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

["Dennis D. Jensen" <dendecjen@yahoo.dk>]

--- "boyd, rounin" <boyd@insultant.net> wrote:
> > LD.COM doesn't work. I have tried many differenct
> > options, but it just doesn't start. I've tried
> booting
> > in dos-mode (failsafe).
>
> strange. w2k install just worked (modulo vga woe).
>
> this data is old but might help:
>
>    http://www.insultant.net/repo/plan9/usbflop.html

The comment at the bottom provided a good hint.

Details, details. The following is from confused and a
little mixed up memory.

I downloaded plan9.iso.bz2, burned it to cd-rom,
copied all of the content of the cd-rom to a directory
named plan9 on my win2k-partition, which has a
fat32lba filesystem.

In c:\plan9\386\ there is a ld.com and 9pcdisk.gz,
etc. "ld", "ld sdC0!dos!plan9/386/9pcdisk.gz" "ld
sdC0!dos!plan9" or something like it from failsafe dos
mode all have the same result: Nothing. I just get
another prompt after a blank line.

Then I boot the plan9-cd from the usb cd drive. It
recognizes my win2k-partition, and errors when trying
to walk to 9pcdisk.gz via "sdC0!dos!plan9/plan9.ini",
i.e. c:\plan9\plan9.ini. That plan9.ini currently
contains this line: "bootfile=sdC0!dos!9pcdisk.gz". I
have another ini-file: c:\plan9.ini, which contains an
experiment to load a floppy-image, but 9load claims
that the floppy-image is incorrect. It contains this:

adisk=#S/sdC0/dos
bootfile=sdC0!dos!9disk.flp

At the "Boot from:" I tell it
"sdC0!dos!plan9/386/9load", but that signals an error
that 9load is an incorrect kernel. Well, of course, it
is not a kernel... I then tried the kernel
"sdC0!dos!plan9/386/9pcdisk.gz" which is the only
thing that has worked so far.

It then goes on to "Root from:". Experimenting and
using the above hint I now reply "local!#S/sdC0/dos",
continue as user "none" and it actually tries to start
kfs, but complains and eventually fails on the ground
that 9P cannot be initialized. Before failing
completely (9P) it asks a question about "reme?" or
something like that about kfs, which I cannot remember
right now. If I don't answer anything, the kernel
panics after a few seconds: The panic message says
something with illegal access -- that something is
tinkering with the kernel...

I probably forgot some important details. It's just to
let everyone know what I tried.

I still think it should be possible to tell 9pcdisk,
the kernel, where to find userland, i.e. c:\plan9\ and
c:\plan9\386\.

BTW: The plan9.iso.bz2 is the stable one, if it should
matter. The wiki talks about some more current,
bleeding snapshots I've not seen mentioned anywhere
else.

Best regards,
Dennis Decker Jensen


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