rdd@wuphys.wustl.edu (Rakhal D. Dave) (12/27/90)
Here is some information I have collected over the past 10 days after receiving
my Next Station (105 Meg). First there is a lot of information and then there
are some questions. This is rather longish but I think it is useful. If anyone
wants to sell this information please feel free but do send me a copy of your
product. I can be contacted at rdd@dirac.wustl.edu and rdd@wuphy.wustl.edu .
Please assume the usual disclaimers. I have spent a day preparing this and
notes of thanks will maintain my enthusiasm for the net after this debut. Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.
CONTENTS: TRUTHS ABOUT THE CURRENTLY SUPPLIED NeXT STATIONS OF 105 MB:
Hardware
Software
INSTALLING C ON THE 105 MB NeXT MACHINE
INSTALLING TeX ON THE 105 MB NeXT MACHINE
INSTALLING DSP STUFF
NOTES ON MAKING SPACE
COMMENTS ON SPEED and DISAPPEARING MEMORY wrt SWAPFILE SIZE
RECOVERING FROM LOST KERNEL USING FLOPPY
CONNECTING TO A HOST COMPUTER VIA MODEM
QUESTIONS
TRUTHS ABOUT THE CURRENTLY SUPPLIED NeXT STATIONS OF 105 MB:
Hardware
1. When our campus representative showed of the NeXT station in our Physics
Dept. the system crashed once while trying to read a floppy disk. He blamed
this on the fact that the 68040 Motorola Chip inside was of an earlier version
and had tendency to heat up. He opened up the slab and showed us the chip and
it had a heat sink over it. He said that the machines that would be actually
supplied to consumers will not have such a chip. They will have a better
version of the chip which will not need a heat sink.
OK. I went home from the campus book store with my new slab. I opened it up
(not simply out of the box but the magnesium lid too) and guess what I found. A
chip with a heat sink and to make matters worse it very clearly states on top
of the chip: 68040 SAMPLE - BF. "SAMPLE ?" I don;t like that very much.
Two machines had been delivered to The Washingtin Univ. (in St. Louis) book
store. I got one and the other one went to a colleague of mine in the Physics
department. He was the first to open up the cube and find out about this chip.
His machine is no longer working. He was in the middle of an "edit" session as
I am now and the screen went white. He took it back to the campus book store
and tested it with the "Mega-pixel display" there and still the same thing. The
local NeXT engineer determined it to be a "logic problem". Euphemism for bad
chip ? Anyway the guarantee is still there for 51 more weeks and so the mother
board is back in California. My computer is still working. I am not sure which
of us is the lucky one.
2. One other interesting hardware feature is that my slab is supposed to be an
8 MB RAM machine. However when I saw inside I found that all the RAM slots were
filled. The workspace info panel shows 8 MB as it should be but why are all the
slots full?
Software
1. As supplied, the disk had 25 Meg available (without Mathematica, see below)
2. The upgraded version of Mathematica (2.0) is not ready and the Machine was
supplied without it. The Campus book store gave me Mathematica 1.0 to tide over
until 2.0 was ready (and supplied to me through the book store).
3. The machine could not run C or C++ programs as supplied.
INSTALLING C ON THE 105 MB NeXT MACHINE
In order to get C started, I picked up the following files from the campus demo
NeXT computer which is a 340 Meg cube with optical drive.
directory: /bin/
ar* cc* file* kgdb* nm++* segedit*
as* cc++* g++filt* ld* otool* size*
atom* ebadexec* gdb* nm* ranlib* strip*
On adding these files I think that my /bin directory looked exactly like the
/bin of the cube. Total of 77 files.
I also added files cc1 and cc1++ to my /lib from the demo cubes /lib thinking
that they may have something to do with compiling and assembling C. My final
/lib directory looked like this:
directory: /lib/
cc1* collect* crt0.o libsys_p.a
cc1++* cpp* gcrt0.o libsys_s.a
Total of 8 files. In this case I do not remember the original configuration of
the /lib directory so I might have added more than just cc1 and cc1+, but in
any case the final /lib looked as above.
I then tried to compile the following C program:
main()
{printf("Hello World\n");}
As far as I remember it complained about not finding stdio.h. It was bad
weather here in St. Louis and I did not feel like another trip to the campus
book store so I coonected via modem to the Physics Dept. VAX (which is also
UNIX, ofcourse) and picked up stdio.h and math.h from its /usr/include
directory.
