wayne@csri.toronto.edu (Wayne Hayes) (02/21/91)
I've had this problem ever since I upgraded to Minix-386, but since there's such an easy run-time kludge I've never bothered to look into it. I'm running Minix-386 with shoelace, 4M RAM and 100M disk space. When I boot off shoelace, everything looks fine until I get to my /etc/rc file. In there I have a single query for the user to answer (whether to start a getty process on the serial port by adding a line to the /etc/ttys file) that used to work fine. Now, if I boot up normally it gets to that query and then completely freezes up. Nothing short of a cold boot (via the hardware reset switch) will unlock it. Not Ctrl-F9, not Ctrl-Alt-Del, nothing. BUT if I press any key during the bootup process (after shoelace starts loading the kernel), then shoelace pauses at the end of bootup (just before running /etc/rc) until I press another key. So usually I wait until I see the kernel loading and hit the space bar twice. After that everything's hunky dory. The two keyhits are lost forever (/etc/rc doesn't see them) but it boots fine, and I can answer the query and then get a login prompt and go on my merry way. Does anyone have any ideas why this happens? -- "You ask me what I think about war and the death penalty. The latter question is simpler. I am not for punishment at all, but only for the measures that serve society and it's protection." -- Albert Einstein Wayne Hayes INTERNET: wayne@csri.utoronto.ca CompuServe: 72401,3525