Install help please

[Jeff Bryer jeff-p9@watson.mbb.sfu.ca]

Hello all,

I just joined this list a day or two ago and I'm really new to
the whole concept of Plan9.  I actually found out about it a
week ago, discovered that our University had a license for it
and yesterday I started installing it.

For background on myself, I'm fairly familiar with SunOS 4.1.x
and Solaris 2.x both as a user and an administrator.  I'm learning
that's there's a substantial amount different with Plan9 but
it has some really great ideas.

What I want to do is to install Plan9 on to our SparcStation 2.
The Sparc2 will run Plan9 exclusively.  I also want to put
it onto a couple of PC's but they will primarily run DOS
(not my choice) so they will only boot Plan9 when I want to play 
with them.  I don't have any other machines to put Plan9 on
(and the Sparc2 will be the only one running it all the time).

After spending quite a bit of time, I've managed to get Plan9
unpacked off the CDROM onto one of my 486DX-33s.  I should say
that I'm using the 4 disk set off AT&T's Plan9 WWW site and 1995
CDROM.  First I discovered that the Adaptec 152x was not supported.
(My CDROM is SCSI.)  (When will the 152x be supported?)   So I pulled a 
1542b out of another system.  After a few hours of messing around
I discovered that Plan9 didn't like that card either (Bios v3.10 from
1988 - maybe it's too old??).  I then stole a 1542c out of another
system and that worked fine.  Except that the 497MB IDE hard drive
that I had intended to put Plan9, I discovered wasn't big enough.
The install procedure complained that I needed to free another 26MBs.
The drive was completely empty (no partitions even) so there was no
way I could make it bigger.  So I moved to yet another machine that
had a SCSI hard drive (640MB) that was until yesterday running Win95
(I was more than happy to replace Win95 with Plan9).  

So after having to open 4 systems, I do have Plan9 working a 486DX-33. 
I haven't done anything with setting it up as a CPU server or a file server.
I don't think I should do that seeing as how I won't be using these
as Plan9 systems all the time, correct??  I'm a bit unsure how to
progress now.  I know that I need to boot my Sparc via the net off
of the PC install server.  And to do that I need to edit the
/lib/ndb/local file.  I have figured out sam enough to edit a copy
of the file but I don't understand how to get authorization to
write a file to /lib/ndb (I'm logged in as tor).  I understand that
there is no concept of a superuser but I'm at a loss how to
gain authorization.  Do I have to convert the PC into an authenication
server?  Do I need to wipe my filesystems on my Sparc or will the
Plan9 installation overwrite them (I only want Plan9 on the Sparc -
is it even possible to have Plan9 and SunOS (or Solaris) to coexist
on a Sparc?)?  I also want to install Plan9 on to the 486DX-33 that
I first tried to install on (the one with the 497MB IDE drive) over
the net from the SCSI PC install server.

If anyone can help me out (pointers to places in the manual, pointers
to other places, instructions), thanks alot.

Jeff

Jeff Bryer                 | "Maybe VR.12 turns you into Fabio."
jeff-p9@watson.mbb.sfu.ca  |   -Duncan in Parallel Lives (VR.5)