root@ozdaltx.UUCP (root) (09/30/90)
I'm really confused on adding XENIX to an existing DOS system
I know plenty of others have done this, but the manual (XENIX) just
barely acknowleges the existance of DOS and hardly gives any details.
(Read my lips SCO).
I'm helping a friend set up a new 386. He has a 650 meg drive, with
drive C split at 1024 cyls. Giving 397 meg on C. We partitioned C
for 97 meg for XENIX and 300 for DOS, ( he lives in a DOS world, but
really is impressed with *nix and wants to learn it).
The 97 meg section was partitioned as 1, 300 section as 2.
The drive has 1314 tracks, 17 heads, 53 sect/track.
Oh yeah, we're using XENIX 2.2.3b (286) version. 386 2.3 will have to
come later, all the $$$ is gone for now.
The answers to all this may very well be in the manuals, unfortunatly,
the manual set in incomplete and SCO dosn't sell the 2.2.3 manuals any longer.
OK.... Confusion time...
First of 2 problems:
Installing XENIX went fairly well, except when fdisk asked how many
tracks to allow for the XENIX partition.. hummmmm. I told it to start
at 0 to 11610, there being 15600 in C. Woops! I misguessed.
DOS fdisk shows only 3% available for DOS on C.
How do I calculate the tracks to use for the XENIX partition
for the 97 meg size?
Would someone be kind enough to give me a step by step on this?
I don't even have DOS on my system, and so I'm really dumb in this
area. I really don't speak DOS. ;-)
Alright - 2nd problem.
To complicate things even further, He has a NEC 3-D VGA monitor driven
by a (Paradise VGA1024) smart-card with autosensing. SETUP will not
let me change the board type in ROM, it says "CGA/EGA/VGA AUTO SET".
And returns to the menu. There are no jumper/switches to specify
what mode you want the board to come up in [CEV]GA. The only way the
initial display type can be changed is by DOS software that came with
the board, and it is only effective for one warm reboot. It then
reverts back to VGA mode.
The mother board has one video switch, color/monochrome. That is it.
I was able to install Xenix by taking the vid board out of my system
and using my mono monitor, enough to get it running.
Now, from what I can determine from the XENIX docs. The system will
allow you to specify what kind of display to use at bootup. I'm well
aware that VGA isn't supported in 2.2.3, but EGA is. Again the docs
are very sketchy in this area.
What do I need to do to tell XENIX to use EGA mode on bootup?
Change /etc/rc?
Do something with /dev/ega?
Use stty whatever?
Should he get a EGA card and switch monitor cable when he wants
to run XENIX? ( I believe two video boards can be used )
As a side note, I have tried the DOS configurations for ega & mga and
others, either XENIX won't boot at all or I get total (hi-rez)
garbage on the screen.
I hate to get this detailed, but I have jacked with this thing for the
last 10 days and am just about "up-to here" with it.
Any/all help will be most certainly be appreciated. It might be even
worth a steak dinner. ;-)
Please e-mail info to me, root@ozdaltx. I'll summerize and post
a how to, once everything is running. I know I can't be the only
person to have run into this same situation and probably won't be the
last.
Mucho thanks....
scotty
{mic|sulaco|void}!ozdaltx!root