From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Steven Taschuk To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Message-ID: <20021125134737.A1027@tibia.amotlpaa.bogus> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i Subject: [9fans] OS install floppy hangs during boot on Bochs 1.4.1 Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 13:47:37 -0700 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 26a6f942-eacb-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 I find that the boot floppy hangs fairly early on when used in a Bochs emulated PC. Details below; any suggestions would be appreciated. I have consulted the Wiki page on installation troubleshooting and searched the comp.os.plan9 archives at Google; the topic of running in Bochs seems to come up in the newsgroup now and then (usually with such phrases as "not working"), but I find nothing about Bochs more recent than late 2001, and nothing concerning this specific hanging problem, in emulators or otherwise. (Note also that this problem might well be due to some newbie error(s) on my part.) The underlying machine is an x86 Linux box with kernel 2.4.17 and glibc 2.2.4. The Linux system was built by hand, that is, not installed from a distribution such as RedHat, Slackware, etc.. The emulator is Bochs 1.4.1; the behaviour described below occurs with both VGA BIOSes shipped with that version. Booting the emulated machine from 9disk.flp looks like this: ------------------------------8<------------------------------ PBS...Plan 9 from Bell Labs using fd0!dos!plan9.ini .dev A0 port 1F0 config 0040 capabilities 0000 mwdma 0000 found 9pcflop.gz .gz............................................................................. .............................................................................124 0730 => 711025+1093800+56912=1861737 entry: 80100020 cpu0: 2MHz GenuineIntel P5 (cpuid: AX 0x0513 DX 0x0011) 4575 free pages, 18300K bytes, 96700K swap ilock:: ad de ad de 06 00 00 00 3b 89 18 80 d8 77 2c 80 01 00 00 00 70 e5 00 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ------------------------------8<------------------------------ At this point the emulated machine seems to hang. Sometimes it produces a second ilock: blurb such as the above; sometimes it produces the character 'p'. (Never both, but sometimes neither.) Bochs is, of course, quite slow, and sometimes seems to hang when in fact it's just taking its sweet time to do something. For certainty, I let it sit at the point shown above for about three hours; no further output appeared in that time. It may be that the floppy image I have was damaged during download; perhaps someone could check that their copy has MD5 hash 575bb7ddd7403718fed4e3807235d4ca 9disk.flp (Indeed, perhaps the MD5 hashes should be on the download pages.) However, I think such a problem is improbable: I have tested the image by writing it to a floppy and booting the real machine therewith; in that scenario, it proceeds happily past the point of failure above. (It says "kfs...", for example.) I conclude that the floppy image is probably fine, and that something strange is happening in the Bochs environment specifically. Booting the emulated machine from plan9.iso is also unsuccessful, in what I assume to be yet another unrelated problem: ------------------------------8<------------------------------ PBS...Plan 9 from Bell Labs dev A0 port 1F0 config 0040 capabilities 0000 mwdma 0000 Boot devices: fd0 fd1 boot from: ------------------------------8<------------------------------ The emulated CD-ROM drive is the slave on the primary controller, so I try... ------------------------------8<------------------------------ boot from: sdC1!cdboot!plan9.ini boot from: ------------------------------8<------------------------------ ... with, as you see, no luck (but also with no helpful error message ). Presumably the fact that sdC1 is not listed as one of the possible boot devices is significant. Incidentally, I do not find in the installation documentation any description of what to type at a "boot from:" prompt. Is my guess above correct? Is this documented anywhere else? -- Steven Taschuk | Kinsley's Law: "Every public staschuk@telusplanet.net | frenzy produces legislation | purporting to address it."