Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

[Russ Cox]

Other people have mentioned the same
problem you had.  I don't understand it,
and I haven't seen it myself.

If your CD-ROM was the secondary slave
before (and is now the primary slave),
you might try making it the secondary master.

I think we don't cope correctly when there's
a secondary slave without a master.

Russ

Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

[Russ Cox]

> the current plan 9 cd image (installed
> an hour or two ago) is bootable.  a menu

this time for sure!

the ramfs cache that serves plan9.iso.bz2
was still serving the old image, despite
the fact that i restarted it after installing
the new one (and plan9.bell-labs.com has been
rebooted since then anyway).  a bad mistake
on my part and a race to complicate things
further.

now the new image is really there.  sorry about
all the confusion.

russ

Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

[forsyth]

>>It's all my fault, though I'm not
>>quite sure how yet.

i couldn't work out how i'd generated two images
with the wrong contents myself, and no caches
were involved there (but there was some fussing
to get things close enough to the CD to avoid burn problems,
so i suspect i simply skipped an important step.)
i've got the right copy now, so i'm happy.

Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

[Russ Cox]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 99 bytes --]

Rob's right.  Caches are terrible things.
It's all my fault, though I'm not
quite sure how yet.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 7315 bytes --]

[-- Attachment #2.1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1846 bytes --]

All the CD images that i've seen have been bootable by the BIOS, but the earlier
ones lacked some support in 9load (and 9loadlite) for getting the
plan9.ini from the cdboot partition, and offering the CD as a plan9
second stage boot device.

Certainly the log you showed here is just what you get in that case.

The boot images i fetched from the download for several days
after russ announced it suffered the same problem.  After burning
a CD from one of those, and finding it still failed, i checked the bootdisk.img in the image and
it seemed to be old.  The file's mtime was still 2nd may,
and strings(1) on the 9load within bootdisk.img
showed too few instances of the string
`cdboot' to be the new version.

Late last night and overnight I set about building a revised version
for the master of the Vitanuova Plan 9 CD, using a bootdisk.img that I changed myself,
with 9load and the kernels built by me yesterday (thus having
the right support).  That didn't work either, but only because,
as I eventually discovered today, I'd somehow managed to update 9pccd.gz and
9pcflop.gz in bootdisk.img but the new 9load hadn't been copied
even though I was certain I had copied it.  That CD when booted
produced, once again, similar results to the log you sent to the list.
Several hours ago, I built a new VN CD image AGAIN and THIS
time I made sure I copied the updated 9load (or 9loadlite).

Success.  It boots, finds the plan9.ini in the cdboot
partition on the CD, and offers to run or install from the CD;
and both options work (on a Thinkpad 600 I had to test).

I thus suspect that for one reason or another the bootdisk.img in
the downloadable CD image still has got the old 9load,
or hadn't got it until recently if it has changed recently.
If I have time shortly I'll try downloading it again to check.

[-- Attachment #2.1.2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 3916 bytes --]

To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] bootable cd images
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 15:56:50 GMT
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0206201706440.25571-100000@bugs.pouce.org>

Hello,

i'm new to plan9, i just installed it yesterday on my old k6II.

Although i could boot from the cd, i still needed a floppy disk to launch
the installation...

This is what i get after booting from the cd :
(setup : 1 ide hd as master, cdrom as slave)
--------------------------------------------
(sniped...)
found partion sdC1!cdboot; 34164+1440
Boot devices: fd0
boot from:
--------------------------------------------

Weird... no sdC1 suggested ?


I tried to issue this :
--------------------------------------------
boot from: sdC1!cdboot!plan9.ini
--------------------------------------------

I got:

--------------------------------------------
found PLAN9     .INI attr 0x0 start 0x723 len 327
.bad kernel format
--------------------------------------------

Though I managed to boot/install from the cd with a boot disk already in
fd0... (what's the point ?...)

May be I encountered this problem because, as i'm new to plan9, I missed
something, may be I issued the wrong command... Or just simply I
misunderstood something...
Probably the latter because when i issued (booting from cd, and inserting
floppy at prompt before issuing the command) :
--------------------------------------------
boot from: fd0!dos!plan9.ini
--------------------------------------------

i get something similar :
--------------------------------------------
found PLAN9    .INI attr 0x0 start 0x9e1 len 512
.bad kernel format
--------------------------------------------


But I eventually managed to install plan9 with not much problem, the
documentation/menu is clear.

(PS: i also had to put my cdrom on the same cable as my ide hd to get my
cdrom recognized...but this is another problem.)

Cheers,
JCC.

