[comp.sys.next] Solution to Unreadable MS-DOS disks

mahesh@caradhras.cc.nd.edu (Mahesh Subramanya) (02/01/91)

	Something that all NeXT + AFS users should be aware of.  
There is a small problem concerning where AFS and DOS get loaded
into the kernel, to wit, AFS picks the first available spot, while 
DOS tries to load itself into a specific location.  The solution is
to manually have DOS load before AFS during the boot process.  This
uses up about 70K of physical memory (since otherwise dosfs_reloc would
load/unload on demand) continually, but it's a small price to pay
i suppose.  What  I did at Notre Dame is, modify the system as follows

Instead of starting up AFS as recommended by Transarc, I changed
/etc/kern_loader.conf to ->

********  CONTENTS OF   /etc/kern_loader.conf ******************

/usr/lib/kern_loader/MIDI/midi_reloc
/usr/lib/kern_loader/NextDimension/NextDimension_reloc
/usr/filesystems/DOS.fs/dosfs_reloc

**********   END OF /etc/kern_loader.conf **********************


I also added the following lines to /etc/rc just after the route gets
set

#
# To start up AFS
#
if [ -f /usr/etc/kl_util ]; then
	/usr/etc/kl_util -l dosfs	>/dev/console 2>&1
	/usr/etc/kl_util -a /usr/lib/kern_loader/AFS/afs_reloc >/dev/console 2>&1
fi

if [ -f /usr/vice/etc/afsd ]; then
	/usr/vice/etc/afsd	>/dev/console 2>&1
fi
#
# End AFS startup
#




While the line in /etc/kern_loader.conf tells the kernel of the 
existence of dosfs_reloc, the line in /etc/rc explicitly loads it
into the kernel permanently.  AFS gets loaded after that, so everything
is copacetic.


Hopefully, this is of some use to folks.

-- 
************************************************************************
Mahesh Subramanya                     INTERNET: mahesh@caradhras.cc.nd.edu
Senior Analyst                        
Office of University Computing        NeXT:     mahesh@numenor.next.nd.edu
University of Notre Dame              Voice:    (219) 239-5600  x6421
Notre Dame,  IN  46556
************************************************************************