[9fans] plan9 on vmware

[jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com]

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The new ATA driver which we hope to have in the coming release
doesn't attempt to set read-ahead. It's also more careful about
dealing with errors.

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Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 18:54:42 -0500
From: David Bulkow <dbul@earthlink.net>
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Subject: [9fans] plan9 on vmware
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I have finally managed to boot Plan9 in a VMware configuration.  The problem I
ran into was the IDE driver attempting to set "read ahead mode".  After the
command to set the feature, the IDE device status register indicates an error -
the error register indicates Abort.  Once the abort error is posted, the driver
can no longer access the device and the boot fails.

I did not attempt to fix the problem correctly, but instead took a short cut and

commented out the call which sets read ahead mode.  Performance appears
acceptable.

In boot/pc/hard.c comment out the call to hardsetbuf().  In 9/pc/devata.c
comment out the call to atafeature().

My next goal is to get ethernet working so I can have the VMware machines
participate in the rest of the Plan9 environment.

dbul@earthlink.net

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