pnakada@oracle.com (Paul Nakada) (09/24/90)
In article <9009230528.AA17996@castle.org> castle!nomad@hydra.convex.com (Lee Damon) writes:
[ ... ]
So, dragon.castle.org is now running full distribution Minix. All
I have to do now is figure out how to make backups. :-) Anyone
have a driver for an Archive 2150S streaming tape drive?
I've got a question about Minix and the pc532... What form of
distribution aree people working from? Do you get the latest pc Minix
1.5 and apply patches? Is someone distributing full pc532 Minix
source (i doubt it)? How does one go about building Minix in the
first place when there is no other OS for the target machine?
Could somone give me a quick conceptual secription of what it takes to
get the pc532 from a bare machine at the monitor prompt to building
and running a multiprocess OS? Thanks a bunch.
-Paul Nakada
--
Paul Nakada | Oracle Corporation | pnakada@oracle.comdlr@daver.bungi.com (Dave Rand) (09/24/90)
[In the message entitled "Minix and the PC532" on Sep 23, 19:51, Paul Nakada writes:] > > I've got a question about Minix and the pc532... What form of > distribution aree people working from? Do you get the latest pc Minix > 1.5 and apply patches? Is someone distributing full pc532 Minix > source (i doubt it)? How does one go about building Minix in the > first place when there is no other OS for the target machine? A question? :-) 1. The current software is MINIX 1.3. John Connin and Bruce Culbertson are the main driving force moving to 1.5. 2. No, you can go from any MINIX version. We only require that you have purchased a valid copy of MINIX. 3. Yes, once you have "proven" ownership (by sending Bruce one of your original disks), he sends you back a complete source release. 4. This is the hard part, and thankfully was done quite a whil ago by Bruce Culbertson. He built his own system, based on the 32016, and ported MINIX to it by using his UNIX system as a cross-development platform. Because I was too slack (took too long), he then moved his system on to the PC532. Since the Series 32000 is pretty compatible, it turned out to be not too hard to make the transition. > > Could somone give me a quick conceptual secription of what it takes to > get the pc532 from a bare machine at the monitor prompt to building > and running a multiprocess OS? Thanks a bunch. The current release assumes that you have at least one other operational computer system. First, you format your hard disk. While this is not required (!), it does make modifying the system a bit friendlier. You can actually run the system with a remote hard drive over a serial link, if you want. Once your drive is formatted, you place a primative mini-root filesystem on the hard drive, by copying the software over a serial link to the pc532's ram. The monitor has built-in download capability. Once the miniroot is in RAM, you write it to the SCSI device with the monitor. The same steps are taken with the kernel, and the rest of the files on the filesystem. You then do a; read 0 2000 80 run 2000 and get a login: prompt. Nothing to it. Bruce has made the installation pretty flawless (tell that to Karl Swartz at 2 am :-). Full instructions are included in an installation guide on the floppies. MINIX is a _lot_ of fun to work with. The system is reliable, and easy to extend and modify. It has been a great source of entertainment lately! -- Dave Rand {pyramid|mips|bct|vsi1}!daver!dlr Internet: dlr@daver.bungi.com
seanf@sco.COM (09/24/90)
>Once your drive is formatted, you place a primative mini-root filesystem >on the hard drive, by copying the software over a serial link to the >pc532's ram. The monitor has built-in download capability. Once the >miniroot is in RAM, you write it to the SCSI device with the monitor. > >The same steps are taken with the kernel, and the rest of the files on >the filesystem. > >You then do a; > > read 0 2000 80 > run 2000 > >and get a login: prompt. Nothing to it. Bruce has made the installation >pretty flawless (tell that to Karl Swartz at 2 am :-). Full instructions >are included in an installation guide on the floppies. Are there any plans to make a tape distribution? I have a SCSI tape drive, which I purchased partially because of the pc532 (and partially because I have a '386 that wants to be backed up 8-)), and I imagine it shouldn't be too difficult to be able to do all of the above from a tape, no? Sean.
dlr@daver.bungi.com (Dave Rand) (09/24/90)
[In the message entitled "Re: Minix and the PC532" on Sep 24, 0:02, seanf@sco.COM writes:] > Are there any plans to make a tape distribution? I have a SCSI tape drive, > which I purchased partially because of the pc532 (and partially because I > have a '386 that wants to be backed up 8-)), and I imagine it shouldn't be > too difficult to be able to do all of the above from a tape, no? > I doubt that a tape distribution is in the coming - there is not enough size to justify it. Three high-density disks cover it pretty well... Also, we will have to add some commands to deal with tape devices in the monitor... as we found out this evening. -- Dave Rand {pyramid|mips|bct|vsi1}!daver!dlr Internet: dlr@daver.bungi.com
george@wombat.bungi.COM (George Scolaro) (09/24/90)
[In the message entitled "Minix and the PC532" on Sep 23, 19:51, Paul Nakada writes:] > > In article <9009230528.AA17996@castle.org> castle!nomad@hydra.convex.com (Lee Damon) writes: > > So, dragon.castle.org is now running full distribution Minix. All > I have to do now is figure out how to make backups. :-) Anyone > have a driver for an Archive 2150S streaming tape drive? Hopefully this will happen pretty soon. Dave & I just got hold of a Viper 2150S for the pc532 too :-) regards, -- George Scolaro george@wombat.bungi.com [37 20 51 N / 122 03 07 W]