RE: ELKS 0.0.78 released
At 09:42 AM 7/20/99 +0100, Luke (boo) Farrar wrote: >On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, Dan Olson wrote: >> A few of us had this exact same problem on PS/2 machines, and I believe >> the problem ended up not being the disk drive but rather the keyboard not >> being detected. A simple test, if you can do it, would be to try the >> combo boot/root image, and see if it hangs or not. Sence you are using >> 5.25" disks (right?) I take it you don't have a PS/2 as they came with >> 720k drives. I believe the combo image requires at least 720k disk space, >> so if you have a machine that can read a 720k disk, it may be a good test. >> Hope this helps, good luck. >> > >I just tried it and found the same thing on a ps2. It's the keyboard that >it has a problem with. With the comb image it mounts the root disk fine, >runs init fine, then you can't login because of the keyboard. > OK, I tried booting from the 720k disk image on my P-120. It works fine. Surprisingly, it uses a PS/2 style keyboard (with the narrow mini-DIM connector). I tried RaWriting the 360k images to 2 other disks I found and it still doesn't work on the XT clone (with the fat DIN keyboard connector) I really can't diagnose what's going on here, since I'm a ChemEng by training and don't know the first thing about OS design. I do remember getting to log in on the same machine back when the version number was something like 0.68. so I think the machine is OK. I don't even have access to a Linux machine at work to make new images myself. I'm just hoping to put some of the old 8086/8 and 80286 machines back to work, and the limit of my contributions to the project is trying to use the new images and letting the list know when something isn't working for me. Thanks, Jeff
RE: ELKS 0.0.78 released
: I can tell you that it won't work. I know this because I wrote it :) Al : fixed a small part of it a while ago, but afaik, it still doesn't work : properly. Feel free to debug it if you want though, it's fairly simple to : navigate through the source. : If anyone wants another bios kbd reader that works, you can check out my bios code in microwindows mwin/src/drivers/kbd_bios.c and elksutil.c Of course this code would have to be replaced into the bioscon.c kernel code. Greg
RE: ELKS 0.0.78 released
: > What is so special about ps/2 keyboards? : : They have blue electrons running thru their chips :-) : That's true. Normal electrons are greenish-gold.
Re: ELKS 0.0.78 released
On Tue, 20 Jul 1999, Blaz Antonic wrote: > I have already suggested to use BIOS console instead of direct one on > PS/2 machines long time ago, but noone tried it. > > So, disable dircon and enable bioscon support in config, recompile and > try again. Please let us know whether it works or not (in case it does > it should be added to the faq). I can tell you that it won't work. I know this because I wrote it :) Al fixed a small part of it a while ago, but afaik, it still doesn't work properly. Feel free to debug it if you want though, it's fairly simple to navigate through the source. Davey
Re: ELKS 0.0.78 released
> I just tried it and found the same thing on a ps2. It's the keyboard that > it has a problem with. With the comb image it mounts the root disk fine, > runs init fine, then you can't login because of the keyboard. I have already suggested to use BIOS console instead of direct one on PS/2 machines long time ago, but noone tried it. DOS uses BIOS IMO and if DOS works ELKS should work too. So, disable dircon and enable bioscon support in config, recompile and try again. Please let us know whether it works or not (in case it does it should be added to the faq). > What is so special about ps/2 keyboards? They have blue electrons running thru their chips :-) bye, Ab
RE: ELKS 0.0.78 released
On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, Dan Olson wrote: > A few of us had this exact same problem on PS/2 machines, and I believe > the problem ended up not being the disk drive but rather the keyboard not > being detected. A simple test, if you can do it, would be to try the > combo boot/root image, and see if it hangs or not. Sence you are using > 5.25" disks (right?) I take it you don't have a PS/2 as they came with > 720k drives. I believe the combo image requires at least 720k disk space, > so if you have a machine that can read a 720k disk, it may be a good test. > Hope this helps, good luck. > I just tried it and found the same thing on a ps2. It's the keyboard that it has a problem with. With the comb image it mounts the root disk fine, runs init fine, then you can't login because of the keyboard. What is so special about ps/2 keyboards? Luke(Boo) Farrar. > Dan > > > On Thu, 15 Jul 1999, Jeff Stanton wrote: > > The problem is that the system does not mount the root disk (AFAIK) I let > > it spin the root disk for 5 minutes after pressing enter, but nothing > > happens. But since it works for you, it's probably a problem with my > > disks. I found another pair of disks, and will try it again tomorrow. > > -Jeff > > >
RE: ELKS 0.0.78 released
