[9fans] Re: Cannot boot with kfs error

[9fans] Re: Cannot boot with kfs error

[Kiyoshi MATSUI]

Thanks Fco and Russ for reply.

I am really using SCSI drives (sd03 is the forth drive).  The SCSI card
has Symbios 53C875 chip.

On Wed, 30 Apr 2003 12:00:06 -0400
Russ Cox wrote:
> Download http://plan9.bell-labs.com/~rsc/plan9/9pcdisk.apr30.gz,
> write it to your boot floppy as 9pcdisk.gz, and set
> bootfile=fd0!9pcdisk.gz to plan9.ini on the boot floppy.

I have tried the Russ's kernel.  The result, however, is the same (kfs
error again).

I have commented out the 'ether=rtl8139' line in 'plan9.ini'.  The pause
of 10 minutes long, however, is not shortened.

I have done again [copydist] in the installer.  The result never changes.

Since the installer's plan9 works fine, including kfs and rio (except
the problem of long pause), I think that my plan9 will certainly boot
and work, as soon as the neccessary settings are done.

What is lacking?  How can I investigate the problem?

                                                                 kmatsui

Re: [9fans] Re: Cannot boot with kfs error

[Russ Cox]

Set

	*nousbprobe=1
	*noetherprobe=1

in plan9.ini too.

Russ

Re: [9fans] Re: Cannot boot with kfs error

[FJ Ballesteros]

Have you tried by copying the plan9.ini and the kernel from the
install to the hard drive?

(Beware that you'd need to edit the plan9.ini besides copying it,
at least to tell about the new kernel and boot disk)


Kiyoshi MATSUI wrote:

> Thanks Fco and Russ for reply.
>
> I am really using SCSI drives (sd03 is the forth drive).  The SCSI card
> has Symbios 53C875 chip.
>
> On Wed, 30 Apr 2003 12:00:06 -0400
> Russ Cox wrote:
>
>>Download http://plan9.bell-labs.com/~rsc/plan9/9pcdisk.apr30.gz,
>>write it to your boot floppy as 9pcdisk.gz, and set
>>bootfile=fd0!9pcdisk.gz to plan9.ini on the boot floppy.
>>
>
> I have tried the Russ's kernel.  The result, however, is the same (kfs
> error again).
>
> I have commented out the 'ether=rtl8139' line in 'plan9.ini'.  The pause
> of 10 minutes long, however, is not shortened.
>
> I have done again [copydist] in the installer.  The result never changes.
>
> Since the installer's plan9 works fine, including kfs and rio (except
> the problem of long pause), I think that my plan9 will certainly boot
> and work, as soon as the neccessary settings are done.
>
> What is lacking?  How can I investigate the problem?
>
>                                                                  kmatsui
>
>

Re: [9fans] Re: Cannot boot with kfs error

[Kiyoshi MATSUI]

Thanks F. Ballesteros and Russ Cox for the replies.

I have tried to boot Plan9 by copying Russ's kernel to the hard drive
(i.e /n/kfs/386, then copied it to 9fat by disk/format command, as
instructed in "Troubleshooting Plan9 & lilo" wiki page).  Rebooted via
lilo.  'kfs i/o error' occurred again.

I have also tried it by copying the installer's kernel (9pcflop) to the
hard drive.  Rebooted.  Kernel started without login prompt (as the
installer's booting), then stayed silent for longer than 15 minutes
(without even i/o error message).  I reset the machine.
Why can the installer's Plan9 boot?  What is the difference?.

By the way, I have also tried plan9.ini with the following lines.

    *nousbprobe=1
    *noetherprobe=1

10 minutes pause has not been shortened.

Is there anyone who is using the ncr53C8xx SCSI driver?

                                                                 kmatsui

Re: [9fans] Re: Cannot boot with kfs error

[Fco.J.Ballesteros]

>     *nousbprobe=1
>     *noetherprobe=1
>
> 10 minutes pause has not been shortened.
>
> Is there anyone who is using the ncr53C8xx SCSI driver?

Can you try the same machine but using an IDE drive?
If the pause goes away and it can boot, then we can know that it's
the scsi.

Re: [9fans] Re: Cannot boot with kfs error

[okamoto]

> Is there anyone who is using the ncr53C8xx SCSI driver?

I suppose most people use the scsi driver for file server like me.
The price of machines are very low these days.
I recommend you to purchase another one, if you are not
curious enough into kernel driver developping.

Kenji

Re: [9fans] Re: Cannot boot with kfs error

[Kiyoshi MATSUI]

A sequel to the story of kfs i/o error at Plan9 bootstrap.

I upgraded the machine, including CPU (K6/200MHz => AthlonXP/2.0GHz),
motherboard and memory. I added a new IDE hard drive. I am still using,
however, the old ncr53C875 SCSI card.

I tried again to install Plan9 on one of the SCSI drives only to get
again the kfs i/o error at booting.

Then I installed on the IDE drive. Plan9 booted successfully!

Maybe my SCSI system has some instabilities. Maybe the Plan9's SCSI
driver has some short-comings to cope with the problem?

Anyway, I can use Plan9 now. A problem, however, remains -- long pause
of 10 minutes in booting process.

I have edited /rc/bin/termrc as follows.

***************
*** 53,59 ****
  case NCR* 'AT&TNSX'* generic* _MP_* 'alpha apc'*
    for(i in H w f t m v L S P U '$' 裡)
      /bin/bind -a '#'^$i /dev >/dev/null >[2=1]
!     for(disk in /dev/sd??) {
        if(test -f $disk/data && test -f $disk/ctl)
          disk/fdisk -p $disk/data >$disk/ctl >[2]/dev/null
        for(part in $disk/plan9*)
--- 53,61 ----
  case NCR* 'AT&TNSX'* generic* _MP_* 'alpha apc'*
    for(i in H w f t m v L S P U '$' 裡)
      /bin/bind -a '#'^$i /dev >/dev/null >[2=1]
!     echo 'testing /dev/sdC?'              # [1] Appears promptly
!     for(disk in /dev/sdC?) {
!       echo testing $disk                  # [2] Appears 10 minutes later
        if(test -f $disk/data && test -f $disk/ctl)
          disk/fdisk -p $disk/data >$disk/ctl >[2]/dev/null
        for(part in $disk/plan9*)
***************

[1] appears promptly, but [2] appears 10 minutes later. Why?

When I edited the '/dev/sdC?' to '/dev/sdC0', rio started promptly and
the screen went black out displaying only an arrow cursor. Why? The
machine has only one IDE drive i.e. /dev/sdC0, neither /dev/sdC1 nor
/dev/sdC2.

Whether probe ethernet or not makes little difference of 10 minutes
pause. Speed of CPU also makes little difference.

Anyway, I am used to wait Plan9's bootstrap reading the Plan9 documents
on another machine's Linux.

                                                            kmatsui