From: steve2@genesis.nred.ma.us (Steve Gerakines)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Misc. AmigaMINIX questions
Date: 3 Sep 92 19:49:49 GMT
Organization: Genesis Public Access Minix  +1 508 664 0149

[I missed the original posting, so I'll follow up here.]

}>David Benn says:
}>Also, stterm starts the writer but not the reader, then just hangs. Is
}>there anything special required to get stterm going? (ie: does another
}>program(s) have to be run first, or files changed?)

}Mark Newton says:
}Nope.  Try recompiling it (and, perhaps, elvis, since you seem to be having
}inexplicable problems with that too).  Some of the programs in the P-H
}distribution do have bugs, but they're fixable by recompiling (ghod knows
}why;  Perhaps they were originally compiled for a Mac/Atari with slightly
}different libraries).

Unless his Amiga Minix floppies are corrupt, the binaries work just fine.
All of the 68K minix libraries are virtually identical, so it's unlikely
the problem lies there.

Usually with stterm, the problem is that either getty or login is already
running on the line.  If I forget to ungetty the getty that's running on
my serial port before I run stterm, the reader/writer processes won't
be able to start.  The command to disable out of the box getty is called
"modem".  (I use a different getty with a link to ungetty instead.)

}>Lastly, when moving from 1.5.10 to 1.5.10.1 and 1.5.10.2, is it NECESSARY
}>to apply all the patches? In other words can JUST the boot disks be used
}
} [fixes many bugs]
}
}>without applying any patches? I extracted Makedev and format from the
}>1.5.10.1 src.tar.Z file, but are the other patches only source file patches
}>in which case does the whole system have to be recompiled? Is this the same
}>for the 1.5.10.2 src.tar.Z patch archive? 
}
}Whole system?  If you mean the kernel/mm/fs, then yes.  You don't have
}to recompile all the commands, though.

This is partially wrong.  1.5.10.2 does fix the loads of bugs that out of
the box Amiga-Minix has.  However, 1.5.10.2 comes with a pre-made boot
disk.  You do not need to recompile the kernel/mm/fs/or init to use
1.5.10.2.  This is how I was able to bootstrap my Amiga 3000, since out
of the box Minix doesn't work at all with that machine.  You should install
the new devices with Makedev, the new ps command, etc.

Also, when using 1.5.10.2 it is very important to increase the memory of
*all* of the existing commands.  This is because the click size in 1.5.10.2
increased from 1K to 4K bytes.  I've found that the bare minimum memory
that should be assigned to a command is 8K bytes, and only if the commands
are very simple at that.  I believe the rule I used after upgrading was to
at least double or triple the original stack size of each command.  Takes a
little experimenting at first though.

If the stack sizes aren't increased the entire system will seem very
flakey and most commands will fail.  This might be the root of his
problems if he has just recently upgraded.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Gerakines           |
steve2@genesis.nred.ma.us |
+1 (508)664-0149          |                         [nothingisforfreeyouknow]