From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: How to build a System-Disk ??
Date: 20 Aug 92 04:53:19 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In <1992Aug19.030638.667@bacchus.esa.oz.au> hunter@bacchus.esa.oz.au (James Gardiner [Hunter]) writes:
| Another comment to SGI here.
| PLEASE put in the index
| HOW TO INITALISE A NEW HARD DISK chapter
| Make sure you put instructions on how to use the Disk initialise program.

Unlikely, since it is so rare a requirement, and such a pain to
really handle all of the possibilities.  The theory is that if
you are savvy enough to buy your own disks (and cheat us out of
our profits ;) ) that you know how to do it or find it yourself...

"apropos disk" yields a fairly short list, so there shouldn't
be very many false starts.  Putting it into the installation
guide isn't likely to be viewed with favor, as it is already
too long and complicated (as many of you have posted).  It is
hard to be both simple and thorough.

| Also, another problem I had is that I made 4 partitions when I init the disk.
| /
| /usr
| /home
| /tmp
| plus a swap.
| on a 1gig WREN VII
| 
| Then when I started to load the OS, the bloody inst program would ONLY
| see and load the OS on to a set partitions.  THE WRONG PARTITIONS.

No, it *defaults* to a known set of partitions.  If you want
others, you need to tell it so.  In fact, with the setup you
listed above, the default should work just fine, as nothing
should be installed into /tmp or /home.  Of course, if you
chose to use something other than partition 6 for /usr, you
have to work at it a bit, but it is pretty simple nonetheless.

| The only way around this was to make the partitons it wanted to
| use as / and /usr (mainly where it chose /usr) was to run the disk
| init program again and change the partition table to what it liked.
| BLOODY ANNOYING.

See above.  If you want to be different and choose other than
default partitions for the system disk, you have to expect to
do some work to compensate.

| Also, the other /home and /tmp partitions.
| I had to make the devices BY HAND.  I suppose thats no big deal but
| it took me a long while to figure out how IRIX did its devices.
| What about a MAKEDEV script or similar????

See /dev/MAKEDEV.  We don't bother to make 'unused' partitions
any longer, because we were wasting literally hundreds of inodes
on the root partition, and customers were running out of inodes
before they ran out of space.

| Thank god I have a little experience with this stuff.  Otherwise
| I wouldn't have a hope...  All I can say is poor
| average Joh Blow who has not a clue.

And could care less, since he would have just used the defaults.
It is tough to go half way, as you find out.  You either know a
little and use the defaults, or know (or learn) a lot.


I'm not being sarcastic above, but honest.  There are only so many
people in the company to write code, scripts, and documentation, and
none of us want to spend a lot of effort on something that benefits
relatively few people, when there are so many other things to be done
that benefit quite a few people.  It is all a matter of resources and
priorities.
--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi