Trouble setting up a network

[Brian L. Stuart stuart@colossus.mathcs.rhodes.edu]

I have several questions about setting up a Plan 9 network:

1. Do I understand correctly that if I don't already have a
network set up, that to install a file server on a PC, I really
need 2 PCs, one with the CD drive and one where the FS will
reside?  Or is there a way to be running on a stand-alone
PC and build the file server's file system from the CD on
that machine.  (Believe it or not, I actually have only one
PC in the lab; it's mostly SPARCs and an Alpha.)

2. If I have a network running using a u9fs file server, can
I use mkfs to install to a PC file server instead of using the
floppy based install?

3. Now the biggie.  I must really be missing something basic
here.  When I try to boot a SPARC terminal (or a CPU server),
the code downloads (for the terminal the count runs to 7ea00),
but that's all that happens.  I've tried this on several machines.
Some kick the cursor down to the next line and hang completely,
others keep the cursor at the end of the number and do nothing
except respond to ^t^tr.  I've tried this on IPCs and SPARC 2s,
and on the IPCs, I've tried it with bwtwo and cgthree video
controllers.  If I understand the documentation correctly,
it should ask about where to find the root before it even
tries to talk to a file server, and the u9fs server I have
running doesn't seem to get any requests.  Also from the code,
it looks like screeninit() should be clearing the screen but
it's not.  It would appear that the kernel is not recognizing
the machine or the video, but I can't figure out what I've
screwed up.

Thanks in advance,
Brian L. Stuart
Math/CS Dept, Rhodes College, Memphis, TN
stuart@mathcs.rhodes.edu
http://www.mathcs.rhodes.edu/~stuart