Re: [9fans] bootsetup problem
Martin Neubauer schrieb: If you don't boot from cd you still need to have access to the data that is getting installed. So you can either put the cd image somewhere on the system (this can be a problem if you want to install Plan 9 on the whole hard disc) or download it during installation. I also couldn't quite get the network going from the installer, but I didn't depend on that, anyway. If you boot from cd, just say /dev/sdD0/data. Martin, thank you very much for your helpful answer! Indeed it might be somewhat strange to install plan 9 as a standalone system and I am sure that this is seldom done. At least I have plan 9 on the laptop happily now. Let me describe the problem solution for other users eventually fighting with a similar problem. As you pointed out in your mail, the data must be somewhere in the installation process. That clearly is the CD that one has to mount as /dev/sdD0/data at the installation step "mountdist". But the Installation Manual is wrong as it is saying: "When prompted for "distribution disk" the usual value is /dev/sdD0/data - it is not, that never does work. The usual value must be simply "/" for that case of installation from this mounted CD, say sdD0! But there is another very strange problem I could not believe until I had checked it for reproducibility a couple of times: That "/" at the prompt "distribution disk" does not work the first time!! The first time the familiar sequence /bin/mount: can't open srv/dos: '/srv/dos' file does not exist cp: can't create /n/9fat/9load: '/n/9fat/9load' clone failed cp: can't create /n/9fat/9pcf '/n/9fat/9pcf' clone failed /n/9fat/plan9.ini: rc (bootsetup): can't open: '/n/9fat/plan9.ini' clone failed as described in a former mail will appear again. One has to kill the installation, reboot and run the process a second time, then the input "/" will be accepted and the last task "bootsetup" will come to a happy end. (I always wiped the disk befor starting a new test to make shure that there are no rest of a former installation that will adulterate the result of the experiment.) I do not know what kind of moronic error I did make this time on that point? (As I read out of the mails there are no other users installing/using plan 9 as a stand alone system, so it may be that such a problem does not occur with other setup combinations with plan 9 on a separate partition with windows or linux.) There are some more obscurities I would like to add here: 1. With all that trouble in mind I ask myself if it is not very logic to assume that the source of the actual installation will be the source of the distribution? One of the first messages tells me that plan9 is booting from sdD0, so it is clear that this is known to the system. So I ask myself if such a step of mounting an already for the installation necessarily mounted media is not bare of elementary logic? I would expect that that that installation step mostly might be automated. I think only to question the user for an eventually other source of distribution would make sense, as one may install a new source via internet. 2. Why does the install process offer an XGA monitor as default? VESA is save with nearly all hardware nowadays. VESA as adefault would move away another banana skin of the installation process for non-professionals, especially as VESA is not offered to the user so one must know that possibility. (And it is not described in the "Installation Manual".) So I think VESA should be default with an offer of XGA as an option. 3. The task "formatventi" and the task "copydist" will not be prompted as described in the "Installation Manual" but run automatically and that is a good idea. But the point is that the description is wrong and confusing. (In the case of "formatventi" certainly that will only happen if you chose fossli+venti at the prompt "configfs" and copydist will certainly only run if the process described above was successful.) I am not familiar enough with plan 9 to change that installation processes and do not even know where that boot-script is. But I am bored with all that tawdry/clicky Systems and I am interested in the internals of plan 9. Is there any detailed description to compile plan 9 from source? I think that is a good starting point to understand a system to do some useful. Thanks and regards Bernhard
Re: [9fans] Bitsy's WaveLAN problem
> > you might check out a few of the changes in the pc version of the > > driver. (particularly parsekey.) > > I just tried the PC version of the WaveLAN driver, but it does > not seem to work better. > > Since few hours, I am not able to run the Wi-Fi card anymore, > even with a high timeout. It always crashes as reported in my > first e-mail. A while ago I tried to modify the PC version of the driver to support changing the wep key without resetting the card - functionality that is needed by the 802.1X stuff. I copied what seemed to be the necessary bits from a lunix driver. while I did get it working, I got carried away making other changes inspired by the lunix driver, to the point where I no longer felt like proposing it as a patch. I may help you, though. I put it on sources under contrib/axel/wlanfastkey I think I modified one interface between the driver and its environment to pass through some additional information, which means that it may not be a drop-in replacement. Also, some time has passed since I did this, so it may lack some changes that were made to the original driver. Axel.
