[9fans] 9atom on Dell Inspiron Mini 9

[9fans] 9atom on Dell Inspiron Mini 9

[Alexander Shendi (Web.de)]

Hello 9fans,

I'm planning to install Plan 9 on a spare i386 machine, a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook.

I have googled a bit and my best bet seems  to be the 9atom distribution. However
the netbook doesn't have a CDROM and I would habe to buy an USB-CDROM-Drive.
Thus my questions:
* Has anyone tried  Plan 9 on  this or similar hardware?
* Can Plan 9 boot of an USB-CDROM?

Many thanks in advance for your help.

Best Regards,

Alexander

--
Diese Nachricht wurde von meinem Android-Mobiltelefon mit K-9 Mail gesendet.

Re: [9fans] 9atom on Dell Inspiron Mini 9

[erik quanstrom]

> I'm planning to install Plan 9 on a spare i386 machine, a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook.
>
> I have googled a bit and my best bet seems  to be the 9atom distribution. However
> the netbook doesn't have a CDROM and I would habe to buy an USB-CDROM-Drive.
> Thus my questions:
> * Has anyone tried  Plan 9 on  this or similar hardware?
> * Can Plan 9 boot of an USB-CDROM?

the 9atom installer is a little too dumb to boot from a usb-cdrom.
i think what you'd really want is a bootable usb key.  does that sound
right?

i don't think that will be too hard to build, if you think that'll do the
trick.

- erik

Re: [9fans] 9atom on Dell Inspiron Mini 9

[Alexander Shendi (Web.de)]

erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> schrieb:

>> I'm planning to install Plan 9 on a spare i386 machine, a Dell
>Inspiron Mini 9 netbook.
>>
>> I have googled a bit and my best bet seems  to be the 9atom
>distribution. However
>> the netbook doesn't have a CDROM and I would habe to buy an
>USB-CDROM-Drive.
>> Thus my questions:
>> * Has anyone tried  Plan 9 on  this or similar hardware?
>> * Can Plan 9 boot of an USB-CDROM?
>
>the 9atom installer is a little too dumb to boot from a usb-cdrom.
>i think what you'd really want is a bootable usb key.  does that sound
>right?

Right, a bootable usb-key would be fantastic. Can the 9atom installer
boot from one? Can I use one of the Linux or Windows based tools
to make one?
>
>i don't think that will be too hard to build, if you think that'll do
>the
>trick.
>
>- erik
Many thanks for your quick reply.

Alexander
--
Diese Nachricht wurde von meinem Android-Mobiltelefon mit K-9 Mail gesendet.

Re: [9fans] 9atom on Dell Inspiron Mini 9

[Nicolas Bercher]

On 10/01/2013 18:20, Alexander Shendi (Web.de) wrote:
> Hello 9fans,
>
> I'm planning to install Plan 9 on a spare i386 machine, a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook.
>
> I have googled a bit and my best bet seems  to be the 9atom distribution. However
> the netbook doesn't have a CDROM and I would habe to buy an USB-CDROM-Drive.
> Thus my questions:
> * Has anyone tried  Plan 9 on  this or similar hardware?
> * Can Plan 9 boot of an USB-CDROM?
>
> Many thanks in advance for your help.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Alexander
>

Note that standard Plan 9 runs well on atom based machine (Atom D410,
N10/ICH 7) with no (apparent) problems.

Nicolas

Re: [9fans] 9atom on Dell Inspiron Mini 9

[erik quanstrom]

> Right, a bootable usb-key would be fantastic. Can the 9atom installer
> boot from one? Can I use one of the Linux or Windows based tools
> to make one?

the plan 9 installer would need just a small amount of help to be able to
do this, i think.

i'll try to take a look this evening.  i'll have to go get some usb keys.

- erik

Re: [9fans] 9atom on Dell Inspiron Mini 9

[pmarin]

See the 9front wiki:
http://code.google.com/p/plan9front/wiki/usbboot
Probably it only works for the 9front version of Plan9

On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 6:20 PM, Alexander Shendi (Web.de)
<Alexander.Shendi@web.de> wrote:
> Hello 9fans,
>
> I'm planning to install Plan 9 on a spare i386 machine, a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook.
>
> I have googled a bit and my best bet seems  to be the 9atom distribution. However
> the netbook doesn't have a CDROM and I would habe to buy an USB-CDROM-Drive.
> Thus my questions:
> * Has anyone tried  Plan 9 on  this or similar hardware?
> * Can Plan 9 boot of an USB-CDROM?
>
> Many thanks in advance for your help.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Alexander
>
> --
> Diese Nachricht wurde von meinem Android-Mobiltelefon mit K-9 Mail gesendet.
>

Re: [9fans] 9atom on Dell Inspiron Mini 9

[David du Colombier]

> Right, a bootable usb-key would be fantastic. Can the 9atom installer
> boot from one? Can I use one of the Linux or Windows based tools
> to make one?

This is not 9atom, but a bootable Plan 9 USB image can be found here:

http://www.9legacy.org/download/plan9-usb.img.bz2

It doesn't contain the kernel with the installer, but you
might install Plan 9 manually by doing something like:

http://www.9legacy.org/9legacy/doc/fossil/disk

It shouldn't be hard to add the installation bzroot to
the kernel booting from USB, and you don't even need
the Fossil file system.

--
David du Colombier

Re: [9fans] 9atom on Dell Inspiron Mini 9

[cinap_lenrek]

we didnt modify the installer specially for usb keys. instead, we just
made the boot process able to use a .iso file stored on a usb key as
its root filesystem. that way, theres no need to maintain another
install media. all one needs todo to get a bootable usb key with 9front
is just copying the iso to the fat on the usb key and make they usb key
bootable by adding a kernel, 9bootfat, pbs and mbr to it. the usb key
prparation can be done from any operating system.

also note, that this is not limited to usb keys. you can use a iso (or
paq) file on *any* drive with a fat partition on it. like one might have
no removable media on a machine at all, but still can prepare a fat
partition on the internal harddrive using linux or whatever to get the
installation started.

the biggest challange with usb boot is the usb itself. over a long time,
many problems have been found and resolved:

- broken bios
- broken mp tables preventing usb interrupts to work
- broken hci bios handover causing system freezes as soon as we
  touch the hci controller
- some usb cdrom drives freezing up if you send it scsi inquiry with
  allocation length different from 36 byte

--
cinap