The new Next machine does not have a /usr/include directory so I made one and
put these 2 files in there so that finally that directory looked like this:
directory /usr/include/
math.h stdio.h
Now I could at least compile and run the C program above. This program does not
need math.h but I picked it up because any useful program would. I have not yet
tested math.h in a program. Ideally these programs should be picked up from a
NeXT since Mach and Unix might be slightly different.
INSTALLING TeX ON THE 105 MB NeXT MACHINE
Lot of people in research also want Tex. For those research types who need
mathematica and Tex on a 105 Meg Next station, there is good news. you can have
both and be still left over with about 10 Meg. (see below for pointers on how
to make space).
In order for Tex to run you will need the following files to be added to your directory /usr/bin/
Install_TeX* dvitype* gftopk* jot* pktogf*
MakeTeXPK* etags* gftype* kl_ld* pktype*
bibtex* filemem* inimf* mft* pltotf*
dvips* gftodvi* initex* pageSymbols* tex*
Total addition of 20 files. The original configuration of my NeXT station had
164 files in /usr/bin. I now had 184.
You will also need TeXview to make full use of the NeXT wysiwyg capabilities.
This you will find probably in /NextDeveloper/Demos of the cube and you can put
it in the same place on your machine. This does not seem to be an appropriate
place for it though.
Then you need the huge file TeXdist.tar.Z or Texdist.tar.Z. This you should
find in /usr/tex along with a file README which explains how to proceed. There
may also be a file ntman.dvi which can be viewed by TeXview and which explains
a few things about TeX. Your /usr/tex directory should look like this:
directory /usr/tex/
README ntman.dvi texdist.tar.Z
note: ntman.dvi is not crucial to installing TeX.
The usr/bin files, Texview and the usr/tex files are definitely necessary for
TeX to be installed and to run. But it is possible that texdist.tar.Z
automatically generates the missing files in /usr/bin.
Note on Installing TeX:
After copying Mathematica 1.0 and the necessary TeXstuff above I had only about
17 Meg leftover. When you try to install TeX the installing program warns you
that you need at least 25 Meg for the installation to work although this does
not mean that you will have used up 25 Meg when it is done. It only needs this
during the transient stage of installation. When I started my installation(read
README) I began to quickly run out of memory. When only 1 meg was left over
(keep updating workspace browser to see how much space is left) I went back to
the shell and typed ^Z (control Z) and stopped the process. I then erased
Texdist.tar.Z and this gave me about 6 more Meg to work with. I then typed fg
to continue the stopped process. This worked fine. I have TeX now.
Final structure of Installed TeX:
NextLibrary/Fonts/TeXFonts 5.69 MB
linked by usr/lib/tex/fonts
and NextLibrary/Tex/tex/fonts
NextLibrary/Tex/tex 3.97 MB
linked by usr/lib/tex
NextLibrary/Tex/mf 1.12 MB
linked by usr/lib/mf
Addition of 20 files to usr/bin 1.08 MB
TOTAL 11.86 MB
If you include usr/tex/ntman.dvi and usr/tex/README add 0.159 MB bringing up
the total to about 12 MB.
INSTALLING DSP STUFF
I don't know much about dsp programming yet. I am including it here only for
completeness.One thing definitely important for those seriously interested in
using the dsp are the following 10 files which should be in /usr/bin :
directory /usr/bin
asm56000* dspbeep* dsploadwrap* dsptest* lib56000*
dspabort* dspimg* dspmsg* dspwrap* lnk56000*
These 10 files takes the final tally of files in usr/bin to 194. With the
addition of these files my usr/bin looks exactly like the usr/bin of the cube.
Also important is the directory NextDeveloper/DSP and all its subdirectories.
NOTES ON MAKING SPACE
1. If you are not going to use an Optical drive you can safely get rid of
/odmach. Remember if you ever need it that odmach and sdmach are the same
binary files (do a diff to confirm that) and so you can make odmach from sdmach
when required.
2. If you have installed TeX you shoul have the following 4 files in /usr/bin :
latex slitex tex virtex
Theses files are the same and are used by TeX for differebt applications. If
you read chapter 2 of ntman.dvi, on the first page of chapter 2 it tells you
that these files are meant to be linked. the TeX installation I did, did not
however create them linked. Linking them will give you half a meg more.