Re: [9fans] bootsetup problem
* bblochl ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > Martin, thank you very much for your helpful answer! Indeed it might be > somewhat strange to install plan 9 as a standalone system and I am sure > that this is seldom done. At least I have plan 9 on the laptop happily > now. Let me describe the problem solution for other users eventually > fighting with a similar problem. I started out with a small installation on a spare partition of a laptop to get the hang of the system. Later I set up a standalone file server I can boot a terminal from (usually said laptop.) This can be regarded as the normal mode of operation. The installation never gave me trouble in either case. > As you pointed out in your mail, the data must be somewhere in the > installation process. That clearly is the CD that one has to mount as > /dev/sdD0/data at the installation step "mountdist". But the > Installation Manual is wrong as it is saying: > "When prompted for "distribution disk" the usual value is /dev/sdD0/data > - it is not, that never does work. The usual value must be simply "/" > for that case of installation from this mounted CD, say sdD0! Using /dev/sdD0/data worked for me. Did you actually try it? > There are some more obscurities I would like to add here: > > 1. With all that trouble in mind I ask myself if it is not very logic to > assume that the source of the actual installation will be the source of > the distribution? One of the first messages tells me that plan9 is > booting from sdD0, so it is clear that this is known to the system. All that is known to the system at that point is that there is a drive sdD0 with a boot image you are using to start the system. > So I > ask myself if such a step of mounting an already for the installation > necessarily mounted media is not bare of elementary logic? The distribution media isn't already mounted. > I would > expect that that that installation step mostly might be automated. I > think only to question the user for an eventually other source of > distribution would make sense, as one may install a new source via > internet. You could also start the installer from a boot floppy. In that case you have to provide some access to the distribution. (And to the system booting from cd looks essentially the same as booting from floppy.) You also might want to reuse a cd for booting and get the current distribution by other means. (Blank cd-r's are damn cheap nowadays, though.) > 2. Why does the install process offer an XGA monitor as default? VESA is > save with nearly all hardware nowadays. VESA as adefault would move away > another banana skin of the installation process for non-professionals, > especially as VESA is not offered to the user so one must know that > possibility. (And it is not described in the "Installation Manual".) So > I think VESA should be default with an offer of XGA as an option. That's partially a historic development as I think the vesa driver is a fairly late addition. Also if I recall correctly, it will turn off all hardware acceleration for the graphics. (I'm not sure about the details as I didn't use it.) > 3. The task "formatventi" and the task "copydist" will not be prompted > as described in the "Installation Manual" but run automatically and that > is a good idea. But the point is that the description is wrong and > confusing. (In the case of "formatventi" certainly that will only happen > if you chose fossli+venti at the prompt "configfs" and copydist will > certainly only run if the process described above was successful.) That's somewhat strange. The last time I installed a system the prompt was there in both cases. (As they should. The opportunity to revisit previous steps at any stage is a big win.) Are you sure the distribution is actually copied? Martin
Re: [9fans] Bitsy's WaveLAN problem
> I copied what seemed to be the necessary bits from a lunix driver. > while I did get it working, I got carried away making other changes > inspired by the lunix driver, to the point where I no longer felt > like proposing it as a patch. I may help you, though. > I put it on sources under contrib/axel/wlanfastkey i don't understand. if it adds 802.1x stuff, and fixes bugs why should it not be submitted? - erik
Re: [9fans] Bitsy's WaveLAN problem
On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 1:49 PM, erik quanstrom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I copied what seemed to be the necessary bits from a lunix driver. > > while I did get it working, I got carried away making other changes > > inspired by the lunix driver, to the point where I no longer felt > > like proposing it as a patch. I may help you, though. > > I put it on sources under contrib/axel/wlanfastkey > > i don't understand. if it adds 802.1x stuff, and fixes bugs > why should it not be submitted? > > - erik > Maybe OS advocacy had gone to levels where the notion of adding things from other OS is frowned upon by those who did it, regardless of the code in question... -- Paul Lasek
Re: [9fans] bootsetup problem
