More on setting-up Sun3 from tape

From: J. Maynard Gelinas <maynard_at_jmg.com>
Date: Wed Mar 25 11:20:23 1998

> From: "Richard A. Cini" <rcini_at_email.msn.com>
> Subject: Re: More on setting-up Sun3 from tape

  [some snippage here and there]

>
> On 23 Mar 1998 18:15:18 -0800, Frank McConnell <fmc_at_reanimators.org> =
> wrote:
>
> >>I'm not sure what edlabel is, but if you are running SunOS, there ...
>
> The OS is NetBSD 1.2, and edlabel is the partitioning command =
> available from the miniroot program loaded by the tape boot loader.

      I'm running NetBSD 1.3 on a 3/80, but I seem to remember in the
back of my cobwebbed skull that 1.3 doesn't work on the 3/50 yet
because the 3/50 can only address memory in 1MB increments (which
makes a larger than 1MB kernel impossible). OK, so now we know why
you're using an old OS revision....

>
> >>So I'm guessing you want to set partition b to start at 29297 and
> be length 20480 (for 10MB, are you sure that is enough), and<<
>
> According to the NetBSD FAQ, the swap partition is to be 2 to 3 =
> times the size of the RAM, which is 4mb.
>
> >>Or am I missing something here?

      I think the math is right too. I'd start looking at the drive
itself, or possibly check to see if edlabel has any known bugs in your
OS revision. You might be able to just compile the latest version
and fix the problem. Pull the drive out of your machine and see if
you can partition it somewhere else. Make your partition table
similar to what the Sun would expect - such as a for root, b for swap,
c for whole disk, g for usr - etc etc etc. And I recommend you use a
larger root partition. Give it 30 to 50MB for upgrades, and symlink
/var to /usr/var, or create a separate /var filesystem of about 30 to
50 MB.
 
>
> My math came out similar to yours, too. However, I keep getting the =
> "ioctrl" error message, which does not show up in the man pages that I =
> have. So...I'm appealing to the great Unix minds congregating in this =
> list to shed some light. edlabel allows me to create the "a" partition, =
> but no others.
>

      This looks like a drive failure or partition editing software
failure. Have you checked on the Sun3 mailing list at netbsd.org?

--jmg
Received on Wed Mar 25 1998 - 11:20:23 GMT