From: grog@lemis.uucp (Greg Lehey)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sys5.r4
Subject: Re: What is lacking in UNIX? (Re: UNIVEL MUST BE KIDDING!!!!!)
Date: 31 Dec 92 10:16:52 GMT
Organization: LEMIS, W-6324 Feldatal, Germany

In article <1679@uel.co.uk> news@uel.co.uk (Netnews Administration) writes:
>In article <2412@adagio.lemis.uucp> grog@lemis.uucp (Greg Lehey) writes:
>>In the case of the new SVR4.2 offerings, they don't give you a chance
>>to start a shell - that's wizardry, and Unix for the Masses (not yet
>>(tm)) doesn't cater for that sort of thing.
>
>What follows is a summary of how to recover your SVR4.2 system from the
>boot floppies. Note that this is for the USL reference binary and has not
>been tried on UNIXware or Concensys V4.2.

I tried it on Consensys V4.2. Here's what happened:

>Here's how to recover:
>
>(1) Insert boot floppy1 and bring your system up, then Insert boot 
>    floppy2 as prompted.

Elapsed time 1:30

>(2) Go through fdisk(1M) without changing your partitions allocation. 

(3:30)

>   (i.e. type "5" for exit at the screen asking you whether to create 
>    a partition, delete a partition, etc.) . You do not need to choose 
>   to create partitions on the second hard disk. The boot flops will figure 
>   out whether you were using it.
>
>(3) At the screen asking you to choose between non-destructive/destructive 
>    installation, choose (1) for non-destructive install.

It still copies files to disk, not a good idea if you're using the
boot floppies because of a file system crash.

>(4) Insert the third floppy when prompted.

(after 5:30)

>(5) When you see the prompt to remove the third floppy, hit DEL.

Here the installation obviously differs. First, Consensys asks for a
validation key (UnixWare doesn't, at least not the version I have).
Then it copies more files to disk. After a total elapsed time of 9
minutes it asks you whether you want automatic or custom installation.
I hit DEL here.

>(6) You will see a screen asking you to choose between resuming install or 
>    canceling the installation.  Just hit DEL here. You may need to hit it 
>    a couple times.  You should then see a prompt ("#").

Hitting DEL here brings the message ``you can't hit DEL here''.
Hitting it a third time brings a # prompt.

>(7) Do what you need to do. Note the following:
>
>    -- You can now put any floppy you wish into either floppy drive,
>       and you should have access to your tape controller if it is
>       there.

Seems reasonable. At least, no floppy was mounted.

>    -- you have up to 2 serial ports configured in your kernel.
>    -- you have no networking.
>    -- your root file system is mounted as "/" (as opposed to
>       /install or /mnt). Other file systems except /home
>       and /tmp are mounted on it. You will need to mount /tmp and /home.

This does not match with Consensys. /dev/root is mounted on /root.
Since there is only one file system (apart from /stand, which was
mounted, but I forget where), I can't verify whether or not /tmp and
/home were mounted.

>    -- you should be able to run standard editing commands (like vi)
>       since all libraries will be available to you.

... once you set up the PATH to point to the correct directories.

(end of report)

Many thanks for the information. There's obviously room for
improvement, though: first, you need to go through a significant
portion of the installation to get that far, and I don't like to have
to copy files to disk in order to boot from floppy. Presumably there's
a way to make a variant of the first or second boot floppy which
starts a shell instead of the installation script.

-- 
Greg Lehey                       | Tel: +49-6637-1488              
LEMIS                            | Fax: +49-6637-1489
Schellnhausen 2, W-6324 Feldatal, Germany