Martin Neubauer schrieb: I started out with a small installation on a spare partition of a laptop to get the hang of the system. Later I set up a standalone file server I can boot a terminal from (usually said laptop.) This can be regarded as the normal mode of operation. The installation never gave me trouble in either case. "My" trouble just begins at the task "Locate and mount the distribution archive" or to be correct at the prompt for the "distribution disk". Before that point everything is running "flush". Using /dev/sdD0/data worked for me. Did you actually try it? One must decide between the prompt "mountdisk", where the input "/dev/sdD0/data" is correct and the prompt "distribution disk" that follows up, where the input "/dev/sdD0/data" will never be accepted (at least in my configuration). I tried that many times for hours over hours with many different test assemblies, bacause I blindly trusted the "Installation Instructions". Well, I have explained in detail that I did more than one trials to make shure that this is reproducible. Let me repeat that the only successful and by the system accepted input (in my case) is simply "/". May be that there is a difference between installing on a separate partition and the one I did on a complete Harddrive. I really do not understand what is wrong and I cannot fix the source of "my" problem. (I use an old acer travelmate 220 with a Mobile Intel Celeron 1.33 GHz with a 20 GB harddisk - I forgot the manufacturer in the installation process it will be printed on the screen. And as a historical curiosity it really has a floppy drive!) Not to forget that the input to "distribution disk" did not work the first time at all and always needs a second run (in my case!). May be the problem I described here is very unique for my case of a stand alone installation of plan 9. If you do not believe me give me advices for test assemblies and experiments if you plan to fix the source of the problem. It is not a problem to install plan 9 again, because in the meantime after hours I can do that blindly. All that is known to the system at that point is that there is a drive sdD0 with a boot image you are using to start the system. I agree that this is the only thing the system knows at that state of installation, but that is very many. If I trust the "Installation Instructions" ( I have not tried) the installer assumes that the CD-Drive is on the second IDE master and also assumes that this is the boot device. (That usually is the case by default settings of todays Bios.) In any other case (so the "Installation Ins'tructions") you will see the following error: Unknown boot device: sdD0!cdboot!9pcflop.gz Boot device: fd0 boot from: Than there is given a recipe for the case the CD is not the second IDE master.. And than there is given more text: If you find yourself at a "boot from:" prompt or a "root is from:" prompt, it is likely that the bootstrap program has not detected your floppy drive. See installation Troubleshooting (a link). I repeat this in this extension to point out explicitely that in any case the system knows where it is booting from! It is very, very likely that that device is the distribution disk with the archive as well. The distribution media isn't already mounted. That is absolutely true. But as I (or say the "Installation Instructions") explained that the system knows from where it was booted (see above) it can mount that drive automatically by a simple script. That is what I have in mind. (In the case your archive is on another device you may tell this the system by an option.) Just now there is made a rule aout of an exception. You could also start the installer from a boot floppy. In that case you have to provide some access to the distribution. (And to the system booting from cd looks essentially the same as booting from floppy.) You also might want to reuse a cd for booting and get the current distribution by other means. (Blank cd-r's are damn cheap nowadays, though.) As I (or say "Installation Instructions") explained above, that the system always know the device it is booted from! Booting from floppy cannot happen "incognito", even if the Bios has the floppy set as a boot device. I would say that getting the archive from another place is an exeption that must be made possible by an option. The rule is the archive on the boot device . (May be I am wrong.) 2. Why does the install process offer an XGA monitor as default? VESA is save with nearly all hardware nowadays. VESA as adefault would move away another banana skin of the installation process for non-professionals, especially as VESA is not offered to the user so one must know that possibility. (And it is not described in the "Installation Manual".) So I think VESA should be default with an offer of XGA as an option. That's partially a historic development as I think the vesa driver is a fairly late addit
Re: [9fans] Bitsy's WaveLAN problem
> > > I copied what seemed to be the necessary bits from a lunix driver. > > > while I did get it working, I got carried away making other changes > > > inspired by the lunix driver, to the point where I no longer felt > > > like proposing it as a patch. I may help you, though. > > > I put it on sources under contrib/axel/wlanfastkey > > > > i don't understand. if it adds 802.1x stuff, and fixes bugs > > why should it not be submitted? too much gratious change, too much copy/paste hacking, too little insight, (too little cleanup?) > Maybe OS advocacy had gone to levels where the notion of adding things > from other OS is frowned upon by those who did it, regardless of the > code in question... lack of confidence about quality of result, especially when I saw more ether errors than I remembered seeing before. "it seemed to work" does not feel so convincing. Axel.
