* [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 @ 2003-12-07 16:49 Dennis D. Jensen 2003-12-07 18:37 ` Russ Cox 2003-12-08 16:31 ` John Stalker 0 siblings, 2 replies; 14+ messages in thread From: Dennis D. Jensen @ 2003-12-07 16:49 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans Hello, I wanted to try out plan9 on my newly bought thinkpad x23. It is light and comes with absolutely no disk or cd drives. I use an USB connected cdrom writer when I want to boot something. Apparantly the plan9.iso cannot recognize the storage via USB. Does anybody know a remedy for this? I currently still have a win2k on a reduced partion (soon to be replaced), but I cannot immediately see how that would help me booting plan9. 9load just stops and asks "boot from:". Note: I've mostly used Debian GNU/Linux in the past (and Gentoo, Suse, Mandrake, FreeBSD), but finally decided to try out plan9. I've used 9wm, rc, sam and wily for over a year, grown to like it more than anything else in GNU/Linux-land, and now wants to try out the real thing. (-: I mainly stayed in the console until I got 9wm. I plan on installing a GNU/Linux anyway (probably Gentoo) and get rid of win2k. I've gotten used to have several distributions lying around... Would there be any improvement on possibility of booting things from GNU/Linux? Is there another iso-image or such thing I could download to bootstrap plan9-installation? In hope and best regards, Dennis Decker Jensen __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 2003-12-07 16:49 [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 Dennis D. Jensen @ 2003-12-07 18:37 ` Russ Cox 2003-12-08 16:31 ` John Stalker 1 sibling, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread From: Russ Cox @ 2003-12-07 18:37 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans > I wanted to try out plan9 on my newly bought thinkpad > x23. It is light and comes with absolutely no disk or > cd drives. I use an USB connected cdrom writer when I > want to boot something. > > Apparantly the plan9.iso cannot recognize the storage > via USB. Does anybody know a remedy for this? I unfortunately, i don't think we can handle the usb cd drives. if you have a usb floppy drive you could download a boot disk and do a network install. (we don't really handle the usb floppy drives either but the bios tricks us enough that it's okay.) russ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 2003-12-07 16:49 [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 Dennis D. Jensen 2003-12-07 18:37 ` Russ Cox @ 2003-12-08 16:31 ` John Stalker 2003-12-08 23:46 ` Dennis D. Jensen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: John Stalker @ 2003-12-08 16:31 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans Don't get rid of Win2k just yet. It may be helpful in getting plan9 installed. In particular there is a DOS program ld which can load 9load from a FAT partition. You can use this as a replacement for the boot floppy. The plan9 installer can read the iso image from a FAT partition as well, so you can use that as a replacement for the install cd. Maybe someone with more experience and a better understanding of the installer can suggest a plan9.ini to use. I think it should be possible to make this work even if you never get the cd drive working. > Hello, > > I wanted to try out plan9 on my newly bought thinkpad > x23. It is light and comes with absolutely no disk or > cd drives. I use an USB connected cdrom writer when I > want to boot something. > > Apparantly the plan9.iso cannot recognize the storage > via USB. Does anybody know a remedy for this? I > currently still have a win2k on a reduced partion > (soon to be replaced), but I cannot immediately see > how that would help me booting plan9. 9load just stops > and asks "boot from:". > > Note: I've mostly used Debian GNU/Linux in the past > (and Gentoo, Suse, Mandrake, FreeBSD), but finally > decided to try out plan9. I've used 9wm, rc, sam and > wily for over a year, grown to like it more than > anything else in GNU/Linux-land, and now wants to try > out the real thing. (-: I mainly stayed in the console > until I got 9wm. > > I plan on installing a GNU/Linux anyway (probably > Gentoo) and get rid of win2k. I've gotten used to have > several distributions lying around... Would there be > any improvement on possibility of booting things from > GNU/Linux? Is there another iso-image or such thing I > could download to bootstrap plan9-installation? > > In hope and best regards, > Dennis Decker Jensen > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard > http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree > -- John Stalker Department of Mathematics Princeton University (609)258-6469 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 2003-12-08 16:31 ` John Stalker @ 2003-12-08 23:46 ` Dennis D. Jensen 2003-12-09 1:50 ` John Stalker 0 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: Dennis D. Jensen @ 2003-12-08 23:46 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans --- John Stalker <stalker@Math.Princeton.EDU> wrote: > Don't get rid of Win2k just yet. It may be helpful > in getting plan9 installed. In particular there is > a DOS program ld which can load 9load from a FAT > partition. You can use this as a replacement for > the > boot floppy. The plan9 installer can read the iso > image from a FAT partition as well, so you can > use that as a replacement for the install cd. 