[9fans] Installation impressions from a plan9 newbie

["Alberto Cortés" <alcortes@it.uc3m.es>]

Hello 9fans.

I have installed an small plan9 network, with a cpu/auth/file
server and some terminals.

I had some problems, that I fixed easily in a few hours. I think
that tutorial/wiki/installation guys can be interested in my thoughts:

- kbmap: adding a kbmap question at the installation process will
  be nice; a kbmap variable in plan9.ini?... I used this on my
  termrc (based on /sys/src/cmd/kbmap.c):

    def_kbmap=/sys/lib/kbmap/ascii
    my_kbmap=/sys/lib/kbmap/es
    if (test (-w /dev/kbmap) -a (-r $def_kbmap) -a (-r $my_kbmap)) {
        cat $def_kbmap > /dev/kbmap
        cat $my_kbmap > /dev/kbmap
    }

- system time: I had some problems with the system time. Hardware
  clock was UTC, i live in spain (CET), the system somehow set
  timezone to USA or something which leaves me with a venti
  server complaining about files being modified in the past and
  very intensive interrupt traffic (>1000 int per second) on the
  venti server (somebody ask about this on a recent post!).

  Of course, I fixed the system time problem setting the
  timezone, but it will be nice if it could be done at the very
  beginning of the installation process (another plan9.ini var?).
  I was left with some insecurity feelings about my new server
  because of that.

- cpu kernel default config file (/sys/src/9/pc/pccpuf) does have
  VGA and mouse modules but not kbmap module. I see no point on
  doing the first without the late. A bind for #k (what is the
  name of that 'k' rune?) in cpurc can also be interesting on
  the tutorials (near the aux/vga thing).

Of course these are not real problems, just newbies gotchas, but
I often found newbie ramblings interesting for gurus minds.

-- 
  http://bach.gast.it.uc3m.es/~alcortes/index.html