Re: [9fans] Bitsy's WaveLAN problem
I thought this might be a hardware problem, but it does not seem to be the case. I tried the Lucent ORiNOCO Classic Gold PC Card on my Slackware Linux laptop, and it seems to work fine with the "orinoco" driver. The driver load without any problem. I can scan and connect to an essid. Even the lights are switched on. However, it would be a hardware problem from the iPaq PCMCIA sleeve. I will probably buy another to confirm that. -- David du Colombier
Re: [9fans] Bitsy's WaveLAN problem
> I thought this might be a hardware problem, but it does not seem to be the > case. > > I tried the Lucent ORiNOCO Classic Gold PC Card on my Slackware Linux > laptop, and it seems to work fine with the "orinoco" driver. The > driver load without any problem. I can scan and connect to an essid. > Even the lights are switched on. > > However, it would be a hardware problem from the iPaq PCMCIA sleeve. > I will probably buy another to confirm that. do you have a single or double slot sleeve? the double slot sleeve needs extra code to work -- hmm... if you would have such one it wouldn't have worked at all and you mentioned that it has somewhat worked, thus, single sleeve?
Re: [9fans] Bitsy's WaveLAN problem
> do you have a single or double slot sleeve? > the double slot sleeve needs extra code to work -- > hmm... if you would have such one it wouldn't have worked at all > and you mentioned that it has somewhat worked, thus, single sleeve? I have a single slot sleeve since I seen before on this mailing list that the double sleeve is not supported. It worked two or three times yesterday. I was able to connect to the Access Point, but I was not able to ping other machines. The first time, the kernel crashed 30 seconds after. Since, I tried many times, and it does not work anymore. bitsy# echo -n 'configure #l0 wavelan' > /dev/pcm0ctl echo: write error: couldn't configure device The cause of this problem was identified in my second e-mail, after many print debugging. It was caused by the function w_cmd() in the file /sys/src/9/bitsy/wavelan.c. When it worked, I was using a timeout of 10. Even with the same kernel and ramdisk, sometimes it works (very rarely), often it won't works. -- David du Colombier
Re: [9fans] Bitsy's WaveLAN problem
I made two log files of messages displayed on the serial console by Plan 9 during the boot on the iPaq. The first file [1] is Wi-Fi "working" (but cannot ping, as described before), the second [2] is Wi-Fi not working. They used exactly the same kernel and the same ramdisk. There should be only few minutes between them. On these logs, you can see some of the print result I used to find the problem. "second", "third", "fourth"... are the second, third, fourth... "return -1" in the function. Sometimes, messages are broken by others. [1] http://www.9grid.fr/misc/plan9/ipaq_h3650/log/con.yes [2] http://www.9grid.fr/misc/plan9/ipaq_h3650/log/con.no -- David du Colombier
Re: [9fans] Glenda transparent PNGs
On Wed, Aug 22, 2007 at 4:27 AM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The goal was to add drawterm to the OS X dock with a nice icon, which > turned out to be more difficult than it should be. I decided I wanted to use this icon on my dock in OS X and found these instructions. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304735 . It would be nice if this were added programatically as the binary is built but this will do. Ian
Re: [9fans] bootsetup problem
Martin Neubauer schrieb: Using /dev/sdD0/data worked for me. Did you actually try it? I am sorry I made a mistake in the last posting. i used the word decide instead of distinguish! So the text could be misinterpreted. Please read One must decide distinguish between the prompt "mountdisk", where the input "/dev/sdD0/data" is correct and the prompt "distribution disk" that follows up, where the input "/dev/sdD0/data" will never be accepted (at least in my configuration).. Some additional infos to the VESA-Standard, I think is good to know: The reason for the failure save function of the VESA standard is the VESA BIOS extension (VBE), so most PCs have the VESA on board. VBE may be implemented in hardware or in software. Some video cards that do not support VESA natively carriy a particular additional hardware for VESA. With some software even proprietary hardware will work in standard software. So I am convinced that VESA as a standard (and others a s options) is an absolutely safe bet. Sorry for my strange English! Bernhard
Re: [9fans] 9P support for MC
On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 8:02 PM, Enrico Weigelt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'd just want to let you know I've added 9P support to the > Midnight Commander (via libmvfs + libmixp). Is that read/write or just read? Ian
[9fans] upas/fs rfc 2047 encoding
is there any reason that upas/fs does rfc2047 translation for the files "header" and "info" but not for files like "cc", "bcc", "subject", &c? is this something that some tools depend on? i don't think that marshal does since it encodes subjects typed directly at it. - erik
[9fans] ms problem
Hello. The just-updated ms macro set for troff has a problem: if you
use .P1 and .P2, you have an .IP followed by an .RE, which winds up
doing nothing, so the indent stays. Try it out.