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 __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 2003-12-08 23:46 ` Dennis D. Jensen @ 2003-12-09 1:50 ` John Stalker 2003-12-09 9:34 ` Dennis D. Jensen 2003-12-14 1:59 ` Dennis D. Jensen 0 siblings, 2 replies; 14+ messages in thread From: John Stalker @ 2003-12-09 1:50 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans > 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 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 2003-12-09 1:50 ` John Stalker @ 2003-12-09 9:34 ` Dennis D. Jensen 2003-12-14 1:59 ` Dennis D. Jensen 1 sibling, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread From: Dennis D. Jensen @ 2003-12-09 9:34 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans --- John Stalker <stalker@Math.Princeton.EDU> wrote: > You will need > to create > enough of a plan9 userland under Win2k to get things > rolling. What if I made a partition (fat16) with a copy of the plan9 cd, specificly for the purpose of installing plan9, and after installation removed that partition again? That should ensure a proper the userland. I can use a GNU/Linux live cd to do the partitioning job. > 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. I don't have much time either, at least until the weekend, so there is no need to rush things. Thank you, Dennis Decker Jensen __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 2003-12-09 1:50 ` John Stalker 2003-12-09 9:34 ` Dennis D. Jensen @ 2003-12-14 1:59 ` Dennis D. Jensen 2003-12-14 2:22 ` John Stalker 2003-12-14 4:34 ` boyd, rounin 1 sibling, 2 replies; 14+ messages in thread From: Dennis D. Jensen @ 2003-12-14 1:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii, Size: 2072 bytes --] --- John Stalker <stalker@Math.Princeton.EDU> wrote: > 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. Right. I copied plan9-cd directly to win2k and before that to its own partition. It turns out that win2k resides on a fat32lba-disk, which is recognized by 9load, so I didn't really need a particular dos-partition. 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). When I boot from the plan9-cd it fails to find 9pcdisk, but I can tell where it resides on�the win2k, but then it cannot find root of a kfs ("Root from:" with default local!#S/sdC0/fs) and it cannot recognize anything anymore, certainly not the graphic card anyway. As you said: I cannot get past the kernel. I've been experimenting, booting and rebooting all afternoon and some of the night and am a little tired now. I'll let things rest for a while unless somebody has an idea how to continue. > 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. The kernel seems to insist on loading a kfs-system which I do not have yet: all things are on a fat-partition. It looks like the classic problem of the chicken and the egg: I cannot make any kfs before booting plan9 which cannot boot before I have any kfs... I don't know how to tell it where kfs (root) is: It won't accept any of the variants of "local!..." I've tried. The kernel did recognize my NIC (e100/eepro100), the cardbus and my usb! I've been reading up on the manual-pages 9load(8) and plan9.ini(8), but I don't know what to try next... Thank you, Dennis Decker Jensen __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 2003-12-14 1:59 ` Dennis D. Jensen @ 2003-12-14 2:22 ` John Stalker 2003-12-14 15:29 ` Russ Cox 2003-12-14 4:34 ` boyd, rounin 1 sibling, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: John Stalker @ 2003-12-14 2:22 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans > Right. > > I copied plan9-cd directly to win2k and before that to > its own partition. It turns out that win2k resides on > a fat32lba-disk, which is recognized by 9load, so I > didn't really need a particular dos-partition. > > 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). I've never tried to use it, but I'll try it out on my laptop. Win2k's DOS emulation is kind of flaky. FreeDOS may work better. I hope to avoid going that route if possible, though. > > The kernel did recognize my NIC (e100/eepro100), the > cardbus and my usb! I've been reading up on the > manual-pages 9load(8) and plan9.ini(8), but I don't > know what to try next... > > Thank you, > Dennis Decker Jensen > I will see if I can get this to work on my desktop. I have the advantage that I have a working plan9 installation on my laptop which I can compare things to. -- John Stalker Department of Mathematics Princeton University (609)258-6469 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 2003-12-14 2:22 ` John Stalker @ 2003-12-14 15:29 ` Russ Cox 0 siblings, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread From: Russ Cox @ 2003-12-14 15:29 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans > > I copied plan9-cd directly to win2k and before that to > > its own partition. It turns out that win2k resides on > > a fat32lba-disk, which is recognized by 9load, so I > > didn't really need a particular dos-partition. I may have a different way to make this work, but I'm still in the middle of preparing it. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 2003-12-14 1:59 ` Dennis D. Jensen 2003-12-14 2:22 ` John Stalker @ 2003-12-14 4:34 ` boyd, rounin 2003-12-14 17:18 ` Dennis D. Jensen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: boyd, rounin @ 2003-12-14 4:34 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans > 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 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 2003-12-14 4:34 ` boyd, rounin @ 2003-12-14 17:18 ` Dennis D. Jensen 2003-12-14 22:01 ` John Stalker 2003-12-16 14:20 ` John Stalker 0 siblings, 2 replies; 14+ messages in thread From: Dennis D. Jensen @ 2003-12-14 17:18 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans --- "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 __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 2003-12-14 17:18 ` Dennis D. Jensen @ 2003-12-14 22:01 ` John Stalker 2003-12-16 14:20 ` John Stalker 1 sibling, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread From: John Stalker @ 2003-12-14 22:01 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans > 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... Ream. It thinks you have a corrupted kfs file system. In fact you have no kfs file system. It's probably a good thing the kernel panics at this point as trying to repair or reformat that nonexistent filesytem might do nasty things to the other operating system(s) on your hard disk. -- John Stalker Department of Mathematics Princeton University (609)258-6469 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 2003-12-14 17:18 ` Dennis D. Jensen 2003-12-14 22:01 ` John Stalker @ 2003-12-16 14:20 ` John Stalker 2003-12-16 17:08 ` Dennis D. Jensen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: John Stalker @ 2003-12-16 14:20 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans > I still think it should be possible to tell 9pcdisk, > the kernel, where to find userland, i.e. c:\plan9\ and > c:\plan9\386\. I played around a bit over the weekend. Not much progress to report. I think 9pcflop may be a better starting point than 9pcdisk. When the install floppy boots after loading the kernel it claims to start kfs. There is no kfs partition on the boot floppy, however. It must be starting one in RAM, using something precompiled into the kernel as a starting point. This is essentially what you want to do. I wish I understood a bit better how the boot floppies are generated. -- John Stalker Department of Mathematics Princeton University (609)258-6469 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 2003-12-16 14:20 ` John Stalker @ 2003-12-16 17:08 ` Dennis D. Jensen 0 siblings, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread From: Dennis D. Jensen @ 2003-12-16 17:08 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans --- John Stalker <stalker@Math.Princeton.EDU> wrote: > I think 9pcflop may be a better starting > point > than 9pcdisk. When the install floppy boots after > loading > the kernel it claims to start kfs. There is no kfs > partition > on the boot floppy, however. It must be starting > one in RAM, Thanks for trying out! I guess it means burning a cd with a floppy-image in order to boot, but where do you have your plan9-userland when booting the floppy? On cd? Obviously that is not an option in my case, since my cd drive will be working as an overkill floppy... :-) When I boot from cd instead of floppy, I hope it will be able to recognize my plan9 directory on the harddisk drive (the fat32lba partition, c:\plan9). Best regards, Dennis Decker Jensen __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2003-12-16 17:08 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 14+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2003-12-07 16:49 [9fans] booting plan9 cd on thinkpad x23 Dennis D. Jensen 2003-12-07 18:37 ` Russ Cox 2003-12-08 16:31 ` John Stalker 2003-12-08 23:46 ` Dennis D. Jensen 2003-12-09 1:50 ` John Stalker 2003-12-09 9:34 ` Dennis D. Jensen 2003-12-14 1:59 ` Dennis D. Jensen 2003-12-14 2:22 ` John Stalker 2003-12-14 15:29 ` Russ Cox 2003-12-14 4:34 ` boyd, rounin 2003-12-14 17:18 ` Dennis D. Jensen 2003-12-14 22:01 ` John Stalker 2003-12-16 14:20 ` John Stalker 2003-12-16 17:08 ` Dennis D. Jensen
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