Re: [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23

[John Stalker <stalker@Math.Princeton.EDU>]

> I read about ld somewhere, it must have been the
> plan9-wiki. I'll go there again.
>
> ld -> 9load -> kernel on iso-image on fatfs ->
> install?
> Hmmm. That certainly sounds like an option if ld and
> 9load are up to it!
>
> Thank you,
> Dennis Decker Jensen
>

It is, unfortunately, a bit more complicated than that.  ld can
load 9load and 9load can load a kernel, but not one on an iso
image as far as I know.  You need a kernel on your dos partition.
This is not a big problem, just copy 9pcdisk from the install
CD, which should be readable under Win2k, to C:.  You will need a
plan9.ini which tells 9load where to find this kernel, but that
is not a big problem.  It's after your kernel loads that the problems
begin, since you don't have a plan9 userland.  Normally the kernel
would run an rc script named termrc, roughly analogous to an init
script, but you don't have either the shell or the shell script
until you've unpacked your iso image.  You will need to create
enough of a plan9 userland under Win2k to get things rolling.
This should be possible, but it may take a few tries to get it
right.  I can try doing this on one of my machines to see where
the pitfalls are, but I might not have time for a day or two.

--
John Stalker
Department of Mathematics
Princeton University
(609)258-6469