On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Russ Cox wrote:

> the current plan 9 cd image (installed
> an hour or two ago) is bootable.  a menu
> asks whether you want to boot the equivalent
> of the install floppy or simply to boot plan 9
> using the cd as the root file system.
>
> booting entirely off cd works just fine.
>
> i haven't tried doing an install from it,
> but it's the same kernel that the install
> disk uses, so i expect it to work (famous
> last words).
>
> thanks to forsyth and jmk for figuring out
> the hard parts.
>
> russ

Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

[forsyth]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1846 bytes --]

All the CD images that i've seen have been bootable by the BIOS, but the earlier
ones lacked some support in 9load (and 9loadlite) for getting the
plan9.ini from the cdboot partition, and offering the CD as a plan9
second stage boot device.

Certainly the log you showed here is just what you get in that case.

The boot images i fetched from the download for several days
after russ announced it suffered the same problem.  After burning
a CD from one of those, and finding it still failed, i checked the bootdisk.img in the image and
it seemed to be old.  The file's mtime was still 2nd may,
and strings(1) on the 9load within bootdisk.img
showed too few instances of the string
`cdboot' to be the new version.

Late last night and overnight I set about building a revised version
for the master of the Vitanuova Plan 9 CD, using a bootdisk.img that I changed myself,
with 9load and the kernels built by me yesterday (thus having
the right support).  That didn't work either, but only because,
as I eventually discovered today, I'd somehow managed to update 9pccd.gz and
9pcflop.gz in bootdisk.img but the new 9load hadn't been copied
even though I was certain I had copied it.  That CD when booted
produced, once again, similar results to the log you sent to the list.
Several hours ago, I built a new VN CD image AGAIN and THIS
time I made sure I copied the updated 9load (or 9loadlite).

Success.  It boots, finds the plan9.ini in the cdboot
partition on the CD, and offers to run or install from the CD;
and both options work (on a Thinkpad 600 I had to test).

I thus suspect that for one reason or another the bootdisk.img in
the downloadable CD image still has got the old 9load,
or hadn't got it until recently if it has changed recently.
If I have time shortly I'll try downloading it again to check.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 3916 bytes --]

To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] bootable cd images
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 15:56:50 GMT
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0206201706440.25571-100000@bugs.pouce.org>

Hello,

i'm new to plan9, i just installed it yesterday on my old k6II.

Although i could boot from the cd, i still needed a floppy disk to launch
the installation...

This is what i get after booting from the cd :
(setup : 1 ide hd as master, cdrom as slave)
--------------------------------------------
(sniped...)
found partion sdC1!cdboot; 34164+1440
Boot devices: fd0
boot from:
--------------------------------------------

Weird... no sdC1 suggested ?


I tried to issue this :
--------------------------------------------
boot from: sdC1!cdboot!plan9.ini
--------------------------------------------

I got:

--------------------------------------------
found PLAN9     .INI attr 0x0 start 0x723 len 327
.bad kernel format
--------------------------------------------

Though I managed to boot/install from the cd with a boot disk already in
fd0... (what's the point ?...)

May be I encountered this problem because, as i'm new to plan9, I missed
something, may be I issued the wrong command... Or just simply I
misunderstood something...
Probably the latter because when i issued (booting from cd, and inserting
floppy at prompt before issuing the command) :
--------------------------------------------
boot from: fd0!dos!plan9.ini
--------------------------------------------

i get something similar :
--------------------------------------------
found PLAN9    .INI attr 0x0 start 0x9e1 len 512
.bad kernel format
--------------------------------------------


But I eventually managed to install plan9 with not much problem, the
documentation/menu is clear.

(PS: i also had to put my cdrom on the same cable as my ide hd to get my
cdrom recognized...but this is another problem.)

Cheers,
JCC.

On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Russ Cox wrote:

> the current plan 9 cd image (installed
> an hour or two ago) is bootable.  a menu
> asks whether you want to boot the equivalent
> of the install floppy or simply to boot plan 9
> using the cd as the root file system.
>
> booting entirely off cd works just fine.
>
> i haven't tried doing an install from it,
> but it's the same kernel that the install
> disk uses, so i expect it to work (famous
> last words).
>
> thanks to forsyth and jmk for figuring out
> the hard parts.
>
> russ

Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

[forsyth]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 300 bytes --]

i don't think that's the problem, having gone
round this myself today.  i've now got it working
(i think) but i'll need actually to install it before
i'm sure it's completely right.  the interesting
thing is if it does work, i suspect that
fixing it requires no changes to
the code as such.


[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 1629 bytes --]

To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] bootable cd images
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 12:16:33 -0400
Message-ID: <22670dc5ea8859c5821d5e8e4d6d9841@plan9.bell-labs.com>

Other people have mentioned the same
problem you had.  I don't understand it,
and I haven't seen it myself.

If your CD-ROM was the secondary slave
before (and is now the primary slave),
you might try making it the secondary master.

I think we don't cope correctly when there's
a secondary slave without a master.

Russ

Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

[jc]

Hello,

i'm new to plan9, i just installed it yesterday on my old k6II.

Although i could boot from the cd, i still needed a floppy disk to launch
the installation...

