erik quanstrom <quans...@quanstro.net> writes: > there are a number of differences. here are a few that spring > to mind as important > - the kernel in the cd is different, > - it uses a different plan9.ini file, and > - dma is setup after booting.
> could try putting ftp://ftp.quanstro.net/other/9pcf.gz in your 9fat, > replacing your current kernel, and setting the plan9.ini varaible > "*sdC0dma=on". That did it. To test the theory that PIO was the problematic variable, I tried booting the installer with DMA *off*. Neither the fossil or fossil+venti installs would complete without reporting HDD errors. So, I plopped your 9pcf.gz on 9fat, and set *sdC0dma=on. Now, a fossil+venti is running without any apparent problems. :) :) As a workaround, I tried putting "echo dma on > /dev/sdC0/ctl" in termrc. This was sufficient to keep a fossil-only install from failing. But, even *with* this workaround, a fossil+venti install would still return i/o errors. That's probably because fossil calls venti before init calls termrc. Even wrapping init in a shell script probably wouldn't get DMA turned on soon enough to make venti happy, but your kernel did the trick. Here's the workaround I used: # install Plan 9 user[none]: sys # rio fails to start echo dma on > /dev/sdC0/ctl # run this command immediately! cd /rc/bin mv termrc termrc.was cat > termrc #!/bin/rc echo dma on > /dev/sdC0/ctl ^D cat termrc.was >> termrc diff termrc.was termrc # confirm the edit before removing termrc.was! rm termrc.was fshalt That seemed to work for a fossil-only system. But that 9pcf.gz was necessary to make venti happy. Reading fossil(4), fossilcons(8), and boot(8) really helped to get a good understanding of how the file system is set up at boot. venti(6) and venti(8) provided a good overview of venti. One gotcha, though: you have to read con(1) to find out you can quit fossilcons with control-\ Thanks for the help! -- +---------------------------------------------------------------+ |E-Mail: smi...@zenzebra.mv.com PGP key ID: BC549F8B| |Fingerprint: 9329 DB4A 30F5 6EDA D2BA 3489 DAB7 555A BC54 9F8B| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