.PP
The following...
.P1
abc()
{
def;
}
.P2
\&...etc.
The ...etc. doesn't go back. I don't know how to fix this problem
other than to revert back to the previous ms.
- Pietro
[9fans] /n/sources/patch/spamhaus
please don't, or at least check spf before spamhaus. the quality of their data is at best questionable, and there is no (usable) way to correct it.
Re: [9fans] /n/sources/patch/spamhaus
> the quality of their data is at best questionable, as is their rationale
Re: [9fans] /n/sources/patch/spamhaus
as i was saying ... Your request ``mail net!quanstro.net quanstro '' failed (code smtp 2838130: Permanent Failure). The symptom was: Mon May 12 21:57:03 BST 2008 connect to net!quanstro.net: 554 5.7.1 rejected: spamhaus: sh policy ===> 2/ (message/rfc822) [inline] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: re: [9fans] /n/sources/patch/spamhaus From: Charles Forsyth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 21:56:46 +0100 > what leads you to say spamhaus's data is questionable? well, i'm now on the list for the simple reason that i got a different cable modem, which prompted a new IP address.
Re: [9fans] /n/sources/patch/spamhaus
what's a better idea. having an extra 6400 spam emails is the problem. how to i solve this without using spamhaus? - erik On Mon May 12 18:32:04 EDT 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > as i was saying ... > > Your request ``mail net!quanstro.net quanstro '' failed (code smtp 2838130: > Permanent Failure). > The symptom was: > > Mon May 12 21:57:03 BST 2008 connect to net!quanstro.net: > 554 5.7.1 rejected: spamhaus: sh policy > > ===> 2/ (message/rfc822) [inline] > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: re: [9fans] /n/sources/patch/spamhaus > From: Charles Forsyth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 21:56:46 +0100 > > > what leads you to say spamhaus's data is questionable? > > well, i'm now on the list for the simple reason that i got a different > cable modem, which prompted a new IP address.
Re: [9fans] /n/sources/patch/spamhaus
Can you send mail to, for example, gmail.com addresses? I found myself in the same situation months ago (I host my email at home): my mail was bloked by almost every server. Althrought I'd like it to be different, blacklists are quite effective blocking spam. It's the best solution as long as we continue using SMTP. In the end I ended up using my ISP's SMTP server as 'smarthost' to send mail. Charles Forsyth escribió: as i was saying ... Your request ``mail net!quanstro.net quanstro '' failed (code smtp 2838130: Permanent Failure). The symptom was: Mon May 12 21:57:03 BST 2008 connect to net!quanstro.net: 554 5.7.1 rejected: spamhaus: sh policy ===> 2/ (message/rfc822) [inline] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: re: [9fans] /n/sources/patch/spamhaus From: Charles Forsyth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 21:56:46 +0100 what leads you to say spamhaus's data is questionable? well, i'm now on the list for the simple reason that i got a different cable modem, which prompted a new IP address.