This is what i get after booting from the cd :
(setup : 1 ide hd as master, cdrom as slave)
--------------------------------------------
(sniped...)
found partion sdC1!cdboot; 34164+1440
Boot devices: fd0
boot from:
--------------------------------------------

Weird... no sdC1 suggested ?


I tried to issue this :
--------------------------------------------
boot from: sdC1!cdboot!plan9.ini
--------------------------------------------

I got:

--------------------------------------------
found PLAN9     .INI attr 0x0 start 0x723 len 327
.bad kernel format
--------------------------------------------

Though I managed to boot/install from the cd with a boot disk already in
fd0... (what's the point ?...)

May be I encountered this problem because, as i'm new to plan9, I missed
something, may be I issued the wrong command... Or just simply I
misunderstood something...
Probably the latter because when i issued (booting from cd, and inserting
floppy at prompt before issuing the command) :
--------------------------------------------
boot from: fd0!dos!plan9.ini
--------------------------------------------

i get something similar :
--------------------------------------------
found PLAN9    .INI attr 0x0 start 0x9e1 len 512
.bad kernel format
--------------------------------------------


But I eventually managed to install plan9 with not much problem, the
documentation/menu is clear.

(PS: i also had to put my cdrom on the same cable as my ide hd to get my
cdrom recognized...but this is another problem.)

Cheers,
JCC.

On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Russ Cox wrote:

> the current plan 9 cd image (installed
> an hour or two ago) is bootable.  a menu
> asks whether you want to boot the equivalent
> of the install floppy or simply to boot plan 9
> using the cd as the root file system.
>
> booting entirely off cd works just fine.
>
> i haven't tried doing an install from it,
> but it's the same kernel that the install
> disk uses, so i expect it to work (famous
> last words).
>
> thanks to forsyth and jmk for figuring out
> the hard parts.
>
> russ

Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

[Jim Choate]

On Sun, 16 Jun 2002, Russ Cox wrote:

> > I downloaded the latest distribution from the web site and still picked up
> > the plan9.iso.bz2 image from May 2
>
> How do you know?

Sounds like a problem on your end...the end user should be able to tell.

> It's true that the files are all
> from May 2 or so, since I only updated the boot
> disk image, not the CD file system.

So, is there a tag or something a user can check to verify that the image
is correct, or is it just trust-based?


 --
    ____________________________________________________________________

              When I die, I would like to be born again as me.

                                            Hugh Hefner
     ravage@ssz.com                                         www.ssz.com
     jchoate@open-forge.org                          www.open-forge.org

    --------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

[Russ Cox]

> I downloaded the latest distribution from the web site and still picked up
> the plan9.iso.bz2 image from May 2

How do you know?  It's true that the files are all
from May 2 or so, since I only updated the boot
disk image, not the CD file system.

Russ

Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

[sdrthomas]

I downloaded the latest distribution from the web site and still picked up
the plan9.iso.bz2 image from May 2

----- Original Message -----
From: "Russ Cox" <rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com>
To: <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 3:42 PM
Subject: [9fans] bootable cd images


> the current plan 9 cd image (installed
> an hour or two ago) is bootable.  a menu
> asks whether you want to boot the equivalent
> of the install floppy or simply to boot plan 9
> using the cd as the root file system.
>
> booting entirely off cd works just fine.
>
> i haven't tried doing an install from it,
> but it's the same kernel that the install
> disk uses, so i expect it to work (famous
> last words).
>
> thanks to forsyth and jmk for figuring out
> the hard parts.
>
> russ
>

Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

[Russ Cox]

> BTW, the CD isn't at the sources fs, is it?
> [I'm downloading from the web].

no, it's not.  it didn't make sense to me
to put the cd or the vmware images on sources
since you can only get at them once you've
installed, at which point you don't need them
anymore.

Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

[nigel]

^[[3~

Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

[Fco.J.Ballesteros]

I'm downloading the CD right now.
Will drop a line if I have problems installing from it,
but don't think so (more famous last words?)

BTW, the CD isn't at the sources fs, is it?
[I'm downloading from the web].

Re: [9fans] bootable cd images

[forsyth]

>>i haven't tried doing an install from it,
>>but it's the same kernel that the install
>>disk uses, so i expect it to work (famous
>>last words).

i'll test that shortly; when i tried it a week ago
there were problems not with
the kernel as such but with some of the assumptions made
by commands in the file system built in to it.
in fact, for installation from CD it needn't bother
with as much built-in as it does.

[9fans] bootable cd images

[Russ Cox]

the current plan 9 cd image (installed
an hour or two ago) is bootable.  a menu
asks whether you want to boot the equivalent
of the install floppy or simply to boot plan 9
using the cd as the root file system.

booting entirely off cd works just fine.

i haven't tried doing an install from it,
but it's the same kernel that the install
disk uses, so i expect it to work (famous
last words).

thanks to forsyth and jmk for figuring out
the hard parts.

russ