Subject: Success at last...

From: Leon Verrall <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1998 17:03:49 +0100 (BST)

FInally got rid of the "Warning, unable to open console" message. I think I
managed it by not letting IRIX anywhere near the tarball of hard hat.
Downloaded and extracted entirely on Debian Linux.

The installer went without a hitch *applause* and I now have a running
Indy...

The only odd think I've noticed is the console(s) are defaulting to 150
columns and 68 lines (I think) which is way larger than the visible area.
I've fiddles with stty and the likes... Is there something fundamental going
on here?

Leon

-- 
Leon Verrall - 01189 307734  \ "Don't cut your losses too soon,
Secondline Software Support  / 'cos you'll only be cutting your throat.
Silicon Graphics, Forum 1,   \ And answer a call while you still care at all
Station Rd., Theale, RG7 4RA / 'cos nobody will if you wont" (6:00 - DT)

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From: Alex deVries <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1998 13:09:43 -0400 (EDT)

> Downloaded and extracted entirely on Debian Linux.

This is really weird.  Can you explain in greater detail what you changed
to make sure that it worked?

> The installer went without a hitch *applause* and I now have a running

<puffin takes a bow>

These kinds of stories are very encouraging.  October 1 is when I'm going
to start again with the installer work, and this time it'll be done
*properly*, as the current one is a gross hack.

- Alex

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From: Leon Verrall <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 16:52:50 +0100 (BST)

> to make sure that it worked?

Erm. not really I'm afraid... Thinking about it the only real difference
that I can think of was I had a keyboard/mouse installed. Before I was using
a vt100 terminal. I realise that should work but maybe a missing keyboard
caused it to barf? 

I could have untearred the tarfile from an nfs mount onto the linux box
before but I can't see that having an effect... 

Any ideas on the console size thing? This could just be a cofiguration thing
I've never bothered to look at before on linux but I can't see where... 

Leon

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From: Rob Lembree <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1998 17:21:17 -0400

> to make sure that it worked?

I found that IRIX's tar wasn't very careful with modification dates,
which I don't think is a problem, but the major and minor IDs of the
dev files were all zero -- clearly broken.  I haven't experimented,
but I believe this to be the failure.

-r

-- 

Rob Lembree                Strategic Software Organization

Silicon Graphics, Inc.                  http://www.sgi.com
One Cabot Road                             [email-masked]
Hudson, MA 01749                           [email-masked]
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From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 16:03:00 +0200

> but I believe this to be the failure.

This seems to indicate to me that we should replace the dev directory
with a script that creates the inodes.  Luckily we already have one which
is called ``MAKEDEV''.  As we already know the representation of the
minor / major device number isn't transparent through NFS, so the MAKEDEV
will have to detect the NFS server's OS and to corrospondingly munge the
device number used as argument for mkdev in a way that after exporting
from the NFS server the client sees what he expects to see.  If that is
at all possible in all cases.  Yuck.  But it's a longstanding problem
which before has already been reported by people using other operating
systems like HP/UX.

  Ralf

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From: Alex deVries <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 10:56:37 -0400 (EDT)

> from the NFS server the client sees what he expects to see.  If that is

You're 100% correct, hard coding the device on the fs is a BAD idea.
However, a reasonable way of doing it is to just put the bare devices on
the initrd, and create any additional devices you need.

I'll do this in the next installer.

- Alex