RE: [9front] 9front Successfully Installed; USB Weirdness

["Dave Woodman" <dave@naffnet.org.uk>]

Hi,

Progress indeed!

I would guess that the hub in the keyboard might be the root of this evil.

Dave.


-----Original Message-----
From: Jay F. Shachter <jay@m5.chicago.il.us> 
Sent: Friday, July 21, 2023 9:19 PM
To: 9front@9front.org
Subject: [9front] 9front Successfully Installed; USB Weirdness


Esteemed Colleagues:

I have successfully re-installed 9front, and it boots.  In a few paragraphs,
I will speculate why the previous installations (with only one exception),
did not complete.

Prior to the re-installation, I destroyed the 5-Gigabyte slice of disk onto
which 9front had been previously installed, and recreated it with a size of
20 Gigabytes.  I also had to zero out the beginning of the slice, because
until I did that, the 9front installation program skipped the repartitioning
phase.

I am now able to boot into a working 9front system, except for some USB
weirdness that I shall describe in a moment.  So it seems that the first
time I installed 9front, the 5-Gigabyte slice of disk was not large enough
to contain it (which surprises me), but the installation program did not
detect, and report, that the slice of disk was not large enough to contain
the system that was being installed onto it (which also surprises me).

Now, as for why so many of my other installation attempts failed, I have a
theory.  I have not thoroughly investigated whether the theory is true,
because life is too short to thoroughly investigate everything in the world
that puzzles you, but maybe it will interest you.  I have a USB keyboard,
which itself has 2 USB ports on it.  I normally stick my USB mouse into one
of those ports, and then I stick the keyboard into whatever computer I am
currently working with.  I think the successful installation, among all the
unsuccessful attempts, took place when my USB keyboard was not stuck in to
the computer onto which I was install 9front, but, rather, into another
computer, where I was scrolling thru
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4184409/how-to-install-9front-a-plan-9-fork.
When I attempted to install 9front when the USB keyboard was not connected
to the computer, then the installation worked.  I know this explanation
sounds preposterous, but it is the only theory, as of this moment, that I
have.

Now for some additional, thoroughly perplexing, complexity.  I have two
operating systems on my computer that can generate GRUB menus: a Linux
system, and a Solaris system.  The Linux GRUB menu is installed onto (if I
may use the Linux terminology) /dev/sda and /dev/sda10; the Solaris GRUB
menu is installed onto /dev/sda13.  Each GRUB menu has a menuitem that
invokes the other one.  Thus:

     menuitem 'Solaris GRUB Menu' {
        set root=(hd0,13)
        chainloader +1
     }

and

     menuitem 'Linux GRUB Menu' {
        set root=(hd0,10)
        chainloader +1
     }

This is necessary to be able to access all the operating systems on the
computer, because the Linux GRUB menu cannot boot Solaris (or it can but I
haven't figured out how), and the Solaris GRUB menu cannot boot OpenBSD
(Solaris has a bad version of relocator.mod, the bug was reported and fixed
years ago, but Oracle has never upgraded its GRUB).

Now for the USB weirdness.  Each of these two GRUB menus has been furnished
with the following menuitem:

     menuitem '9front' {
        set root=(hd0,14)
        chainloader +1
     }

When I boot 9front from the Linux menu, I cannot use the USB keyboard.  I
can use the USB mouse only if I take it out of the keyboard port and stick
it in directly to the computer.  But when I boot 9front from the Solaris
menu, I can use both the USB keyboard, and the USB mouse when it is
connected to the USB keyboard.  This is completely bewildering.  Apparently
something is happening in the Solaris GRUB menu that renders the USB
keyboard visible to the 9front system.  I have no idea what.  If anyone
reading this has any notion why 9front is unable to see the USB keyboard
when it is booted one way, but is able to see the USB keyboard when it is
booted another way, I would welcome hearing it.

	Jay F. Shachter
	6424 North Whipple Street
	Chicago IL  60645-4111
		(1-773)7613784   landline
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                http://m5.chicago.il.us
		jay@m5.chicago.il.us

	"But when she traced the killer's IP address ... it was in the
192.168/16 block!"