New Install - Comments and Questions
Steve Sheldon
experience, lot's of fun anyway.
I ended up doing the installation using the MCC-Interim release which
I ftp'ed from tsx-11.mit.edu's mirrors. This worked great. I was
able to easily set up my harddrive, and now can boot into the Linux
partition using shoelace, and everything.
I also tried using the MJ distribution which I found on banjo.concert.net,
but things didn't go as smoothly. For some reason I encountered two
problems with it. Not major, as I was able to get around them.
1. It keeps giving an error something like 'setutent - utmp file does not
exist'. I'm not sure what this means, otherwise things work.
2. There is a bug in the install script. I don't have it handy, but when
copying the devices it changes directories to /mnt, and then does not
change back to the / root, so when it does the tar to copy over the
bin's and such, it can't find the directories, and fails. Easy to fix,
I just had to add a 'CD /' in the script, fortunately there was an
editor on the disk so I could do this.
I like the MJ distribution install scripts, it makes things a lot more
"user friendly". At least until you get to the harddrive installation,
as this distribution does not provide for a way to automatically do this,
and refers you to use a DOS disk editor and manually do it, which is
definately not user friendly.
So I'd have to say the MCC release was much friendlier, in that it
allowed me to setup everything from within Linux.
However, the MJ distribution is has a more complete utilities package. It
contains reboot and shutdown, and not to mention a better /etc/termcap,
and some other things. So I like that about it.
Each has it's positive points. Merge the two together and you've got a
winner. I just don't like having to do things manually, although it does
help in understanding.
Now I have a couple of questions.
1. Upon booting Linux it asks for SVGA modes. I get 6 or 7 options.
Well I can get the 80 column modes to work, but not the 132 column.
When I select a 132 column mode, the screen stays the same (i.e. 80x25),
but internally it things it's right. So if I selected something like
132x50, it thinks there is 50 lines, but I only see the top 25.
I'm using a Trident 8900 video card, with 256K of memory onboard, with
an Everex monochrome VGA monitor. I get 132 column modes just fine using
DOS. Has anyone else had this problem?
2. Is there some documentation for bash? I was having some trouble
setting the path, as the defaults are missing the current directory.
I tried SET, and this did not work. But I found a profile script
in /etc, and it used EXPORT. Upon trying this, it did work.
I don't play with shells too much, but this is different from the
shell's I'm used to. (csh I think) So what else that I might use has
changed?
Well thanks for any answers. This looks great, and I really want to
thank everybody who's worked on this.
Steve
.sig file still under construction
Kevin Cummings
> 1. Upon booting Linux it asks for SVGA modes. I get 6 or 7 options.
> Well I can get the 80 column modes to work, but not the 132 column.
> When I select a 132 column mode, the screen stays the same (i.e. 80x25),
> but internally it things it's right. So if I selected something like
> 132x50, it thinks there is 50 lines, but I only see the top 25.
> I'm using a Trident 8900 video card, with 256K of memory onboard, with
> an Everex monochrome VGA monitor. I get 132 column modes just fine using
> DOS. Has anyone else had this problem?
In order to answer this question, I need to know what version of LINUX you
are running? When LINUX boots, do you see a line indicating VESA support
in your video card? Followed by your video mode choices? If so, then
when you select a mode, LINUX make a VESA BIOS extension call to set your
video mode. If it fails, then there is a problem with your video card.
My card gives me 4 choices. The first two are hard coded (80x25, and 80x50)
and appear in EVERYONE's VESA list. 80x25 is the standard MODE-3, while
80x50 is the same mode with an 8x8 font loaded instead of the default 8x16
(or 8x14) font. The rest of the modes in the list come from the VESA modes
list returned by the Get VESA information call. On my card they are 132x25
and 132x43. These modes both work for me.
IF you are running version 0.96c at patch level 1 or greater and
IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A VESA BIOS, or
IF you are running any version before 0.96c-pl1, then you get a list of
"standard" modes put up specific to your video card,
which for a Trident card would be: 07, 50, 51, 52, 57, 58, 59, and 5A
which are 80x30, 80x43, 80x60, 132x25, 132x30, 132x43, and 132x60. These
are stadard Trident Video modes, and are set by an INT 10 video bios call
to the Set Video Mode function using the mode number from the list.
Unless I have screwed up the old functionality badly with the VESA support,
which you can check by building a LINUX kernel with an old boot/setup.S
file, then your mode set call is failing and you possibly have a faulty
video board. I'll double check the compatibility code when I get home
tonight, but I would have thought that there would have been more complaints
by now if I broke the old stuff.
Please let me know if I can be of any more help.
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Kevin J. Cummings PrimeService
20 Briarwood Road A Computervision Company
Framingham, Mass. 500 Old Connecticut Path
Framingham, Mass.
Work: cumm...@primerd.Prime.COM
Home: cumm...@kjc386.framingham.ma.us
Std. Disclaimer: "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration,
I've come to the conclusion that your new
defense system SUCKS..." -- War Games
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