3. Sometimes when you run some processes like compiling C programs or some
other process which did not terminate in a regular way, a file is made in
/private/tmp called private/etc/netinfo/core (there is a chance that I may have
this directory wrong. It might be private/tmp/core). This file might be used
for debugging but if you don't need it, it can be erased. This file can
sometimes get very large.
4. This is perhaps the best pointer I have for people who are going to use the
NeXT as a standalone system. When delivered, the NeXT 105 Mb station comes with
a virtual memory swapfile /private/vm/swapfile of 16 MB. This is usually more
than enough. Having it at 16 Mb has the advantage that when you see how much
memory you have left on the disk it is almost definitely all available for use.
What I have done however is to erase /private/vm/swapfile. When you erase it
there is no immidiate effect. Yuo have to shut of power and reboot. When the
system starts up it will regenerate the swapfile in /private/vm . You will see
that while booting it may take a few seconds more and the rebooting animation
stops momentarily while it creates swapfile I suppose. The regenerated file
will take up typically 4 or 5 MB only and you will see an addition of about 10
MB to the available space. This memory is not all available for use however. As
you begin to test the sytem by running many processes at the same time
(multi-tasking) mamory will begin to be chopped of and delegated to the
swapfile. If you keep multi-tasking within some reasonable bounds the swapfile
may grow upto 9 MB. In severe multi tasking situations it has never grown
beyond 12 MB in my case. Thus I feel that you can safely consider adding 4 Mb
from outside in place of 4mb from the original 16 Mb swapfile. From here on add
stuff, but keep in mind that this may be at the expense of speed during
multi-tasking.
COMMENTS ON SPEED and DISAPPEARING MEMORY wrt SWAPFILE SIZE
I have seen some comments on the net from people who found that the NeXT was
very slow. One of them was seeing a Demo machine and another had it at home and
had slowed down for some reason (the rotating disk syndrome). Some others may
have noticed disappearing memory space.I think that this happens when you carry
out some very unreasonable process and the swapfile becomes very large. It
happened to me when I tried to open the Webster Dictionary as a writenow
document. The Swapfile grew to 20 MB. The computer eventually managed to show
me the dictionary but even after I exited "writeNow" it remained slow. It was
then that my detective work led me to the realization that there is no setup in
the operating system to recover from large swapfile size. I erased the swapfile
and rebooted and everything was fine again.
I think that demo machines are usually abused by people who are not sure about
what they are doing and the reason why people may come to the wrong conclusion
about the speed of the NeXT is because they see a machine with a huge swapfile.
RECOVERING FROM LOST KERNEL USING FLOPPY
I had inadvertently removed sdmach too during this operation thinking that the
mach file was the real kernel. This is not true. The file /mach is linked to
$BOOTFILE whatever this might mean. When I did a diff between /mach and /sdmach
it showed up to be the same. so I got rid of sdmach and odmach and linked them
to /mach . But /mach being linked to some dummy $BOOTFILE contained no
information and so I was left with nothing. The following are the sequence of
events to boot the NeXT station from floppy. You have to assume that the rest
of the directory structure, particularly all the files called by /etc/mach_init.
1. Copy /mach and /sdmach onto floppy (Perhaps /mach is not necessary. Remember
/mach is really a dummy file linked to some $BOOTFILE I don't know about)
from a working machine.
2. Insert floppy into drive.
3. Press Right Command with ~ key just after the "Loading from disk" message
comes on frame. This gets you into the "ROM MONITOR".
4. Type bfd -a -s
This causes the floppy to be read and the boot up to begin.
5. The rom monitor will ask for root device. When it does so type: sd0 (and
then
return) This tells the computer to look for the initialization files on the
scsi disk. As this proceeds the screen will be replaced by the Next-Mach
operating system monitor. You will be in a unix shell and can access all
your files with unix commands. You will however not yet have the Next-Step
interface and all the attendent graphics. The Next Steps are to get that:
6. Press the 2 command keys together with ~ to get you to the Next-Mach
operating system again. Here type "mon" without the quotation marks and this
will take you back to the ROM monitor.
7. At this point eject floppy with the command "ef" (No quotation marks).
8. After the floppy has ejected type "c" for continue( " ). The
screen will turn gray from white and you will be back in the unix shell.
There will be a # prompt. Type "exit" (No quotation marks) and the system
will proceed to boot up for multi-user mode and launch the graphical user
interface eventually ending with the login window.
