cechew@bruce.OZ (Earl Chew) (05/02/90)
cwr@pnet01.cts.com (Will Rose) writes: >I got Shoelace through the kindness of a net reader, and have compiled that I'm sorry about the distribution --- or lack of it --- but because of its size, I won't be posting *this* version of shoelace (which is sort of like a beta release, I suppose). I will post the *next* version which will be cleaned up for 1.5.9 (and beyond :-). >docs, and a lot of them) and typing 'make'. The problem is in a compilation >flag, __STDC__. If this is defined, standard C is used, but otherwise I apologise for the varargs.h vs stdargs.h problem. It has its roots in 1.3c. I was at that time using TurboC to compile shoelace and Bruce Evans was using every other known compiler on the face of the earth. With an ANSI compiler it was necessary to use stdargs.h and every other compiler used varargs.h. Now we have a non-ansi compiler (ack) using stdargs.h which is ok too, but it wasn't taken into account at the time (Minix didn't have stdargs.h). I have included varargs.h with shoelace 1.0a in the Adelaide archive and have also included it at the end of this article. When I clean up shoelace for the next version, I will make it use stdargs.h. Please, compile *without* __STDC__ and *with* varargs.h. >Anyway, Bootlace/Shoelace runs exactly as it should. The only part of the Great. >documentation that is obscure is the relationship between the boot disk and >the ramdisk. You need to read the config file carefully to understand this, The boot disk is the disk (or partition) from which you bootstrapped the system. The ram disk is the piece of memory accessible as /dev/ram. When you reboot Minix, the memory forgets --- hence you must reload the ram disk. One of the ways of reloading the ram disk is to keep an image (a bit for bit image) on some `un-forgettable' media :-) Shoelace allows you to specify the name of the device where this image is stored. It can be: 1. a hard disk 2. a hard disk partition 3. a floppy disk 4. the boot disk >especially as two of the defaults (db and rootdev) are unusual when compared Rootdev is merely the device which is going to hold your root directory. Traditionally, this has been the ramdisk. Shoelace allows you to specify: 1. the ram disk 2. a floppy disk 3. a hard disk 4. a hard disk partition 5. the boot disk >to standard minix. Ignore the comment against 'run' in config, which is >confusing, and read the documentation, which is very clear. The other odd Funny. I thought both were clear. Hmmm... the one in config should probably read: # Each run entry runs a standalone executable at boot time >thing is that booting with bootlace from a floppy leaves fd0 running >continuously! dosread 2>/dev/null stops it, tho'. Hmm... this shouldn't occur. I haven't noticed it happening. It could be that the BIOS hasn't timed out to turn the floppy off before Minix starts up. It must be that you've used a floppy to boot the hard disk. This is not usual --- I don't think that I'll spend much time fixing it if that's the case... then again... Earl -- Earl Chew, Dept of Computer Science, Monash University, Australia 3168 ARPA: cechew%bruce.cs.monash.oz.au@uunet.uu.net ACS : cechew@bruce.oz ----------------------------------------------------------------------
L.Parkes@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Lloyd Parkes) (05/03/90)
> The bit about the the floppy drive motor not turning off.
The answer is quite simple (I just hope I'm right :-). Shoelace loads
Minix using the BIOS, the BIOS leaves the motor running for 2s. In
that 2s Minix starts up. The BIOS no longer has control of the floppy
so it doesn't turn the motor off and Minix didn't turn the motor on,
so it doesn't turn the motor off either.
Lloyd
--
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Lloyd Parkes | This space intentionally left blank
lloyd@comp.vuw.ac.nz | Disclaimer: There is no such word as 'gullible'
------------------------------------------------------------------------woju@neon.UUCP (Wolfgang Jung) (05/07/90)
L.Parkes@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Lloyd Parkes) writes: >> The bit about the the floppy drive motor not turning off. >The answer is quite simple (I just hope I'm right :-). Shoelace loads >Minix using the BIOS, the BIOS leaves the motor running for 2s. In >that 2s Minix starts up. The BIOS no longer has control of the floppy >so it doesn't turn the motor off and Minix didn't turn the motor on, >so it doesn't turn the motor off either. There is an easy way to deal with it. Just put a small funktion into the initsequence witch initializes the Partitions This funktion just tries to get the Sektor 0 of your Floppy(you call the funktion, witch does that) and that function then should stop the Floppydrivemotor... Greetings =================================================================== # Wolfgang Jung Email:woju@neon.UUCP # # Germany Phone:0304112949 # ===================================================================