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From: nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Minix-386 HELP!!
Keywords: Correct CRCs, Init doesn't start.
Message-ID: <1469@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: 27 Nov 90 21:22:42 GMT
References: <2176@tuvie> <3402@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU>
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Distribution: comp
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University
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In article <3402@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU> cechew@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU (Earl Chew) writes:
>In <2176@tuvie> hp@vmars.tuwien.ac.at (Peter Holzer) writes:
>
>>The kernel is obviously running, because I get characters I type
>>echoed, but I do not get a login prompt. When I type F1, all the
>>tasks and MM and FS (both waiting for ANY) are displayed, but no
>>init! 
>
>Ensure that /etc/ttys, /bin/login, /etc/getty, /etc/gettytab, /etc/rc,
>/etc/passwd and /bin/sh are present on the boot floppy (you can leave
>out getty* if you don't need it). Trying to make a minimal boot disk is
>an interesting process :-( You will find that if one component is
>missing, the system will freeze after printing that Minix is loaded.
>You *must* have /etc/rc, even if it is empty! The reason you don't see
>init is that it probably choked and died (because one of the above was
>missing) --- someone ought to fix it before 1.6.

	I agree that is probably the problem.  Also, if one of those 
routines is there, but is a 16-bit binary rather than a 32-bit binary,
that will cause a problem.

>>2. The base addresses that shoelace displays and those I get by
>>   pressing F1 don't match. Shoelace says the MM is loaded at 
>>   1C100 (112.25k) and FS at 2EC00 (187k), but with F1 I get 87k
>>   for MM and 112k for FS.
>
>Shoelace doesn't lie (at least I don't think so). You should chase this one.

	Assuming that Peter meant F2 rather than F1, the information which
Shoelace prints out, and the information under the "TEXT" column of the
information produced by pressing the F2 key should be the same.  They are
on my system (I just checked it to be sure).

>If you've elected to use a 1.2Mb floppy and initialised it with
>mkfs /dev/at0 1200, and you're using this to initalise the ram disk (either
>because ram disk is root or you're wanting to initialise the ram disk) then
>you'd better have enough *physical* memory.

	Yes, I think that I point this out in the tutorial, but in case I
didn't it obviously needs to be emphasized.  I have eight megs on my 386,
so have no way of knowing what the minimum would be.  However, I would guess
that unless one has about 4 megs, there may be some problems with using a
RAM disk.

>Earl

John

p.s.  Certainly glad to have SOME feedback on the tutorial (even if it is a
little bit negative :-< ) since there has been a deafening silence.  There
was also a deafening silence from the alpha-test volunteers.  But the day
was saved by the comments which Bruce Evans made on the draft version.

--
John W. Nall		| Supercomputation Computations Research Institute
nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu  | Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306
   WB4LOQ (why? I dunno....everyone else seems to be doing it.  _._)