided this
    description of the types of things that can cause problems for the
    controller and devices attached to it.

    The problem is that the Adaptec 1542C has (a) rather powerful line
    drivers, and (b) is sensitive to transient signals which can be
    induced by them via either a bad cable or a bad external terminator.

    A bad cable is almost any cable which doesn't meet SCSI-2 specs.

    A bad external terminator is one which doesn't adequately buffer
    its resistor network.

    So...

    - Remove the internal terminator from the last drive in your chain.
      Replace with an active SCSI-2 external terminator.  Side
      improvement: active terminators consume a bit less power.

    - Check cables.  Specifically, some cables carry less than the
      nominal 50 signal wires. Manufacturers sometimes think they can
      get away with this because almost all odd-numbered pins are GROUND
      anyway. So, if pins 1 and 3 or 3 and 5 are connected, you're
      likely to have a marginal cable.

    - Make sure that the terminator power is supplied by all devices
      and that the power pin is actually connected on your cable. The
      problem here is that some idiot device manufacturers save on
      2-cent diodes, which means that the thing will pull terminator
      power to ground if it's not plugged in.  (Two of these on one
      bus are even worse.)

    - Consider creating your own cabling. Take a 50-wire flat ribbon
      and press the appropriate connectors onto it in precisely the
      right places. (Move your devices as to minimize cable length.)
      Be aware that if a device has two external connectors, you must
      take the SCSI bus in at one connector and out at the other
      -- don't leave the other connector dangling; this isn't within
      the SCSI specs because the cable usually is too long.

    - Better but more expensive: use 2-twisted cable. (I.e., wires 1&2
      are twisted around each other, wire 3&4, ...) This will improve
      reliability because the wires are twisted at different rates.
      These cables have short non-twisted segments every 50 cm (1.5')
      so that you can press on your connectors instead of heating up
      that soldering iron.

    - While you're rebuilding your system anyway...: If you have more
      than one drive per power supply, check if these drives have
      adequate condensors to buffer their power.  I have two 80-MB
      Seagates which refused to work more than a few hours without
      glitches -- then I soldered two 10-uF Tantals onto their power
      connector and they've been flawless ever since.

    The terminator power is pin 26. Be aware that SCSI counts pins as
    they appear on a ribbon cable, not as they're sometimes numbered
    on the connectors.  Pin 25 is supposed to be disconnected.


2.8    Other common problems that are attributed to the installation
    process but are caused other places.

2.8.1    Why don't the man pages for "magic" and "file" work?

    The manual page for magic and file all have two dots before the
    commands,  e.g.. "..SH" it should be ".SH" just delete one of the
    double dots in the whole file and then it will work.  These man
    pages are fixed by both the patch-kit, NetBSD, and FreeBSD.  The
    only time this problem every occurs is when you are using the
    distribution from one of the old CD-ROM distributions are get the
    original 386bsd 0.1 release.


2.8.2    Why is apropos broke?

    The Makefile in /usr/othersrc/share/man/Makefile creates the
    whatis.db.  The problem is that it doesn't strip the backspaces in
    the title and apropos can't handle that.  So add a "col -b" to strip
    those.

    excerpt from the Makefile.

    makedb:
       for file in `find /usr/share/man -type f -name '*.0' -print`; do \
        sed -n -f /usr/share/man/makewhatis.sed $$file; \
       done | col -b | sort -u > whatis.db
       install -o ${BINOWN} -g ${BINGRP} -m 444 whatis.db \
                  ${DESTDIR}/usr/share/man

    This problem is also solved in the patchkit, and other *BSD releases.

    Also, if the Makefile is moved to the /usr/share/man directory, the
    whatis.db will reside where it needs to eventually reside, and the
    install will wipe it out.  An easy fix for that problem is to change
    the two references of whatis.db in the excerpt above to
    /tmp/whatis.db.  This will ensure the file is correctly built and
    installed.


2.8.3    I want to use more than 16 Megabytes of memory.  Will any of the
    BSD based systems support it?

    Early on, 386bsd 0.1 would choke radically on any system that had
    more than 8M of memory.  With the advent of the patchkit, this
    problem was, for the most part, solved; memory could then expand to
    the 16M limit inherent in the ISA bus.

    As people started using VESA and EISA busses, however, attempts
    were made to push the envelope even further.  Memory limits have
    expanded seemingly without limit.  Since the EISA bus (for example)
    has 32 address lines, it is capable of supporting more memory than
    the ISA bus with its 24 address lines.  While the 386 and 486 are
    capable of addresses up to 4 Gigabytes (considerably more than the
    ISA bus allows) the ISA bus is still the primary limitation.

