pst@anise.acc.com (Paul Traina) (07/21/89)
I'm in a pretty bizzare situation. We've just purchased ultrix for our
6310, and I have a bunch of TK50's sitting in front of me. Unfortunately,
our evil MIS department still owns the 6310 and they're VMS people (ick!).
I've got a spare 750 in one of my labs. I'd like to drop Ultrix 3.0 on it,
but it seems to have mutated away from 4.2bsd enough that I've got problems.
Here are the tools that I have:
(a) A Microvax running Ultrix with a TK50 tape drive on it.
(b) An 11/750 with gobs of old disk drives including an rm03 farm
and an RA60.
(c) The 750 can run either VMS or 4.3bsd at the flip of a switch.
(d) Both 4.2bsd and VMS 4.5 console TU58s for the 750.
What I tried:
I dd'ed the miniroot on the TK50 off into a file. I then rcp'ed that file
over the net and dd'ed it onto the b partition of a RA60 using a block
size of 20b and conv=sync.
I now should have a legitimate mini-root on the RA60's swap partition, however
I can't seem to make it boot. I also have a copy of the initial boot loader
that appears at the beginning of the Ultrix standalone tape. Now the
magic question is, where do I need to get that boot loader (I assume onto
a TU58) and what does *it* need in registers et al for startup.
If anyone has Ultrix 3.0 running on an 11/750 and has the software installation
guide, I'd love to hear from them. If anyone knows what mutations took place
in the Ultrix 3.0 loader (i.e. as far as I can tell, it doesn't look very
much like a VMS style VMB.EXE file and it dosen't look like a Unix 750boot
file), that would probably help too.
Sigh, life gets bizzare sometimes. Next step is to order a bloody media kit
for the 750, but:
(a) that takes all the fun out of things
(b) it will probably get here after I get my new 6310 play-toy.
inadvanceThanks,
.p.
--
"Calling people sexist because they are into S/M is like calling
people capitalist because they like to play Monopoly(TM)."
-- `Ask Aunt Sadie' / the Ministry of Truthgrr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) (07/21/89)
In article <960@anise.acc.com> pst@anise.acc.com (Paul Traina) writes: > I'm in a pretty bizzare situation. We've just purchased ultrix for our > 6310, and I have a bunch of TK50's sitting in front of me. Unfortunately, > our evil MIS department still owns the 6310 and they're VMS people (ick!). > > I've got a spare 750 in one of my labs. I'd like to drop Ultrix 3.0 on it, > but it seems to have mutated away from 4.2bsd enough that I've got problems. Ignoring all licensing issues, the main pain is that you have to get a copy of the new ultrixboot stuff properly installed on the boot sector of your disk or on a 750 console tape. The 4.2/4.3 loader stuff doesn't seem to work with ultrix since 2.0, though it's not obvious exactly why this should be so. Perhaps this new loader is derived from some VMS software, it's surely slow enough. I think you're screwed in this respect unless you can borrow some version of the 750 boot/install stuff 2.0 or later to get started with. If you have the 4.3 source, you might be able to modify "boot" to do the job if you can identify the problem - might just be load point/size... Other than this, you can skip all the silly "install from console media" stuff and manually restore files from the distribution. You have to do a little fudging here and there and also create this little configuration file that the stuff in the install script passes to the later phases. The contents are more or less obvious from the install scripts that use the file. I can understand the value of all the auto-config, auto-install and setld stuff, but installing 1.2 on a "normal" VAX was so much easier and quicker. Also: "...as slow as setld on a 750" - those compressed images really are really painful on the smaller machines. I wonder how much is really gained on mostly binary data? -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@uunet.uu.net Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) (07/21/89)
In article <7386@cbmvax.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes: > In article <960@anise.acc.com> pst@anise.acc.com (Paul Traina) writes: > > > I've got a spare 750 in one of my labs. I'd like to drop Ultrix 3.0 on it, > > but it seems to have mutated away from 4.2bsd enough that I've got problems. > > Ignoring all licensing issues... Oops, maybe I should clarify that. Maybe "having reviewed all licensing issues and having consulted with DEC..."? Anyway, I did wish to make a point that all the installation stuff is optimized for an initial installation by a relatively innocent system administrator. I really wish there was some documented provision for a more experience administrator to build a system "on-line" to a fresh system pack, without having to wing it step-by-step. Downtime is downtime, and there's enough pain in an install/upgrade without having to sit there for hours in half-dead single user mode. -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@uunet.uu.net Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)