CONNECTING TO A HOST COMPUTER VIA MODEM
1. For those expecting delivery of the NeXT station please do not buy the usual
cable used for a cube to modem connection. The connector has changed and you
will most probably have to make one yourself. Read the release notes which are
a bunch of papers stapled together and placed along with the manuals in the
"starting point kit".
2. If you are using TIP to connect to a modem I found that everything works
fine if I leave the /etc/tty file alone. This suggestion contradicts the
Network and system Administration maual on page 183. However all I needed to
connect to modem was to add the following line to /etc/remote
dialer:dv=/dev/cub:br#2400:
and then type: "tip dialer" in a shell to obtain connection with the modem.
Ofcourse change the Baud rate to your Baud rate. If I attempted to do what the
manual asked I almost always ended up with a device busy signal. (even though
the directory /usr/spool/uucp/LCK was empty).
QUESTIONS
1. Anomalous launching of finder on completion of the tetris game. It also
happened once when I was in "WriteNow". It has never happened again with the WN
but at the end of tetris when all the blocks are down and the last block comes
in and you attempt to adjust its position with the keypad keys 4,5, and 6, the
effect is that tetris closes down without even recording scores and the finder
is launched. WHY.
2. Many of the tar.Z packages which are not binary files but asci files
typically from pub/next/sources of some archive site require the use of the
make command before they are correctly installed. The make command is to be
given from the same directory in which the associated README file resides.In
every case that I have tried this I get a message telling me that the file:
/usr/lib/nib/Makefile.common
could not be found. In every case there is already a Makefile in the directory
I would currently be in. The computer however is looking for this other file.
It is not in my NeXT station. Could someone who has it send it to me. If it is
binary you can send it uuencoded by giveing the command:
uuencode filename filename>filename.uu
and then send me filename.uu .Either that or tell me what I am doing wrong with
the make command.
3. Could someone post on the net what is contained in the /usr/include of a
cube. This is useful information for those that have the 105 MB machine and
need to know what additional stuff needs to be added for the C programming to
work. I am also confused about where the C libraries reside and if I have them
at all.
4. Has someone successfully connected a Laser Jet HPIIP personal Laser printer
to a NeXT computer without problems. If so does one need it to have the
PostScript package. I should think not, since the postscript calculations can
be done on the NeXT and the printer can be bit-blasted with printing
information just as is done with the NeXT Laser printer. Also as far as I know
the NeXT laser printer has no cpu or memory of its own. Can the HP be connected
without any additionall memory added to it or would there be some limitations.
5. Is there any public domain Fortran compiler for the NeXT?
6. If not I plan to use f2c which is in the public domain. I can use it to
convert Fortran to C and then run the C programs. Has anyone done this with
success. I saw a note earlier on the net that there were some bugs in the
archive version at purdue for example. The suggestion was to get the files from
research.att.com = 192.20.225.2 . This number does not seem to work from here
at least so are there any sources of working f2c programs ?
7. I have probably not read the manual carefully but how useful are the
NetManager, NetinfoManager and MailManager for a stand alone system. The only
access I have to the outside world is through phone. This article, I am posting
from the school computer connected to my NeXT via modem. Let me reframe this
question to the following: If I am sure that I am never going to have an
ethernet or any other link to my machine except phone what software can I
safely throw away ?
<<<<<<<<<< Rakhal Dave: "I think therefore I might not be" >>>>>>>>>>eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (12/28/90)
Can I send your posting to rec.humor.funny? alt.folklore.computers? (BTW, if this really is a serious account, it's touching and sad (and still terribly funny). It's o.k., we'll get you some professional help, and I trust that the readership is bright enough not to follow in your footsteps. Excuse me, someone just called and asked me to immerse my telephone handset in a bucket of water. Gotta go...) (I can't stop laughing!!!) -=EPS=-
rbp@investor.pgh.pa.us (Bob Peirce #305) (01/02/91)
In article <1990Dec27.082848.10036@wuphys.wustl.edu> rdd@wuphys.UUCP (Rakhal D. Dave) writes: >Here is some information I have collected over the past 10 days after receiving > NOTES ON MAKING SPACE >1. If you are not going to use an Optical drive you can safely get rid of >/odmach. Remember if you ever need it that odmach and sdmach are the same >binary files (do a diff to confirm that) and so you can make odmach from sdmach >when required. Is there any reason why these two files exist as separate files rather than links to a common file? I don't have my cube yet, but on my SysV system at work, unix is linked to unix.g. I can boot from either if I really want to do so. -- Bob Peirce, Pittsburgh, PA 412-471-5320 ...!uunet!pitt!investor!rbp rbp@investor.pgh.pa.us
riordanmr@clvax1.cl.msu.edu (Mark Riordan) (01/02/91)
In article <1990Dec27.082848.10036@wuphys.wustl.edu>, rdd@wuphys.wustl.edu (Rakhal D. Dave) says: > >Here is some information I have collected over the past 10 days ... I found this posting very useful--and quite fortuitous, as it arrived a few hours before our first NeXTstation. (I still don't see what another poster saw as being so funny or sad about it.) Anyway, I implemented some of the poster's suggestions and have a few of my own for people who want to develop on a 105MB system. I'd appreciate additions or corrections to this none-too-definitive list. Before implementing my suggestions below, you may want to wait a week to see what other posters have to say first. You can delete the dictionary and thesaurus, as mentioned in the Release Notes: KB Saved Name of file or directory ----- ------------------------- 17567 /NextLibrary/References Use the command: rm -r /NextLibrary/References I think you can safely delete the following (assuming you don't have a printer), though I haven't tried it. Caveat emptor. 961 /NextAdmin/Upgrade2.0.app 586 /usr/lib/NextPrinter 1279 /usr/lib/transcript ? 497 /NextApps/Mail.app (this would probably be amoung the last to go) 280 /NextApps/Webster 448 /NextLibrary/Documentation/NextUser/Librarian.rtfd 536 /NextLibrary/Documentation/NextUser/MailCommands.rtfd 555 /NextLibrary/Documentation/NextUser/WMgrCommands.rtfd 579 /NextLibrary/Music 960 /NextAdmin/Upgrade2.0.app 27 /NextAdmin/FrameUpdate.pkg 147 /NextAdmin/PrinterTester 273 /me/Mailboxes 138 /NextDeveloper/Demos/Date 86 /NextLibrary/Images You will want to add some or all of the following files. If you're really hurting for disk space, you can be selective about the include files, the Examples, and the libraries. If you're not interested in music, for instance, you can probably save several megabytes. KB Files req. ---- ------ 3110 /usr/include 3806 /NextDeveloper/Examples Following from /bin: 9 ar 112 as 16 atom 24 cc 24 cc++ 120 ebadexec 9 file 16 g++filt 288 gdb 264 kgdb 96 ld 18 nm 1 nm++ 160 otool 8 ranlib 12 segedit 4 size 12 strip 3580 /lib 813 /NextApps/InterfaceBuilder Following from /usr/lib: 16 libMallocDebug.a 2181 libNeXT_p.a 363 libNeXT_s.a 10 libPeep.a 53 libarrayproc.a 57 libarrayproc_p.a 3 libc++.a 134 libcs.a 48 libcurses.a 53 libcurses_p.a 38 libdb.a 2 libdbm.a 3 libdbm_p.a 111 libdpsops.a 756 libdsp_p.a 68 libdsp_s.a 1 libg.a 17 libkernload.a 5 libl.a 6 libl_p.a 5 libln.a 82 libloadserv.a 30 libm.a 33 libm_p.a 22 libmidi.a 23 libmidi_p.a 15 libmp.a 16 libmp_p.a 1524 libmusic_p.a 292 libmusic_s.a 330 libni.a 337 libni_g.a 58 libni_p.a 23 libni_s.a 29 libnm.a 32 libnm_p.a 25 librpcsvc.a 6 libtermcap.a 6 libtermlib.a 8 libtermlib_p.a 2 liby.a 3 liby_p.a 996 /usr/lib/nib 3306 "/NextLibrary/Documentation/Unix/ManPages/man*" I used the following to copy from another NeXT (cl-next1) that had the full 2.0 release installed. (I was logged in as "root" and the other machine had my hostname in its /.rhosts .) rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/ar | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/as | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/atom | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/cc | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/cc++ | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/ebadexec | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/file | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/g++filt | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/gdb | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/kgdb | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/ld | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/nm | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/nm++ | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/otool | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/ranlib | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/segedit | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/size | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /bin/strip | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /usr/include | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /NextApps/InterfaceBuilder | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 "tar cfB - /usr/lib/lib*" | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /NextDeveloper/Examples | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /usr/lib/nib | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - /lib | tar xfBv - rsh cl-next1 tar cfB - "/NextLibrary/Documentation/Unix/ManPages/man*" | tar xfBv - After removing the directory /NextLibrary/References and doing the above tar's, the 105MB system has 18MB of free space (as reported by df). I have successfully compiled and run the BreakApp example and have compiled and run several non-trivial traditional C programs using this setup, so at least I'm headed in the right direction. This is a first pass--comments appreciated. Mark Riordan Michigan State University riordanmr@clvax1.cl.msu.edu
louie@sayshell.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) (01/02/91)
In article <1991Jan1.164445.20029@investor.pgh.pa.us> rbp@investor.pgh.pa.us (Bob Peirce #305) writes: >>1. If you are not going to use an Optical drive you can safely get rid of >>/odmach. >Is there any reason why these two files exist as separate files rather >than links to a common file? They are actually links to the same file. Thus deleting /odmach will only free an inode on the disk. louie
jacob@gore.com (Jacob Gore) (01/03/91)
/ comp.sys.next / rbp@investor.pgh.pa.us (Bob Peirce #305) / Jan 1, 1991 / > >1. If you are not going to use an Optical drive you can safely get rid of > >/odmach > >... > Is there any reason why these two files exist as separate files rather > than links to a common file? I don't have 2.0 yet, but on 1.0, they ARE links to a common file: jacob@blackbox> ls -i /??mach 219 /odmach 219 /sdmach jacob@blackbox> Jacob -- Jacob Gore Jacob@Gore.Com boulder!gore!jacob
lacsap@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Pascal Chesnais) (01/06/91)
I too was both frightened and amused by the original posting... The reason I was frigthened was that the original poster had no solid plan as to what he was trying to accomplish, but rather he decided that by experiementation he would arrive at a working machine.... I was amused because the original poster did things which could end up having the machine in a real confused state! This method is fine if you don't really care if your machine works or not. *** WARNING DO NOT USE THE FOLLOWING YET!!! IT IS NOT COMPLETE **** What I am suggesting is that we draft up a reference model that would be neat for 105Mb NextStation... The following is a BLD script for one that we have here at the lab in order that the machine has a compiler and tools local... we NFS mount NextLibrary and NextDeveloper from another machine... We use 330 drive with the complete distribution in a shoebox that we attach to the machine we want to build, and use /usr/etc/builddisk scripts... What I'd like to see is that the NextGurus out there take this and build up a manual for configuring machines correctly from the start, like we did for the .8 -> .9 -> 1.0 upgrades... The manual should describe what type of systems can be run, and then we should put BLD.scripts that local computer centers, campus consultants etc can use... pasc # NeXT File System build procedure # Build a hard disk from booted file system # Release 2.0 # Assume we will have machines to NFS mount all the other useful stuff # Build the read-write partition (a) # First check the size of the source directories size a /.NeXT size a /bin size a /NextApps size a /NextLibrary/Fonts size a /NextLibrary/Sounds size a /lib size a /usr size a /usr/template/user size a /odmach size a /.hidden size a /.login size a /.cshrc size a /.profile # Add a pad for the swapfile, which SHOULD be 16MB addsize a 16384 # Check size of stuff created by newclient size a /usr/template/client fit a # Fill in the root directory symlink a $BOOTFILE /mach chmod a 1777 / copy a /.hidden /.hidden copy a /.login /.login copy a /.cshrc /.cshrc copy a /.profile /.profile load a /.NeXT /.NeXT # Build the "private" symlinks symlink a private/etc /etc symlink a private/dev /dev symlink a private/tmp /tmp # Lay down the files we need most at boot load a /usr/template /usr/template load a /usr/etc /usr/etc load a /bin /bin exec a /usr/etc ./newclient -p sd330 /mnta/usr/template/client /mnta/private # Now lay down what we want close together after boot load a /usr/shlib /usr/shlib load a /usr/lib/NextStep /usr/lib/NextStep load a /NextLibrary/Fonts /NextLibrary/Fonts load a /NextLibrary/Sounds /NextLibrary/Sounds load a /NextApps /NextApps load a /lib /lib load a /usr /usr mkdirs a /Net # Put kernels on the disk copy a /odmach /odmach link a /odmach /sdmach # Build the home directory load a /usr/template/user /me rchown a me /me chmod a 777 /me -- Pascal Chesnais, Research Specialist, Electronic Publishing Group Media Laboratory, E15-348, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge, Ma, 02139 (617) 253-0311 email: lacsap@plethora.media.mit.edu (NeXT)