Subject: [Q] How to reboot automatically?

From: "Francis M. J. Hsieh" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 16:47:41 +0800

Can the bios remeber to reboot as "boot /vmlinux root=/dev/sdb1" ?

--
Francis M. J. Hsieh, Bioinformatics Center, Life Science, NTHU, Taiwan

---

From: "Francis M. J. Hsieh" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 04:18:15 +0800

On Sun, Jul 19, 1998 at 04:18:10AM +0200, [email-masked] wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 18, 1998 at 04:47:41PM +0800, Francis M. J. Hsieh wrote:
> Try the ARC environment variable OsLoadOptions.  See also the IRIX manpages
> about the firmware.

Well, OSLoadOptions saves only 12 character. Maybe I was at the wrong way,
there is few document about firmware. neither the manpages nor the online
books contain helpful information.

-- 
Francis M. J. Hsieh      | Email:   [email-masked]
Life Science Department, | Webpage: http://www.life.nthu.edu.tw/~mjhsieh/
National Tsing Hua Univ, | Voice:   +886 3 5715131 ext 3482
HsinChu, Taiwan Republic | 	    +886 3 5715649

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 23:20:54 +0200

> books contain helpful information.

12 Characters?

!@#%%$!##,

  Ralf

---

From: "Francis M. J. Hsieh" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 20:25:48 +0800

> > books contain helpful information.

any idea? the sash would not read root variable...... so setenv root won't
work...

---

From: "William J. Earl" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 09:10:34 -0700

> any idea? the sash would not read root variable...... so setenv root won't

    To boot IRIX from an alternate partition, we usually
set

	OSLoadPartition=scsi(0)disk(4)rdisk(0)partition(0)
	OSLoader=sash
	OSLoadFilename=/unix
	root=dks0d4s0

sash is fetched from

	SystemPartition=scsi(0)disk(4)rdisk(0)partition(8)

These can be set in the NVRAM using

	setenv -p SymbolName SymbolValue

IRIX looks at the environment when booting.  That is, it finds
argc, argv, and envp in $a0, $a1, and $a2.  It copies them to
private storage before starting up, since they are in memory
which will be overlaid by dynamic memory allocation.  All of the
NVRAM and temporary environment variables are passed via envp.
IRIX looks for root= on the command line (in argv) first, and then
in the environment, before falling back on a default.  linux could
do the same.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 20:32:00 +0200

> in the environment, before falling back on a default.  linux could

That looks like a good idea; it can be implemented easily and nicely
within Linux.  And for transparency we should.  What will stay different
is the naming convention of Linux partitions.

The environment is allocated in ``Firmware Temporary'' memory, isn't it?
We don't free that yet but we should, for low memory configurations that
should be a significant amount of memory.

  Ralf

---

From: "William J. Earl" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 11:43:15 -0700

> is the naming convention of Linux partitions.

     That is good, but you might consider translating incoming IRIX-format
and ARCS-format names to Linux names, just as IRIX translates ARCS-format
names to IRIX-format names.  

 > should be a significant amount of memory.

     Yes, the environment is in firmware temporary memory, along with
a copy of the firmware.  The non-volatile environment is in the Dallas
part, but the user, via PROM or sash, may have replaced one or more
of the variables after the environment was copied to memory.

     I would guess that, depending on how the system was booted,
firmware temporary memory could be 4 MB or more, although the
actual environment and argument values are of course much smaller.
Once you free the firmware area, you can no longer use the firmware
entries (except to leave linux and reboot or halt).

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 21:11:28 +0200

> entries (except to leave linux and reboot or halt).

Once I enable the L2 caches of the R4600SC and R5000SC modules I can't use
the firmware any longer anyway, the machine just crashes.  So not much
of a loss anyway.

  Ralf