Adding pcdist to CD-ROM file system?

[steve@plan9.ecf.toronto.edu steve@plan9.ecf.toronto.edu]

some time ago, "Luther Huffman" <lutherh@mail.infinet.com> wrote:

> After a few days of reconfiguring my ATAPI CD-ROM drive, I managed to 
> get the Plan 9 CD-ROM to install (at last!). Everything works fine 
> except I would like to have the TRIO64 VGA drivers that were 
> available on the diskettes but not present on the CD-ROM. 
>    My question is, how can I *safely* install some or all of the 
> files from the updated diskettes onto my brand new Plan 9 system? 
> I've got a vague idea how but I'd really hate to nuke my hard-won 
> file system tinkering in things I only THINK I understand.
>    Any advice from someone who's been there.

It's best to do it in the opposite order ... install the pcdist first,
and then merge in the cdrom files. I just added the following to the faq:

Subject: How can I install only part of the CDROM?

The cdrom has about 375Meg of files on it, but if you are short on disk space
you can install with much less than that. Each of the toplevel
architecture-specific directories takes up over 40Meg, so if you only have PC's
you can save over 140Meg by simply not installing /mips, /sparc and /68020. If
you don't need the source in /sys/src (shame on you), you'll save 43Meg.

The pcdist disks at ftp://plan9.att.com/plan9/pcdist contain bugfixes that are
not on the CDROM, and some of the fixes are not yet available in source form
either. If you are installing on a pc, it is probably easiest to install the
pcdist first, and then merge in whatever you want from the cdrom.

If you use mkfs to copy the cdrom, you can make sure you don't overwrite files
that were fixed on the pcdist. You can use the following steps to load the
entire cdrom except /mips, /sparc and /68020 on a standalone pc. First, install
the latest pcdist using the standard installation procedure. Next, mount the
cdrom [this assumes scsi cdrom at device 4]

 % 9660srv
 % disk/kfscmd allow
 % mkdir /n/cd
 % mount /srv/9660 /n/cd '#R4/cd4'

Use the following to copy the filesystem rooted at /n/cd (the cdrom) to /n/kfs
(the local PC filesystem), according to the proto file /tmp/386allproto, and
without overwriting any files that are on the pcdist.

 % /n/cd/386/bin/disk/mkfs -v -s /n/cd /tmp/386allproto

Where /tmp/386allproto is the following mkfs proto file:

acme
        +
adm
        +
cron
        +
lib
        +
mail
        +
mnt
        +
rc
        +
sys
        +
usr
        +
386
        +