[9fans] ext2srv
9fans, I have hacked ext2srv to support symlinks so that now, when resolving a name, a walk will present the client with the file pointed to by the link, not the link itself. In hope for it to be useful to someone I have put it under /n/sources/contrib/iru/ext2srv.tgz iru
Re: [9fans] /n/sources/patch/spamhaus
// Althrought I'd like it to be different, blacklists are quite effective // blocking spam. It's the best solution as long as we continue using SMTP. This entirely depends how you prioritize things. If "best" and "effective" are measured on what percentage of spam emails get blocked, yes, services like spamhaus can be very effective, possibly the most effective (short of drastic things like turning off smtp). The problem in the real world is that "best" and "effective" also have to incorporate a measure of legitimate emails blocked; in those metrics, spamhaus does fairly poorly. It's the same problem with all the net's vigilante groups: as Charles said, there's no good way to contest or correct the data (nor, in many cases, to find out what got you listed). Things like SPF don't catch as much spam (yet; it'll improve as the acceptance improves), but have a very attractive false hit rate. // In the end I ended up using my ISP's SMTP server as 'smarthost' // to send mail. This is what I'm doing now, since many of these folks assume that everyone on the end of a DSL or cable line are spammers, and many provide no way for me to tell them I'm not. It sucks; my ISPs mail server is okay, but certainly not 100% reliable, and adds another hop I'd rather not worry about. Anthony
Re: [9fans] /n/sources/patch/spamhaus
> please don't, or at least check spf before spamhaus. > the quality of their data is at best questionable, > and there is no (usable) way to correct it. the problem is that spf only validates that the sender is an allowed sender. this is ineffective against backscatter attacks. i've gotten as many as 500 backscatter spam in 4 hrs. so this is a significant issue for me. - erik
Re: [9fans] /n/sources/patch/spamhaus
i agree that spamhaus is a big hammer. i'm open to suggestions. preferably ones that do not require daily maintence. > Things like SPF don't catch as much spam (yet; it'll improve as the > acceptance improves), but have a very attractive false hit rate. the rate just isn't good enough for me. here's a tabulation of date, total rejections (other than invalid helo -- that would add another zero to the first column) and spf rejections over the past 4 days for me: May 9 335 0 May 10 237 2 May 11 137 0 May 12 140 2 unfortunately, 2 of the spf rejections were actually 451's due to dns timeout. (one thing i forgot to mention before is that spf does not protect against bots sending through legit (according to spf) mail servers.) spf can be a very good tool. around apr 15th, spf was pretty good at bouncing email proporting to be from irs.gov that was not caught by spamhaus. > This is what I'm doing now, since many of these folks assume that > everyone on the end of a DSL or cable line are spammers, and many > provide no way for me to tell them I'm not. It sucks; my ISPs mail > server is okay, but certainly not 100% reliable, and adds another > hop I'd rather not worry about. i've successfully gotten static cidrs off spamhaus' black lists. i believe they have a link right off their home page. - erik
[9fans] Glenda transparent PNGs
On Wed, Aug 22, 2007 at 4:27 AM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The goal was to add drawterm to the OS X dock with a nice icon, which > turned out to be more difficult than it should be. I decided I wanted to use this icon on my dock in OS X and found these instructions. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304735 . It would be nice if this were added programatically as the binary is built but this will do. Ian
Re: [9fans] ext2srv
thanks iru! On 5/12/08, Iruata Souza <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 9fans, > > I have hacked ext2srv to support symlinks so that now, when resolving > a name, a walk will present the client with the file pointed to by the > link, not the link itself. > In hope for it to be useful to someone I have put it under > /n/sources/contrib/iru/ext2srv.tgz > > iru > > -- Federico G. Benavento
Re: [9fans] /n/sources/patch/spamhaus
The botnets have ruined the sandbox forever. On 5/12/2008 18:34, Charles Forsyth wrote: > well, i'm now on the list for the simple reason that i got a different > cable modem, which prompted a new IP address. The solution for people on dynamic addresses (typically with some generic and non-matching PTR record, though I haven't checked yours) is likely to relay out through your ISP's mail server. ~JasonG, who even while possessing a static IP, suffers from having it in the middle of a "dynamic range", also has a non-matching PTR, and yes, does experience deliverability issues from time to time. --
