OOOPS! OPENSTEP 4.2 *DOES* partitions > 4GB!?!?
Uli Zappe
I just did a vanilla install of OPENSTEP 4.2 on an IDE disk with 18 GB.
As expected, OPENSTEP reported the disk to be only 8 GB. *But* then it went
on with the automatic installation without partitioning the disk, i.e. it
installed itself from the 4.2 CD on *one* partition of 8 GB.
So far, I couldn't find the smallest malfunction with this 8 GB partition...
Am I in a reality distortion field or what?
Bye
Uli
--
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Colin Allen
>So far, I couldn't find the smallest malfunction with this 8 GB partition...
>Am I in a reality distortion field or what?
Almost certainly. I tried the same on a 6 gig drive and it seemed to
work fine until I did a dirty shutdown (due to an unscheduled power
cut).
On restart fsck will start churning through errors and (2 hrs later)
you'll probably get tired of it.
The only solution is a complete reinstallation in a smaller partition.
4 GB seems to work.
Test it now before you get too much effort invested installing
software on that disk!
--
Colin Allen
http://snaefell.tamu.edu/~colin/
-- Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! --
Rex Dieter
"Uli Zappe" <u...@ritual.org> wrote in message
news:85ft7p$1vp$1...@tallowcross.ritual.org...
> Hi,
>
> I just did a vanilla install of OPENSTEP 4.2 on an IDE disk with 18 GB.
>
> As expected, OPENSTEP reported the disk to be only 8 GB. *But* then it
went
> on with the automatic installation without partitioning the disk, i.e. it
> installed itself from the 4.2 CD on *one* partition of 8 GB.
>
partition...
>
> Am I in a reality distortion field or what?
No. It sure worked... so far...
It'll format, but it'll stop with "disk full" errors when you hit the 4GB
mark.
--
Rex Dieter
Computer System Administrator
Mathematics and Statistics
University of Nebraska Lincoln
Uli Zappe
> Uli Zappe <u...@ritual.org> wrote:
> >So far, I couldn't find the smallest malfunction with this 8 GB
>
> Almost certainly. I tried the same on a 6 gig drive and it seemed to
> work fine until I did a dirty shutdown (due to an unscheduled power
> cut).
>
> On restart fsck will start churning through errors and (2 hrs later)
> you'll probably get tired of it.
>
> The only solution is a complete reinstallation in a smaller partition.
> 4 GB seems to work.
>
> Test it now before you get too much effort invested installing
> software on that disk!
You're right, that spoils the party.
Hm, OS can't use partitions > 4 GB, but the install program creates them by
default? This seems to be a downright bug of the install program to me. :-(
Even more so since the install program doesn't even leave you the choice of
choosing more than one partition (although disktab -p would easily allow for
two at least).
Unless you want to partition & install from an external disk, this means you
have to replace the rc.cdrom install program by a modified one on floppy
(which in turn means you must boot with an added floppy driver), boot in
single user mode and start rc.cdrom from the floppy. Ugly.
While I was at it, I tested the hardware limits to be finally sure what works
and what doesn't.
I'm quite sure that 4 GB partitions basically work with OS 4.2. I tested a
lot, filled up the partition completely etc., and everything still was rock
solid. fsck is no problem.
This means that every program that accesses the disk via the OS 4.2 file
system will work. *BUT* programs that access the disk directly are *NOT*
guaranteed to work. Notably, dump and restore fail, and fdisk reports
nonsense or crashes. This means that those who cannot tolerate the failure of
particular programs that access the disk directly must stick with 2 GB.
Bye
Uli
Colin Allen
>Hm, OS can't use partitions > 4 GB, but the install program creates them by
>default? This seems to be a downright bug of the install program to me. :-(
Yep, I agree.
>Unless you want to partition & install from an external disk, this means you
>have to replace the rc.cdrom install program by a modified one on floppy
>(which in turn means you must boot with an added floppy driver), boot in
>single user mode and start rc.cdrom from the floppy. Ugly.
Very. I wish there was an easy solution as I'm sitting here with a 10
gig drive and 6 gigs unused (and I have no interest in installing a
second OS there). I don't have an external disk to use to do the
partition, and no real desire to buy one. I can live with the idea
that I bought a slightly pricy 4 gig drive, but would love to get a
way to reclaim the rest of it for Openstep if I could.
>While I was at it, I tested the hardware limits to be finally sure what works
>and what doesn't.
>
>I'm quite sure that 4 GB partitions basically work with OS 4.2. I tested a
>lot, filled up the partition completely etc., and everything still was rock
>solid. fsck is no problem.
I did some similar tests, including starting with a file and
repeatedly creating a new one by doubling the old one until I was
pushing around hundreds of megabytes at a time. Over several hours of
copying (which caused quite a bit of swapping!) I filled up the
partition to about 3.5 gigs. Everything was solid.
I've also now had the machine running with a 4 gig partition for about
3 months, with no problems despite several dirty shutdowns (including
one today) due to flaky residential power supply. The machine had
been up continuously for almost a month until this afternoon.
>This means that every program that accesses the disk via the OS 4.2 file
>system will work. *BUT* programs that access the disk directly are *NOT*
>guaranteed to work. Notably, dump and restore fail, and fdisk reports
>nonsense or crashes. This means that those who cannot tolerate the failure of
>particular programs that access the disk directly must stick with 2 GB.
