From: danubius@halcyon.com (Joseph R. Pannon)
Subject: Successfully 0.99 installation, but ...
Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc. (206) 455-3505
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 23:18:39 GMT

Well, after a lot of experimentations and documentation browsing, I
managed a successful installation of the minimal 0.99 system!

My biggest problem was that the install program created the boot floppy
with a video mode assumption that was wrong for my Diamond SpeedStar
Plus card and CrystalScan 1024 NI (Gateway 2000 486/33C) setup.  So when
I booted up with that floppy, all I got on my screen was some fast
moving streaks. .  The solution came when I discovered that little obscure
command in the SLS.FAQ document, called rdev.  All I had to do was, that
in the next round of reinstallation instead of immediatley rebooting the
PC with the newly created boot floppy, I patched it with the rdev
utility first, like so: 
  rdev -v /dev/fd0 -3
then I sync-ed the PC and rebooted with this patched floppy.  From then
on the video did not cause me any problem because it came up with the
familiar prompt asking the mode -- instead of making its own assumption.
Later, when I found out, that I perferred the standard VGA 80x25 mode,
I patched the boot floppy again with the rdev /dev/fd0/ -1 command so as
not to bother with the video selection prompt any more, yet get the
video mode I want.  I think this information was not too obvious for 
newbies and others might benefit from my experience.

I still do think that the default video mode compiled into the kernel is
wrong as it is and suggest it to be either user-selectable at boot time,
or it should be set to the standard 80x25 text mode that ANY DISPLAY can
handle!  That's my two cents worth on that one ...

I also have some questions that came up during and after this
installation ...

The SLS documentation recommends write-protecting the a1 ... a4 (etc.)
diskettes even before installation begins, and I did so.  But, during
installation, periodically I got these annoying 3-line error messages
complainin about /dev/fd0 being write protected.  I ignored them,
because everything else seemed to go OK despite of it, but I still
wonder ...  Can somebody explain those error messages?

I also had some other warnings that I ignored, but would like
explanation for.  They all ariginated from tar:

During installation of a2, tar was complaining that it
  could not link home/ftp/lib/libc.so.4 to lib/libc.so.4.1

During installation of a4, tar gave 3 similar warnings when it
  could not link ls, tar, and compress in home/ftp/bin directory to 
  corresponding enties in /usr/bin directories.

So, what gives? After the install, I checked the directory contents 
referred to in the first error message (a2 install), I noticed the files
were there, but with a "*" suffix in their name.  I see that * in many
file names.  What does that denote?

I also would like somebody to explain why I see the /dev/swap linked to
/dev/hd1 partition, when I have not even used that partition in my linux
install (it's really the OS/2 Boot Mgr's partition!), and I
specifically designated /dev/hdb6 to be the swap partition, via mkswap?
This thing concerns me a bit because I don't want the wrong partition
being used for swapping.

Last question: what are the /dev/lp0 and /dev/par0 devices for?  My
printer is on the first printer port (LP1:) and is accessible through
/dev/lp1 or /dev/par1, so I can't figure out what can be accessed by
lp0 and par0.  First I thought that linux lp0 through lp2 (par0 through
par2) would access the PC printer ports LP1: through LP3, respectively
(which are te the standard DOS printer port assignments!), but when I
found out which linux device printed through my parallel port, that idea
proved to be wrong on my part.  So, what is then /dev/lp0 and /dev/par0
used for?  BTW, because of this, even the menu program print selection
is confusing! 

That's all for now.  I hope to install the full base system before I
have more questions.  Till then, thanks for the explanations to my
question that are sure to be forthcoming. (?) 

With traditional Finno-ugric solidarity, 
Joe Pannon
(a Hungarian) 
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux