adnan@sgtech.uucp (Adnan Yaqub) (09/26/90)
Currently I find myself involved in driver development for multiple Unix-like operating systems for 386 boxes (PS/2, ISA, et al). When I produce a new version of a driver, I am obligated to test it on several platforms to make sure it installs properly and works as advertized. However, around here, it is a real pain to be able to find a "virgin" disk with the OS you need to test. I suppose we could build up some disks just for testing, one OS per disk, but that would still not guarantee a "fresh" OS (i.e., the guy before you may have really hosed things up). Also, this ties up a lot of resources. (I don't know about you, but we still find disks expensive.) An ideal situation, IMHO, would be to have a bunch of operating systems on tape which you could dump onto a disk. Thus, when it comes time to test your driver with an OS, you grab the tape, run some magical program which makes the disk "right" for the OS and blasts the OS from tape to disk. You then load your driver and test to your hearts content. I know Interactive allows you to load from tape, but not other common OS companies. Is any one doing this? Do you have any other ideas on how to solve this nightmare? Thanks. -- Adnan Yaqub (adnan@sgtech.uucp) Star Gate Technologies 29300 Aurora Rd, Solon, OH, 44139, USA, +1 216 349 1860
pf@artcom0.north.de (Peter Funk) (09/28/90)
adnan@sgtech.uucp (Adnan Yaqub) writes: [...about installing some flavour of PC-UNIX from tape...] ay> not other common OS companies. Is any one doing this? Do you have ay> any other ideas on how to solve this nightmare? It is our practice to install SCO Xenix from streamer cartridge tape. We have prepared a special BOOT N1 Floppy for this purpose : A small shell script calls 'fdisk' and 'divvy -b 1 -c 1 -i' and so on. Afterwards the OS is installed using 'cpio -icvdumB < /dev/erct0' from cartridge tape. Someone, who is involved in driver development, should be able to prepare such a shell-beast in at least one hour. Take the original installation shell script provided by SCO as an example. Branding and serialization is also possible, if you need so : you must copy the original unbranded versions of libsys.a and getty onto the tape or else onto the prepared boot disk. This procedure cuts the time needed for the complete OS-Installation (including several applications as well) down to about 15 Minutes. Using the standard floppy-disk approach is indeed a nightmare. :-) A special hint: you need to copy 'mkdir' to the /bin directory of the boot disk, or 'cpio' will not work otherwise. It is good practise, to copy some other useful tools to that bootup disk also. The 'emergency boot disk' created by 'mkdev fd' is nearly useless, since 'cp', 'rm', 'ls', 'rmdir'... are missing. Just another (not so serious) question : How do you solve the multiple peripheral device nightmare ? Exotic peripherals, such as an IEEE-488 coupled color photocopier (the CANON CLC 500) or an EXAbyte SCSI tape for instance, cann't be saved to tape ;-) and are also heavily needed during driver development and testing. They are also even more expensive than harddisks... :-( -=- Peter Funk \\ ArtCom GmbH, Schwachhauser Heerstr. 78, D-2800 Bremen 1 Work at home: Oldenburger Str.86, D-2875 Ganderkesee 1/+49 4222 6018 (8am-6pm) >> PLEASE Don't send BIG mails (oversea) ! I've to pay for it : $0.4/kB Don't use the bang path of this news article for mails (They will bounce). Only the address 'pf@artcom0.north.de' will work. Thank You ! <<
samc@ntpdvp1.UUCP (Sam Christie) (09/28/90)
Regarding the problem of maintaining multiple OSs on limited hardware for compatibility testing: We are just begining in this same problem and were considering placing each OS on a seperate optical disk cartridge. We have purchased a maxoptics 1.2Gbyte drive. We have had some trouble setting the system up and the drive definately requires cooling, but we are still hopeful. Any thoughts on this idea ? Sam Christie Standard Disclaimer Applies Northern Telecom - DMS-10 Research Triangle Park, NC EMAIL ...!uunet!mcnc!rti!ntpdvp1!samc 919/992-3917
ronald@robobar.co.uk (Ronald S H Khoo) (09/29/90)
In article <2289@artcom0.north.de> pf@artcom0.north.de (Peter Funk) writes: > Afterwards the OS is installed using 'cpio -icvdumB < /dev/erct0' > from cartridge tape. I prefer tar for this, so you can do the same tar tqnf $tapedev ./tmp/_lbl trick that custom(C) does to make sure the *right* tape has been inserted. For best results, make sure ALL your tar tapes have a ./tmp/_lbl label on them so that the check aborts early if the wrong tape is inserted. WHY ISN'T THE 'q' OPTION TO TAR DOCUMENTED ? IT'S USEFUL, YOU KNOW. Don't forget to run fixperm -c <relevant perms files> after that to make sure that the setup is OK and to create the relevant device files. BTW If you need to install time configure what devices need creating, an awk script which generates a perms file is MUCH quicker than running zillions of mknods! > unbranded versions of libsys.a Actually it's libmdep.a For a complete list, you can do grep ser= /etc/perms/* > Using the standard floppy-disk approach is indeed a nightmare. :-) Agreed. I'm dreading having to install ODT like that -- Xenix is bad enough. SCO do have a tape based installation media kit for ODT but they don't seem to like selling it for some reason or other. > How do you solve the multiple peripheral device nightmare ? I'm not sure I understand what you mean, but I do have several sets of /usr/sys/conf/{master,xenixconf,link_xenix} -- one for each possible required driver combination, and all the possibly required .o files get put on the tape. Then determine during installation which is required, copy the appropriate set into /usr/sys/conf, cd /usr/sys/conf ./configure -rw ./link_xenix and install the new kernel. -- ronald@robobar.co.uk | +44 81 991 1142 (O) | +44 71 229 7741 (H) | YELL! "Nothing sucks like a VAX" -- confirmed after recent radiator burst! Hit 'R' <RETURN> to continue .....
ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) (10/01/90)
How about putting a SyQuest drive on a couple of your machines? You can then have a cartridge for each setup you wish to test with. Cartridges are 40 meg, and about $80. Tim Smith