Re: [9fans] Install: root file system

[tlaronde@polynum.com]

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 06:06:57PM -0200, Iruatã Souza wrote:
> Never tried it, but you could try installing 9front, then your
> distribution of choice atop of that.

If nothing else works, I will fall back to a kernel loaded locally from
the sketched "by hand" plan9 partition (indeed the 9FAT at the very
beginning) but accessing a network root filesystem served by a NetBSD
node serving 9P.

But I investigate other tracks---see below.

> 
> On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 8:06 AM,  <tlaronde@polynum.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, Jan 02, 2016 at 04:26:39PM -0800, erik quanstrom wrote:
> >> i'm not sure what the root cause of your problem is,
> >
> > I'm now suspecting that the underlying problem is that a 9fat is a dos,
> > but that is a special dos: part of a plan9 slice, so whether kfs or
> > fossil supplementary partitions are expected.

If I'm not mistaken, the man page about kfs is misleading. It says that
indeed what is not fossil is treated as "kfs", but that "kfs" handles 
cd9660 or dos too.

If I understand correctly, this is not true. This is 9660srv or dossrv
or bzfl programs that are copied as "kfs" in the special installation
kernel root according to the type of the root filesystem to read.

And since in the installation kernels there is no kernel with a dossrv
masquerading as "kfs", it fails (the 9pcflop doesn't support sdiahci,
and this is _the_ problem; so I can't use the embedded bzfl root image
since only 9pcflop has the "kfs" to read it; 9pccd supports sdiahci
but it expects an ISO filesystem---and the "live" cd is not very
alive; I don't know if this is via emulation, but everything is
incredibly slow even to try to bootstrap the installation by entering
commands in the CD live plan9.

Note to others: I have only a PS2 keyboard/mouse combo, and other
serials are all USB. Disabling via plan9.ini the USB, even if attached
as USB devices, the mouse and keyboard appear (I guess by some BIOS
emulation). If USB is on, I have no mouse and no keyboard, or only one
of the twoi: the one connected to the PS2 combo.

For root filesystem experiments, I have even tried to create a
"kfs" partition in the plan9 slice, embedding in my case a cd9660
filesystem hoping that giving this as the rootfilesystem the 9660srv
masquerading as kfs in the 9pccd will be able to read it. But boot
fails with a "/ incorrect format" that I'm unable to understand at
the moment (but can be caused by the specification given as bootargs
in plan9.ini; I will try to investigate a little further if I have
some time).
-- 
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                     http://www.kergis.com/
                     http://www.arts-po.fr/
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