Hallo everyone,
I found a few problems installing/using ELKS on an Amstrad PPC640 and I could
not solve all of them. I also have some additional trouble in a xdos window
(dosemu 0.98-8).
Here is a description of what I did and which problems I encountered, I did not
find the solution in the documentation.
first of all, I downloaded ELKS and dev86 (did I download anything more? can't
recall). anyhow, I compiled the kernel and put it on a floppy according to the
documentation. This all worked very well. At this stage my PPC was asking for
a root filesystem to mount but I could not execute all steps leading to a
mountable one. after a few evenings trying, reading, thinking and retrying I
settled for the solution already present in 'comb', included in the images
zipfile. is there an easy way to produce it automagically here?
Well, after downloading the images zipfile and copying the comb on a 720kb
diskette, I was able to boot ELKS (but I call it Linuxino, a self explaining
term to my friends) on my almost forgotten PPC640.
now the problems:
1) I haven't got any electric memory in that system, so it always starts timing
at 1970-01-01(0:00). Isn't this a common problem on such old systems? can a
question be added into init so that if it sees that the date isn't set, it
prompts for it? It should not take much more than 120 bytes, I guess.
2) as a user, I can't mount /dev/fd1. I have to do it as root.
3) how do I get rid of user[1-6]? I don't need them!!!
4) I would like to have passwords, I compiled passwd for elks but the changes
it makes to /etc/passwd make that file unusable to login. do I need a different
login? if so, I'm back to the root filesystem problem.
5) I compiled elvis and it does run. well, this is a bit of an exaggeration:
undo doesn't work and sometimes I have to kill the process from my root
session. after this, I get no more echo to the console where I was running
elvis. I can do exit and login again.
6) I can't use wildcards when removing files.
this is specific to xdos (dosemu):
7) the cursor keeps blinking at one position on the screen, around (0,19). I
can do whatever I want, everything works but the cursor stays there. [the
console version of dosemu does better]. this problem is not present if I boot
MSDOS.
I read that the problem with ever spinning drives was fixed. this might be a
good reason to download the new version.
I am willing to write some documentation on how to solve these problems. but
first I need to know how to solve them.
thanks in advance,
Mario Frasca.
