[comp.os.minix] yet another question from a novice to the experts

abadia@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (antonio badia) (05/18/91)

Hi there. I just received my Minix version for the Macintosh a few days ago.
The first thing I realized is that the manual is so bad that it's almost
useless (and what do I do with all that stuff about PC, Amiga, etc. versions
if what I bought was Macminix? Is so expensive to do separate manuals and
not mix things?). Anyway, thanks to patches received from people in the
network I finally got Macminix installed in my hard disk. Now I have trouble
mounting things because "mkfs" gives me errors and I think I am not following
the instructions correctly. I insert an empty Mac disk in the drive
and type: "mkfs /dev/fd0 720" and get the error message: "unrecoverable
writing error onn device 2/0, block 719. Error: File system is too
big for minor device. Line 1 being processed when error detected".
Do I need to use "hdopen" before I can get to
the diskette, and do things with it? Or should I change some parameters?
I'm using a Mac SE/30 with one internal drive and 40M hard disk and 5 M of RAM
in case it helps.
Any advice and\or corrections on the manual (ANY part of it) will be greatly
appreciated. Thanks,
Antonio.
P.S. After those problems when I tried to use my communications
software (Red Ryder 9.0) with the modem I got system errors. Can I
blame this on Macminix or it's just a coincidence?

"Ken Corey, CSCI Major..." <KENC@vaxb.acs.unt.edu> (05/19/91)

>network I finally got Macminix installed in my hard disk. Now I have trouble
>mounting things because "mkfs" gives me errors and I think I am not following
>the instructions correctly. I insert an empty Mac disk in the drive
>and type: "mkfs /dev/fd0 720" and get the error message: "unrecoverable

You have it right here.  MacMinix expects you to 

hdopen Untitiled:fs /dev/fd0

before you try to format anything, since MacMinix implements filesystems in
standard Macintosh calls.  So:

hdopen Untitled:fs /dev/fd0
mkfs /dev/fd0 720
mkdir /floppy
mount /dev/fd0 /floppy

Will take a (preformatted) empty floppy, and put a Minix filesystem on it.

>software (Red Ryder 9.0) with the modem I got system errors. Can I
>blame this on Macminix or it's just a coincidence?

This might have something to do with the way in which Minix tries to handle to
serial port, but just TRY to reproduce it.  That seems to be the trouble right
now with most of the bugs in MacMinix.  They happen, but cannot be reliably
reproduced....*sigh*  (This is unreproducability is part of the 'did you hold
your mouth right when you started MacMinix?' comments...;)

| Ken Corey  kenc@vaxb.acs.unt.edu  ken@isect.lonestar.org           |
| "Ladies strewn, those made to witness his charm, never daring or   |
|  allowed to touch the man behind the machine."  -Leah              |