Subject: Re: How DO you install the Clan CD?

From: [email-masked] (John Lagrue)
Date: Sat, 01 Nov 1997 22:27:28 +0000 (GMT)

Russell King - ARM Linux Admin <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Phil Norman writes:
> > Things you will need:
> > "RPMS" off the Clan CD
> > "instimage" off the ftp site
> > "base" off the ftp site (I'm not sure if you NEED this, but I used it)

> I believe that you will need `base', but I may be wrong.

> >... 
> > If there's an easier way to format an ext2 partition please someone
tell 
> > me.  It's not possible to format it and use the following method of 
> > installation by using the formatter built in to the redhat installer, 
> > since the installer requires a RedHat distribution tree to have been
seen 
> > before it'll format anything.  A simple program that formats a given 
> > partition would be nice, and would save a lot of trouble.

> There is - mke2fs /dev/xxxx.  However, the installer usually creates the
> special devices (under /tmp) as and when it needs them using mknod. 
Both
> should be on the first/second disk.  (There is a shell on tty2
[Alt-F2]).

Yes. It exists all right!

Unfortunately it does not appear to work; at least, not on my system.

I have an ICS IDE interface which the latest kernel does seem to handle.
Thanks
for that Russell. :-)
Unfortuntely PartMan does not handle these discs (which are partitioned by
IDEFormat), so I need to format the first partition from the boot kernel.
But
it won't!

'mke2fs /dev/hdd' reports "No such file or device";

But it DOES exist because 'mount -t adfs /dev/hdd' works fine!

Do I perhaps need to use /dev/rdhdd like i would with a BSD filesystem?
hmmm - something to try tonight I think.

I will let you know what happens.

All help and/or pointers gratefully accepted.

JDL

-- 
John Lagrue

---

From: [email-masked] (John Lagrue)
Date: Sun, 02 Nov 1997 23:13:57 +0000 (GMT)

Russell King <[email-masked]> wrote:
> John Lagrue writes:

> I have talked to Dave Prosser (Baildon Electronics) at the Acorn show,
and
> apparantly my detection of card version is not foolproof - the old cards
> can have the new ROM fitted.  He has told me the correct way of
detecting
> them though, which I'll use in the next kernel release.

> When he wrote the partitioning scheme, he did initially provide support
for
> non-ADFS partitions.  However, he couldn't say for certain that the code
> still works correctly.  He did mention that he'll get back to me, but
> basically if what he says is true, then PartMan will be able to alter
the
> IDEFS partition table without causing disruption to RiscOS.

That sounds very interesting and hopeful.

>                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Re-read this part of my previous message again - I did mention that all
> possible device names do not exist under /dev.  You have to create them
> using mknod.  Usage is 'mknod /dev/hdd b 22 64'

> That is because the installer says 'I don't have special device "hdd",
so
> I'll create it under /tmp, use it, and then remove it.'

OK. Point taken.

> Definitely not!  The name doesn't have much to do with it!!  All devices
are
> identified by major/minor device number...

> Also, are you sure that you want to partition all of /dev/hdd (the
> physical hard disk) for Linux?  You should be using /dev/hdd1 and up.
> To use them, just add the number onto 64 in the mknod.  Eg,
> Device		Major	Minor
> /dev/hdd	22	64
> /dev/hdd1	22	65
> /dev/hdd2	22	66
> ....

Ah! I didn't realise that! I'll try it in a minute after reading my email.

> BTW, does the kernel recognise any of the other ICS partitions?

Not noticeably. Certainly on booting up it only finds hdc and hdd.
The install program only shows /dev/hdc and /dev/hdd when it asks about
installations discs, but I'll look for /dev/hdd1 etc in a minute.

Thanks for all your help so far :-)

JDL

-- 
John Lagrue

---

From: [email-masked] (John Lagrue)
Date: Mon, 03 Nov 1997 00:59:13 +0000 (GMT)

To follow up my earlier note this evening....

> To use them, just add the number onto 64 in the mknod.  Eg,

Well...I tried it.

mount -t adfs /dev/hdd1 /mnt works fine.

However /dev/hdd2 or /dev/hdd3 gives the error 'bad argument', even though
those IDEFS partitions do exist as far as RISC OS is concerned.

So I tried:

mknod b /dev/hdd1 22 65
mke2fs /dev/hdd1

Worked a treat. Created the partition and wrote all the superblock info.

Running fdisk at this point seemed to show that it couldn't see any
partitions
any more, but that I think is because it was still looking for /dev/hdd.

The RedHat install program still insisted that all I could use were
/dev/hdc
or /dev/hdd.

I decided to go no further at this point, but instead to boot back into
RISC OS to check what the mke2fs had done to my disc. It seems that it had
completely wiped ALL partition info from the disc and my other two
partitions
had disappeared. Running IDEFormat confirmed that all the partition
information had gone and thus the disc had to be re-partitioned so that
RISC OS could get at the rest of it. Yes, I did have a backup :-)

So what now?

> BTW, does the kernel recognise any of the other ICS partitions?

See above. It seems not!

JDL

-- 
John Lagrue