Exciting but cryptic announcement for AMIX enthusiasts

[Dalamar]

Well, the install failed.  I didn't modify the tape create script with the 150MB mode (I didn't see that post until the install was running) but here is what happened:

I created the tape
Installed off of floppies
The tape kicked in and ran but every package following core fails with unexpected-end-of-archive....  

I've tried running amixpkg from the working core install to get the net package, and I get the same result.  None of the packages are installing after core.    How annoying.  Is it possible that the packages are out of order somehow on the tape?  This is a bit over my head now.  I've never had luck with tapes.

Is there any way to install the net package so I can at least use this install to make more tapes?

[Failure]

Well, it is certainly possible that they are the wrong order, but I think that they are in the correct order, numbered at least.  You can list the cpio files and see if the names make sense given what they are in the seglist:

[color=0000ff]cat filename | cpio -itc | more[/color]

Not having a tape cart I can only guess, but my guess is that if you use the 150MB tape device and 32k blocksize it should work.  But I have seen a post saying that 32k blocksize breaks the read so...who knows until you try.

If the tape is wrong I doubt you can install the net package from it.  But maybe you could make a new cpio image with just core and net, and use that instead of installing everything in the whole world :-)

[Dalamar]

Must... not.... install....... AGAIN>>>!>!>!>!>  AAAAAAAAA!!!!

I'm going to do the hack install again to make different kinds of tapes this time.  I will make this work if it's the last thing I do.

Excuse for asking a possibly stupid qestion, but wouldn't it just be easier if failure just created a tarball of a working installation?

[Failure]

There are no stupid questions ;-)  You would be excused for thinking that.  To sum up the current state:

* AMIX 2.01, 2.03, and 2.1 are installable via an HD hack method that bypasses the need for a tape drive and installation tape using modified boot floppies and the tape archives dd'd directly to a hard disk.

* The HD hack has the side effect of never initializing the package management system, and maybe some other things.  This isn't really clear since nobody I/we know has installed using the tape: we have no reference point.

* Package management didn't matter in 2.01 and 2.03.  Everything was already installed, and there never were pre-packaged AMIX binaries, and there were no patch disks issued for 2.01 and 2.03.  2.1 is different, since it has a patch disk.

* 2.1's patch disk brings it to patch level 2a, or so-called "2.1c".  It checks for installed packages to determine what files to install, which fails with the HD hack method.  I forced the checks to "true" and forced all the patches to install, however the kernel failed to compile, which broke some system utilities upgraded by the patch.

Clear as mud?  :-)  So we are trying to recreate the install tape using some scripts I dug up on Usenet.  Hopefully Dal will figure it out before I get my tapes in a couple of weeks.  From that point, we can look at what a properly installed system looks like compared to an HD hack system, and make the necessary changes to the HD hack installation image.  And those of us with A3070 drives can avoid the HD hack altogether!

[Dalamar]

dd if=$name of=/dev/rmt/4hn bs=32k in dtdist.sh...

Works!  I'm three packages into the tape install and going strong.  By tomorrow I should know if it is fully working.  

[Crusher]

@Failure, you have a PM  :-)

[Dalamar]

YEY!

UNIX(r) System V Release 4.0

login: root
Password:
UNIX System V Release 4.0 AT&T Amiga (Unlimited)
Copyright (c) 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988 AT&T
All Rights Reserved
Last login: Tue Jan 20 10:45:24 on console
        System V Release 4.0            Amiga Version 2.1p2a
#

[Failure]

[Dalamar]

During the compile of the kernel on the patch disk there were many warnings, but I didn't get a failure.  I'm working on Apache next.

[odin]

So you guys didn't have original install tapes? Where did you find AMIX then? Spread around on the interweb? Or trying to reverse engineer a tape from a working AMIX install on a HD?

[Dalamar]

@odin

I put the image of someone elses tape back on a tape here.  That image was obtained by Failsure.  

@failsure
Where did you get the source for NTP?  I'd like to compile that next.  Web is up an running but there is nothing there yet.

[Crusher]

Is it possible that you´ll put an AMIX install on a CD in the future?  :-)

[Failure]

@Dal

Got it here.  4.20 is the version I was able to compile, but since 2.03's nameservice stuff was wonky I never really got it to work right.  2.1 isn't having those same problems.  And congrats on getting Apache compiled!

@Crusher

Well, you could put the stuff on CD, but since AMIX cannot read CDs it would be a bit futile :-/

[Dalamar]

OK.  Downloaded it and ran configure:
configure: error: sources are in ., but `cd .' does not work
Ever seen that b4?  cd . dess work....  Hmmm...

[Failure]

Yeah, seen that one.  If you get that error, make a build directory in there, and run configure from there.  ie:

mkdir build && cd build && ../configure +your config arguments