A few of us had this exact same problem on PS/2 machines, and I believe the problem ended up not being the disk drive but rather the keyboard not being detected. A simple test, if you can do it, would be to try the combo boot/root image, and see if it hangs or not. Sence you are using 5.25" disks (right?) I take it you don't have a PS/2 as they came with 720k drives. I believe the combo image requires at least 720k disk space, so if you have a machine that can read a 720k disk, it may be a good test. Hope this helps, good luck. Dan On Thu, 15 Jul 1999, Jeff Stanton wrote: > The problem is that the system does not mount the root disk (AFAIK) I let > it spin the root disk for 5 minutes after pressing enter, but nothing > happens. But since it works for you, it's probably a problem with my > disks. I found another pair of disks, and will try it again tomorrow. > -Jeff >
Re: ELKS 0.0.78 released
> > The drive light never goes off on my system either, but ELKS 0.77 runs > fine. Is your problem that ELKS doesn't work, or with the drive light? > > Greg > Hello to everybody. I've been following the list from June. It's the first time I write. I have high hopes about ELKS because I have an old 286 and I'd like to make it work for maintenance purposes: looking inside routers and so on via serial port, or even getting the mail via slip from the "big brother" linux, in the future. ( Am I asking too much ? ) I have the same problem reported above: I boot my laptop with the "boot" diskette and when I get the "VFS: Inser root floppy and press ENTER" I do it, but my PC hangs. But if I insert the "root" floppy when ELKS is still detecting the hardware, and it finds the right one without asking, it completes the init. Yes, the floppy drive keeps on spinning until I log in and issue a command (sometimes). I got warnings and errors also compiling elkscmd but I suspect that's my fault. Cheerio, Marco. [Hope my english isn't that awful]
RE: ELKS 0.0.78 released
At 12:16 PM 7/15/99 -0600, Greg Haerr wrote: > >: I downloaded the images.zip and used RaWrite to pu them on 5 1/4" floppies >: from my Win95 machine. I took them down to the basement and fired up an >: old XT clone. Boot messages appear normal (it identifies 2 floppies and 1 >: HDD), but when it asks for the root floppy, the drive light never goes off. >: I tried swapping disks and pressing enter, but the system hangs there. >: Has anyone else found this? It may be bad floppies, since the same thing >: happened when I tried it on another XT clone. I'll try it again as soon as >: I find two more 5 1/4 disks. > > The drive light never goes off on my system either, but ELKS 0.77 runs >fine. Is your problem that ELKS doesn't work, or with the drive light? > The problem is that the system does not mount the root disk (AFAIK) I let it spin the root disk for 5 minutes after pressing enter, but nothing happens. But since it works for you, it's probably a problem with my disks. I found another pair of disks, and will try it again tomorrow. -Jeff
RE: ELKS 0.0.78 released
: I downloaded the images.zip and used RaWrite to pu them on 5 1/4" floppies : from my Win95 machine. I took them down to the basement and fired up an : old XT clone. Boot messages appear normal (it identifies 2 floppies and 1 : HDD), but when it asks for the root floppy, the drive light never goes off. : I tried swapping disks and pressing enter, but the system hangs there. : Has anyone else found this? It may be bad floppies, since the same thing : happened when I tried it on another XT clone. I'll try it again as soon as : I find two more 5 1/4 disks. The drive light never goes off on my system either, but ELKS 0.77 runs fine. Is your problem that ELKS doesn't work, or with the drive light? Greg : -Jeff
Re: ELKS 0.0.78 released
>ELKS version 0.0.78 has been released and is available from >ftp://ftp.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pub/elks/elks-0.0.78/. linux.mit.edu currently >has a full disk which prevented me from uploading there. > I downloaded the images.zip and used RaWrite to pu them on 5 1/4" floppies from my Win95 machine. I took them down to the basement and fired up an old XT clone. Boot messages appear normal (it identifies 2 floppies and 1 HDD), but when it asks for the root floppy, the drive light never goes off. I tried swapping disks and pressing enter, but the system hangs there. Has anyone else found this? It may be bad floppies, since the same thing happened when I tried it on another XT clone. I'll try it again as soon as I find two more 5 1/4 disks. -Jeff
ELKS 0.0.78 released
ELKS version 0.0.78 has been released and is available from ftp://ftp.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pub/elks/elks-0.0.78/. linux.mit.edu currently has a full disk which prevented me from uploading there. The release consists of the following files:- elks-0.0.78.tar.gz - Kernel source elks-0.0.78.diff.gz - Kernel diffs elkscmd-0.0.78.tar.gz - User command source elkscmd-0.0.78.diff.gz - User command diffs images.zip - Pre-compiled disk images System.map.gz - System map of pre-compiled kernel The main features of this release are fixes to serious bugs which prevented programs from having more than 32K of data, and corrupted their data segments. In addition various areas of the kernel have been updated and enhanced. See RELNOTES in the kernel source for full details. Please note that the compiled kernel image now ends up in arch/i86/boot/Image to ease architecture independance. Many thanks to Greg Haerr, Blaz Antonic and Simon Wood for their contributions to this release. Please send bug reports and success stories to the mailing list as usual. Al