    When using NetBSD and FreeBSD, there is no SOFTWARE limitation on
    more than 16Meg of memory.  There are still hardware limitations.
    The limit is caused by DMA controllers which copy memory images
    around the system.  Many cards which people use in VESA and EISA
    machines either emulate ISA cards (in order to work with *BSD) or
    are really ISA cards.  There are reports of people having trouble
    with more than 64Meg of memory, but anyone rich enough to have
    that kind of memory should be paying for his OS. :-)

    Recently some folks have been reporting that they are getting
    warnings like these:

        hostname /netbsd: sd0: not queued
        hostname /netbsd: aha0: DMA beyond end of ISA
        hostname /netbsd: sd0: not queuedaha0: DMA beyond end of ISA

    This error is caused when the buffer for I/O is beyond the address
    range that the ISA bus can reach.  With 16M you should be okay,
    however, some motherboards do reclaim all or part of the "lost"
    384K (from the I/O "hole" from A0000-FFFFF) and put it just beyond
    the end of the rest of the memory, so you actually get 16M plus a
    little bit.

    One fix is bounce buffers.  FreeBSD has implemented this, and NetBSD
    will as soon as they come up with a method that is compatible with
    all of the machines that NetBSD supports.

    Another fix is to either turn off the reclaiming of the extra memory
    (most motherboards that do this allow you to disable it), hack
    machdep.c to force the physical memory used to 16M, or use a 32 bit
    bus (EISA, VLB, or PCI) controller.

    Jordan K Hubbard ([e-mail]) has provided this
    explanation of the distinction:

    Just so long as you're using a DMA-using disk controller in EISA
    mode, rather than ISA mode, you can use more than 16 Meg of memory.

    For those who may find such a distinction confusing, let me explain:

    You can use an ISA controller (such as an Adaptec 1542) in an EISA
    machine, but as it will still think it's in an ISA box and refuse to
    use the extra address lines, this is no different than having an
    ISA machine as far as >16MB is concerned.

    You can use an EISA controller in "ISA mode", meaning it uses the
    older protocols for compatability reasons (examples being Adaptec
    1742 in "standard" mode, DTC 3290 in "Adaptec" mode, etc.) and
    again, does not use the extra address lines.

    The only way to get full EISA, 32MB-of-memory-and-everything, mode
    is to use an EISA controller in full EISA mode (for Adaptec 1742,
    this is "enhanced" mode, for DTC 3290 it's "DTC" mode, the
    Ultrastor 24F in EISA (rather than IDE emulation) mode, etc.).

    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

    In addition, several other types of ISA controllers which do NOT
    use DMA will not cause problems.  IDE, ESDI, and RLL controllers
    are examples of this type of card.  The discussion above also applies
    to VESA and VLB cards.

    So, the bottom line is that you are limited to the amount of memory
    that your DMA equipped devices can access.  Once again, the weakest
    link is the strength of your machine.


2.8.4    I tried to use a device in my computer that should be there.  When
    I did, I got a "Device not configured error."  What do I do now?

    Garrett A. Wollman ([e-mail]) provides us with this
    brief discussion in answer to a specific question.  It wears well
    as a generic answer as well.

    When any program tells you ``Device not configured'', it's trying
    to tell you something very important about what you tried to do:
    namely, that the device you tried to access is not configured
    into the running operating system.  This is the error message
    corresponding to ENXIO.

    There are three major causes for this error:

    1) The kind of device you requested was not configured into the
       system.  This is R.W.'s problem; the generic kernels
       are not distributed with the Berkeley Packet Filter enabled by
       default.  To correct this, you must add the appropriate device or
       pseudo-device to your kernel configuration file and recompile.
       (In this particular case, `pseudo-device bpfilter
       number-of-network-interfaces'.)

    2) The kind of device you requested was configured into the system,
       but either the device you requested would use more than the
       maximum you configured into the system, or if a physical device,
       was not found during autoconfiguration.  To solve this, either
       change your configuration file, or change the I/O settings on the
       device to match what the file says.

    3) The major or minor device number specified by the device's
       entry(ies) in /dev is incorrect.  To solve this, re-MAKEDEV the
       device (read the MAKEDEV script for more details).  Hopefully
       whatever change caused the kernel's internal device tables to get
       changed also updated your MAKEDEV script; otherwise, you will have
       to grovel through the kernel to see what is going on.

--
TSgt Dave Burgess           | Dave Burgess
NCOIC, USSTRATCOM/J6844     | *BSD FAQ Maintainer
Offutt AFB, NE              | [e-mail] or [e-mail]...