Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!paula From: paula@bcsaic.UUCP (Paul Allen) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: How to use a hard disk with Minix Message-ID: <17535@bcsaic.UUCP> Date: 30 Nov 89 22:24:09 GMT References: <312@trux.UUCP> <89332.220027TAR@MAINE.BITNET> Reply-To: paula@bcsaic.UUCP (Paul Allen) Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle Lines: 118 In article <89332.220027TAR@MAINE.BITNET> TAR@MAINE.BITNET (Thom Rounds) writes: >In article <312@trux.UUCP>, car@trux.UUCP (Chris Rende) says: >> [He's having trouble partitioning his hard disk under 1.2 and finally >> ended up putting a file system on /dev/hd0.] > My God!! You don't even know what FDISK is for, and you went and did that >ANYWAY??! Aw, heck! I don't think a flame was called for. Chris just needs to know how to get the 1.2 fdisk to work. I didn't have a machine with a hard disk until I got 1.3, so I'm not sure what Chris' problem is. >>2) If you only have a 5Mb hard disk to use, what's the best way to use it? >> [...] > This is all up to you and how you want your system configured. These are >also thing you should work out BEFORE you commence this operation (I didn't, >and I learned the hard way). With only five meg, you probably want the whole >thing as one dir (probably /usr). The best directories to use as mount points >are empty ones on the root file system (/usr, /user, or make your own). Good advice. With 1.3, I load my ramdisk from hd3 and mount hd4 on /user. I've got enough memory that I can afford to put /usr on the ramdisk. >>3) I'd like to the RAM disk for as little as possible (if at all). Is it >> wise to use the hard disk as the ROOT FS? >> How do you move the ROOT FS from the RAM disk to the HD? >> How do you get rid of or reduce the RAM disk in order to free up RAM? >> > I would advise leaving the root FS on the RAM disk. You probably don't need >much more RAM than you have. Minix only takes just what it needs plus a couple >of K. I think there were people running with root on the hard disk back in the 1.2 days, but that's been a long time ago. If you really want to do it, I can look through my archives and try to find the patches. With Bruce Evans' protected mode version of 1.3, the startup menu lets you choose where to put the root file system. You reduce the ramdisk by making a new root filesystem diskette with a smaller size. Use one of the sample .proto files as a model. (I think they're in the tools directory.) The size of the file system is one of the first things in the prototype file. You'll want to move some stuff out of the root partition onto the hard disk. I'd move most of /bin and all of /lib into /usr/bin and /usr/lib, and then make /usr the mount point for the hard disk. See the man page for mkfs for details. Make sure you don't reduce the root to the point that there's no space for /tmp files! >>4) When I get my second drive (10Mb) to work, what would be a good disk layout >> for using the two drives together? >> > I have a hard time beleiving that you aren't using either hard drive, and >if you are using them, DON'T repartition EITHER of them until you back them up! Oh give the guy a break! Jeez! > Once you get them both working, I would suggest you mount them just as you >would your floppies, and make two spare dirs on your root directory for flopp- >ies. OK so far... > The root directory will have to stay on the ramdisk so you have something >to mount you hdisks to (You cant mount them on themselves). Huh? I experimented with root on hd3 and /user on hd4 and had no trouble with the fact that /user's mount point was on hd3. >>5) How can I boot from the hard drive? - I'd like to get the floppies out >> of the boot process, if possible. >> > WHY BOTHER?? Minix is just a small Unix system, and at present cannot be >made to match Xenix or any other Unix sytem. It's just an alternate op sys. >It wouldn't be worth the hassle. So Minix is just a toy right now. What does that have to do with wanting more convienience in the booting process? > And besides, if you are running DOS and you >do configure Minix for boot off hdisk, you will have to boot DOS off floppy. > The Moral: You can't have your cake and eat it too. Wrong. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to boot both DOS and Minix off the hard disk. The BIOS just boots the partition that's marked active. To switch to DOS from Minix, all you have to do is change the active partition and reboot. I know there are a few Minix hackers out there who are doing this. I don't think everybody has agreed on what the Minix system ID byte is going to be, though. >>Any pointers about HD use with Minix would be greatly appreciated. >> >>Observation: >>I can see the head positioning mechanism moving on the HD while the disk is >>operating. Minix seems to do alot of seeks back to the start of the file >>system, cyl 0, super block, or whatever. While doing a "cat somefile" the >>head seeks to a block from somefile, returns to the start of the disk, seeks >>to the next block of somefile, returns to the start of the disk, etc... >>Why does the head keep returning "home"? How can this be reduced? >> > Minix isn't doing that. The hard disk is doing that so it knows where to >look for the next block of somefile. It's perfectly normal, and I can't see why >you would want to reduce it anyway. Sorry, more mis-information. The disk doesn't do anything that the kernel doesn't tell it to do. I can't see the positioning mechanism on my hard disk like Chris can, but I have noticed that my floppy seems to be doing a lot more seeking to track zero than it ought to. I've been meaning to have a look at fs to see why there's so much seeking going on. Too much other fun stuff to look at! >>Christopher A. Rende >Thom Rounds Paul Allen -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Paul L. Allen | pallen@atc.boeing.com Boeing Advanced Technology Center | ...!uw-beaver!bcsaic!pallen