Thanks for the information. I never use dump/restore and hadn't
thought to test them. I confirm that fdisk is flaky.
Uli Zappe
> >have to replace the rc.cdrom install program by a modified one on floppy
> >(which in turn means you must boot with an added floppy driver), boot in
> >single user mode and start rc.cdrom from the floppy. Ugly.
>
> Very. I wish there was an easy solution as I'm sitting here with a 10
> gig drive and 6 gigs unused (and I have no interest in installing a
> second OS there). I don't have an external disk to use to do the
> partition, and no real desire to buy one. I can live with the idea
> that I bought a slightly pricy 4 gig drive, but would love to get a
> way to reclaim the rest of it for Openstep if I could.
Well, *once you have figured out* what to do and prepared your install disks
accordingly, it's almost as easy as an old install (at least if it's OK for you
to use 2 4GB partitions).
Here's what I did in detail (out of my head, I could look at my files later on if
anyone is interested):
Prepare the OPENSTEP driver disk (or a copy of it):
- remove the Adaptec 1542B, BusLogicFPSCSI, BusLogicSCSIDriver,
S3ViRGEDisplayDriver drivers to have enough space available
- replace the EIDE and EISA drivers with the newest versions from
Apple's Tech Info Library (EISA v4.05; EIDE v4.03); these are much
bigger and therefore need more disk space
- add the floppy driver from the drivers on the OPENSTEP CD-ROM (*not* the
newer version on Apple's site!)
- copy the rc.cdrom script from the /etc directory of the OPENSTEP CD-ROM
to the root directory of the driver floppy
- edit the rc.cdrom script such that the line
${DISK} -i ...... (or similar; it's out of my head, as I said)
becomes
${DISK} -i -p 7700000 ...... (this is if you use all available space
for OPENSTEP; if you reserve some space for DOS and want the second partition
(which will probably become your user partition, and which I therefore wanted
to be as big as possible) be as big as possible, use a smaller value for
the first partition as determined by -p; e.g., if you reserve 150 MB for DOS,
use -p 7400000 instead, i.e. for each MB substract 2000 from 7700000).
If you change " >>/dev/null" at the end of the line to " | grep Mb" the
resulting partition sizes will be displayed during installation.
You could even test with fdisk -installSize if the disk size is > 4GB, and
partition only then (otherwise, still use disk without -p)
Once you've done this, installation is almost as easy as it was before:
1. Insert Install floppy and OPENSTEP CD-ROM and start the computer; at the boot
prompt, type -s for single user
2. proceed as usual; if you use both an EIDE harddisk and CD-ROM, make sure
to choose "Primary/Secondary (Dual) EIDE/ATAPI Device Controller (v4.03)" as
your drivers
3. when asked for additional drivers, choose the floppy driver
4. instead of automatic installation, you will get a single user prompt; there,
with the driver floppy still inside, enter
mount -n /dev/fd0a /install
to mount the floppy; then start your modified install script with
sh /install/rc.cdrom
That's it. You'll have a two partition disk with OPENSTEP installed on the first
partition. There will be some error message at the end of the installation
concerning the floppy, but that doesn't matter.
Hope that helps.
Bye
Uli
--
Bill Seng
I've got a an 8 gig micropolis 1991 which I formatted with one 8 gig partition
as a test (on a Turbo Station) It worked fine, fdisk worked (though I never
tried dump/restore), until I smooshed 4 gig of files on it. Then the disturbing
message appeared in the console...
etcetera mach: /micropolis: file system full
IO error on pageout: error=28
vnode_pageout: failed!
Interestingly enough, the df command correctly reports the size of the disk,
and that it still has ~ 50 % free, being an 8 gig disk with 4 gig of files on
it. It also correcly reports the number of inodes in use. But, alas, the OS 4.2
filesystem does not seem able to use it.
I've also tried this with an 10-gig IDE disk on an intel box running OS 4.2,
again formatted with a signle large 10 gig partition. As soon as I got over the
4 gig mark, fcsk kept complaining and aborting.
I assume the lesson is to keep partitions < 4 gb ....
- Bill Seng
Research Associate
Solid State Sciences
Physics Dept., Auburn University
bi...@seng.org
Rex Dieter wrote:
> "Uli Zappe" <u...@ritual.org> wrote in message
> news:85ft7p$1vp$1...@tallowcross.ritual.org...
> > Hi,
> >
> > I just did a vanilla install of OPENSTEP 4.2 on an IDE disk with 18 GB.
> >
> > As expected, OPENSTEP reported the disk to be only 8 GB. *But* then it
> went
> > on with the automatic installation without partitioning the disk, i.e. it
> > installed itself from the 4.2 CD on *one* partition of 8 GB.
> >
> > So far, I couldn't find the smallest malfunction with this 8 GB
> partition...
> >
> > Am I in a reality distortion field or what?
>
Rex Dieter
"Bill Seng" <bi...@seng.org> wrote in message
news:3894EEF5...@seng.org...
> I've also tried this with an 10-gig IDE disk on an intel box running OS
4.2,
> again formatted with a signle large 10 gig partition. .
Did you really get the IDE driver to recognize the whole disk? I thought
the EIDE driver had a built-in size limitation of ~8.4GB?